[illustration: w. allison sweeney] history of the american negro in the great world war his splendid record in the battle zones of europe including a resume of his past services to his country in the wars of the revolution, of , the war of the rebellion, the indian wars on the frontier, the spanish-american war, and the late imbroglio with mexico. by w. allison sweeney contributing editor of the chicago defender. profusely and beautifully illustrated this history of the american negro in the great world war is reinforced by the official records of the war department including tributes from french and american commanders * * * * * spoken and written words by j. e. moreland international secretary y.m.c.a. robert sengstacke abbott editor chicago defender ralph tyler ex-third auditor the navy julius rosenwald philanthropist colonel charles young united states army willis o. tyler member los angeles bar capt. r.p. roots veteran spanish-american war * * * * * with a complete summary of the activities of the th "old eighth" in the world war from the country's call to the day of its mustering out by capt. john h. patton, adjutant history of the american negro in the great world war * * * * * contents chapter i. spiritual emancipation of nations. the march of civilization--world shocks to stir the would heart--false doctrines of the hun--the iron hand concealed--the world begins to awaken--german designs revealed--rumblings in advance of the storm--tragedy that hastened the day--tolstoy's prophecy--vindication of negro faith in promises of the lord--dawn of freedom for all races chapter ii. handwriting on the wall. likened to belshazzer--the kaiser's feasts--in his heart barbaric pride of the potentates of old--german madness for war--insolent demands--forty-eight hours to prevent a world war--comment of statesmen and leaders--the war starts--italy breaks her alliance--germanic powers weighed and found wanting--spirit wins over materialism--civilization's lamp dimmed but not darkened chapter iii. militarism and autocracy doomed. germany's machine--her scientific endeavor to mold soldiers--influence on thought and lives of the people--militarism in the home--the status of woman--false theories and false gods--the system ordained to perish--war's shocks--america inclines to neutrality--german and french treatment of neutrals contrasted--experiences of americans abroad and enroute home--statue of liberty takes on new beauty--blood of negro and white to flow chapter iv. awakening of america. president clings to neutrality--monroe doctrine and washington's warning--german crimes and german victories--cardinal mercier's letter--military operations--first submarine activities--the lusitania outrage--exchange of notes--united states aroused--role of passive onlooker becomes irksome--first modification of principles of washington and monroe--our destiny looms chapter v. huns sweeping westward. toward shores of atlantic--spread ruin and devastation--capitals of civilization alarmed--activities of spies--apologies and lies--german arms winning--gain time to forge new weapons--few victories for allies--roumania crushed--incident of u- chapter vi. the hour and the man. a beacon among the years--trying period for president wilson--germany continues dilatory tactics--peace efforts fail--all honorable means exhausted--patience ceases to be a virtue--enemy abandons all subterfuges--unrestricted submarine warfare--german intrigues with mexico--the zimmerman note--america seizes the sword--war is declared--pershing goes abroad--first troops sail--war measures--war operations chapter vii. negroes respond to the call. swift and unhalting array--few permitted to volunteer--only national guard accepted--no new units formed--selective draft their opportunity--partial division of guardsmen--complete division of selectives--many in training--enter many branches of service--negro nurses authorized--negro y.m.c.a. workers--negro war correspondent--negro assistant to secretary of war--training camp for negro officers first time in artillery--complete racial segregation chapter viii. recrudescence of south's intolerance. confronted by racial prejudice--splendid attitude of negro shamed it--kept out of navy--only one percent of navy personnel negroes--modified marines contemplated--few have petty officers' grades--separate ships proposed--negro efficiency in navy--material for "black ships"--navy opens door to negro mechanics chapter ix. previous wars in which negro figured. shot heard around the world--crispus attucks--slave leads sons of freedom--the boston massacre--anniversary kept for years--william nell, historian-- , negroes in washington's forces--a stirring history--negro woman soldier--border indian wars--negro heroes chapter x. from lexington to carrizal. negro in war of --incident of the chesapeake--battle of lake erie--perry's fighters percent negroes--incident of the "governor tompkins"--colonists form negro regiments--defenders of new orleans--andrew jackson's tribute--negroes in mexican and civil wars--in the spanish-american war--negroes in the philippines--heroes of carrizal--general butler's tribute to negroes--wendell phillips on toussaint l'ouverture chapter xi. hour of his nation's peril. negro's patriotic attitude--selective draft in effect--features and results--bold reliance on faith in people--no color line drawn--distribution of registrants by states--negro and white registrations compared--negro percentages higher--claimed fewer exemptions--inductions by states--better physically than whites--tables, facts and figures chapter xii. negro slackers and pacifists unknown. such words not in his vocabulary--desertions explained--general crowder exonerates negro--no willful delinquency--strenuous efforts to meet regulations--no "conscientious objectors"--no draft evaders or resisters--negro's devotion sublime--justifies his freedom--forgets his sorrows--rises above his wrongs--testimony of local boards--german propaganda wasted--a new americanism chapter xiii. roster of negro officers. commissioned at fort des moines--only exclusive negro training camp--mostly from civilian life--names, rank and residence chapter xiv. across dividing seas. black thousands assemble--soldiers of liberty--severing home ties--man's work must be done--first negroes in france--meeting with french colonials--early history of th new york--they sail away--become french fighting men--hold percent of american lines--terror to germans--only barrier between boche and paris--imperishable record of new yorkers--turning point of war chapter xv. over there. henry johnson and needham roberts--the tiger's cubs--negro first to get palm--johnson's graphic story--smashes the germans--irvin cobb's tribute--christian and mohammedan negroes pals--valor of rd division--laughter in face of death--negro and poilu happy together--butte de mesnil--valiant and humorous elmer mccowin--winning war crosses--verdict of the french--the negro's faith chapter xvi. through hell and suffering. colored officers make good--wonderful record of the th illinois--"black devils" win decorations galore--tribute of french commander--his farewell to prairie fighters--they fought after war was over--hard to stop them--individual deeds of heroism--their dead, their wounded and suffering--a poem chapter xvii. narrative of an officer. special article by captain john h. patton, adjutant of th illinois--summarizes operations of the regiment--from first call to mustering out--an eye-witness account--in training camps, at sea, in france--service in argonne forest--many other engagements--a thrilling record--battalion operations in detail--special mention of companies and individuals chapter xviii. blood of black and white in one rivulet. lincoln's prophetic words--negroes alongside best soldiers in the world--hold their own--the nd regiment--brigaded with veterans of the marne--famous "red hand" division--occupy hill at verdun--nine days battle in "bloody argonne"--admiration of the french--conspicuous components of nd--chronology of service chapter xix. comrades on the march--brothers in the sleep of death. policy of substituting white officers--injustice to capable negroes--disappointment but no open resentment--showed themselves soldiers--intenser fighting spirit aroused--race forgotten in perils of war--both whites and blacks generous--affection between officers and men--negroes preferred death to captivity--outstanding heroes of st and nd--winners of crosses chapter xx. mid shot and shell. in trench and valley--the open plain--on mountain top--in no man's land--two classes of negro soldiers considered--trained guardsmen and selectives--gallant nd division--race can be proud of it--had six hundred negro officers--sets at rest all doubts--operations of the division--at pont a mousson--great battle of metz--some reflections--casualties considered chapter xxi. the long, long trail. operations of th infantry--negroes from pennsylvania, maryland and south--in argonne hell--defeat iron cross veterans--valiant personal exploits--lieutenant robert campbell--private john baker--operations of th infantry--"moss's buffaloes"-- th and th regiments--the great divide--their souls are marching on--praised by pershing--some citations chapter xxii. glory that wont come off. th first negro artillery brigade--"like veterans" said pershing--first artillery to be motorized--record by dates--selected for lorraine campaign--best educated negroes in american forces--always stood by their guns--chaplain's estimate--left splendid impression--testimony of french mayors--christian behavior--soldierly qualities chapter xxiii. nor storied urn, nor mounting shaft. glory not all spectacular--brave forces behind the lines-- th field signal battalion--composed of young negroes--see real fighting--suffer casualties--an exciting incident--colored signal battalion a success--ralph tyler's stories--burial of negro soldier at sea--more incidents of negro valor--a word from charles m. schwab chapter xxiv. those who never will return. a study of war--its compensations and benefits--its ravages and debasements--burdens fall upon the weak--toll of disease--negroes singularly healthy--negroes killed in battle--deaths from wounds and other causes--remarkable physical stamina of race--housekeeping in khaki--healthiest war in history--increased regard for mothers--an ideal for child minds--morale and propaganda chapter xxv. quiet heroes of the brawny arm. negro stevedore, pioneer and labor units--swung the axe and turned the wheel--they were indispensable--everywhere in france--hewers of wood, drawers of water--numbers and designations of units--acquired splendid reputation--contests and awards--pride in their service--measured up to military standards--lester waltons appreciation--ella wheeler wilcox's poetic tribute chapter xxvi. unselfish workers in the vineyard. mitigated the horrors of war--at the front, behind the lines, at home--circle for negro war relief--addressed and praised by roosevelt--a notable gathering--colored y.m.c.a. work--unsullied record of achievement--how the "y" conducted business--secretaries all specialists--negro women in "y" work--valor of a non-combatant chapter xxvii. negro in army personnel. his mechanical ability required--skilled at special trades--victory depends upon technical workers--vast range of occupation--negro makes good showing--percentages of white and colored--figures for general service chapter xxviii. the knockout blow. woodrow wilson, an estimate--his place in history--last of great trio--washington, lincoln, wilson--upholds decency, humanity, liberty--recapitulation of year --closing incidents of war chapter xxix. homecoming heroes. new york greets her own--ecstatic day for old th--whites and blacks do honors--a monster demonstration--many dignitaries review troops--parade of martial pomp--cheers, music, flowers and feasting--"hayward's scrapping babies"--officers share glory--then came henry johnson--similar scenes elsewhere chapter xxx. reconstruction and the negro. by julius rosenwald, president sears, roebuck & co, and trustee of tuskegee institute--a plea for industrial opportunity for the negro--tribute to negro as soldier and civilian--duty of whites pointed out--business leader and philanthropist sounds keynote chapter xxxi. the other fellow's burden. an emancipation day appeal for justice--by w. allison sweeney chapter xxxii. an interpolation. held--by distinguished thinkers and writers, that the negro soldier should be given a chance for promotion as well as a chance to die. why--white officers over negro soldiers? chapter xxxiii. the new negro and the new america. the old order changeth, yielding place to new. through the arbitrament of war, behold a new and better america! a new and girded negro! "the watches of the night have passed!" "the watches of the day begin!" foreword he was a red headed messenger boy and he handed me a letter in a nile green envelope, and this is what i read: dear mr. sweeney: when on the th of march the last instalment of the mss of the "history of the american negro in the great world war" was returned to us from your hands, bearing the stamp of your approval as to its historic accuracy; the wisdom and fairness of the reflections and recommendations of the corps of compilers placed at your service, giving you full authority to review the result of their labors, your obligation to the publishers ceased. the transaction between us, a purely business one, had in every particular upon your part been complied with. from thenceforward, as far as you were obligated to the publishers, this history; what it is; what it stands for; how it will be rated by the reading masses--should be, and concretely, by your own people you so worthily represent and are today their most fearless and eloquent champion, is, as far as any obligation you may have been under to us, not required of you to say. nevertheless, regardless of past business relations now at an end, have you not an opinion directly of the finished work? a word to say; the growth of which you have marked from its first instalment to its last? -the publishers- * * * * * have i-- a word to say? and of this fine book? the best history of the american negro in the great world war, that as yet has been written or will be for years to come? * * * * * does-- the rose in bud respond to the wooing breath of the mornings of june? is-- the whistle of robin red breast clearer and more exultant, as its watchful gaze, bearing in its inscrutable depths the mystery of all the centuries; the omniscience of divinity, discovers a cherry tree bending to-- "the green grass" from the weight of its blood red fruit? * * * * * does-- the nightingale respond to its mate; caroling its amatory challenge from afar; across brake and dale and glen; beyond a "dim old forest" the earth bathed in the silver light of the harvest moon! * * * * * even so-- and for the same reason which the wisest of us cannot explain, that the rose, the robin and nightingale respond to the lure that invites, the zephyrs that caress, i find myself moved to say not only a word--a few, but many, of praise and commendation of this book; the finished work, so graciously and so quickly submitted for my inspection by the publishers. there are-- books and books; histories and histories, treatise after treatise; covering every realm of speculative investigation; every field of fact and fancy; of inspiration and deed, past and present, that in this th century of haste and bustle, of miraculous mechanical equipment, are born daily and die as quickly. but there are also books, that like some men marked before their birth for a place amongst the "seats of the mighty"; an association with the immortals, that "were not born to die." this book seems of that glorious company. * * * * * in the-- spiritualized humanity that broadened the vision and inspired the pens of the devoted corps of writers, responding to my suggestions and oversight in its preparation; the getting together of data and facts, is reflected the incoming of a new and broader charity--a stranger in our midst--of glimpse and measurement of the negro. beyond the written word of the text, the reader is gripped with a certain felt but unprinted power of suggestion, a sense of the nation's crime against him; the negro, stretching back through the centuries; the shame and humiliation that is at last overtaking it, that has not been born of the "print shops" since the sainted lincoln went his way, leaving behind him a trail of glory, shining like the sun; in the path of which, freed through the mandate of his great soul, marched four million negroes, now swollen to twelve, their story, the saddest epic of the ages, of whom and in behalf of whom their children; the generation now and those to come, this history was collated and arranged. it is an evangel proclaiming to the world, their unsullied patriotism; their rapid fire loyalty, that through all the years of the nation's life, has never flickered-- "has burned and burned forever the same", from lexington to the cactus groves of mexico; in the slaughter hells of europe; over fields and upon spots where, in the centuries gone, the legions of caesar, of hannibal and attila, of charlemagne and napoleon had fought and bled, and perished! striding "breast forward" beneath the stars and stripes as this history crowds them on your gaze, through the dust of empires and kingdoms that; before the christ walked the earth; before christianity had its birth, wielded the sceptres of power when civilization was young, but which are now but vanishing traditions. you are thrilled! history nor story affords no picture more inspiring. making due allowance-- for its nearness to the living and dead, whose heroic and transcendant achievements on the battle spots of the great war secured for them a distinction and fame that will endure until-- "the records of valor decay", it is a most notable publication, quite worthy to be draped in the robes that distinguishes history from narrative; from "a tale that is told"; a story for the entertainment of the moment. as interpolated-- by the writers of its text; read between the lines of their written words; it is a history; not alone of the american negro on the "tented field"; the bloody trenches of france and belgium, it is also a history and an arraignment, a warning and a prophecy, looking backwards and forward, the negro being the objective focus, of many things. it presents-- for the readers retrospection, as vividly as painted on a canvas, a phantasmagoric procession of past events, and of those to come in the travail of the negro; commencing with the sailing of the first "slaver's ship" for the shores of the "new world", jammed fore and aft, from deck to hold, with its cargo of human beings, to the conclusion of the great war in which, individually and in units he wrote his name in imperishable characters, and high on the scroll on which are inscribed the story of those, who, in their lives wrought for right and, passing, died for men! for a flag; beneath and within its folds his welcome has been measured and parsimonious;--a country; the construing and application of its laws and remedies as applied to him, has inflicted intolerable injustice: has persecuted more often than blessed. and so and thus, its perusal finished, its pages closed and laid aside, you are shaken and swayed in your feelings, even as a tree, bent and riven before the march and sweep of a mighty hurricane. * * * * * looking backwards-- the spell of the book strong upon you, you see in your mind's eye, thousands of plantations covering a fourth of a continent of a new and virgin land. the toilers "black folk"; men, women and children--slaves! * * * * * you hear-- the crack of the "driver's" lash; the sullen bay of pursuing hounds. * * * * * just over yonder-- is the "auction block". you hear the moans and screams of mothers torn from their offspring. you see them driven away, herded like cattle, chained like convicts, sold to "master's" in the "low lands", to toil-- "midst the cotton and the cane." you listen-- sounding far off, faint at first, growing louder each second, you hear the beat of drums; the bugle's blast, sounding to arms; you see great armies, moving hitherward and thitherward. over one flies the stars and stripes, over the other the stars and bars; a nation in arms! brother against brother! * * * * * you look-- and lo, swinging past are many black men; garbed in "blue", keeping step to the music of the union. you see them fall and die, at fort pillow, fort wagner, petersburg, the wilderness, honey hill--slaughtered! above the din; the boom of cannon, the rattle of small arms, the groans of the wounded and dying, you hear the shout of one, as shattered and maimed he is being borne from the field; "boys, the old flag never touched the ground!" * * * * * the scene shifts-- fifty years have passed. you hear the clamor, the murmur and shouts of gathering mobs. you see black men and women hanging by their necks to lamp posts, from the limbs of trees; in lonely spots--dead! you see smoke curling upwards from burning homes! there are piles of cinders and--dead mens bones! * * * * * nearing its end-- the procession sweeps on. staring you in the face; hailing from east, west, north and south are banners; held aloft by unseen hands, bearing on them--the quintessence of america's ingratitude,--these devices: "for american negroes: jim crow steam and trolley cars; jim crow resident districts; jim crow amen corners; jim crow seats in theatres; jim crow corners in cemeteries." you mutter-- "are these indignities to continue? is god dead?" * * * * * comes-- a voice. you listen! "wherefore hear the word of the lord-- "the days of thy mourning shall be ended-- "violence shall no more be heard in the land-- "neither sorrow nor crying-- "for the former things have passed away-- "behold i make all things new-- "arise, shine; for thy light has come. * * * * * herein-- lies the strength and worth of this unusual book, well and deservingly named: a history of the american negro in the great world war. beyond merely recounting that story; than which there has been nothing finer or more inspiring since the long away centuries when the chivalry of the middle ages, in nodding plume and lance in rest, battled for the holy sepulchre, it brings to the negro of america a message of cheer and reassurance. a sign, couched in flaming characters for all men to see, appealing to the spiritualized divination of the age, proclaiming that god is not dead! that a new day is dawning; has dawned for the negro in america. a new liberty; broader and better. a new justice, unshaded by the spectre of: "previous condition!" that the unpaid toil of thirty decades of african slavery in america is at last to be liquidated. that the dead of our people, upon behalf of this land that it might have a birth, and having it might not perish from the earth, did not die in vain. that, in their passage from earth, heroes--martyrs--in a superlative sense they were seen and marked of the father; were accorded a place of record in the pages of the great white book with golden seals, in the up worlds; above the stars and beyond the flaming suns. it is a history-- that will be read with instruction and benefit by thousands of whites, but, and mark well this suggestion, it is one that should be owned and read by every negro in the land. * * * * * typographically-- mechanically; that is to say, in those features that reflect the finished artistic achievement of the print, picture and binding art; as seen in the bold clear type of its text, its striking and beautiful illustrations, its illuminating title heads of division and chapter; indicating at a glance the information to follow; the whole appealing to the aesthetic; the sticklers for the rare and beautiful; not overlooking its superb binding, it is most pleasing to the sight, and worthy of the title it bears. [illustration: signature] history of the american negro in the great world war chapter i. spiritual emancipation of nations. the march of civilization--world shocks to stir the world heart--false doctrines of the hun--the iron hand concealed--the wobld begins to awaken--german designs revealed--rumblings in advance of the storm--tragedy that hastened the day--tolstoy's prophecy--vindication of negro faith in promises of the lord--dawn of freedom for all races. the march of civilization is attended by strange influences. providence which directs the advancement of mankind, moves in such mysterious ways that none can sense its design or reason out its import. frequently the forces of evil are turned to account in defeating their own objects. great tragedies, cruel wars, cataclysms of woe, have acted as enlightening and refining agents. out of the famines of the past came experiences which inculcated the thrift and fore-handedness of today. out of man's sufferings have come knowledge and fortitude. out of pain and tribulation, the attribute of sympathy--the first spiritual manifestation instrumental in elevating the human above the beast. things worth while are never obtained without payment of some kind. individual shocks stir the individual heart and conscience. great world shocks are necessary to stir the world conscience and heart; to start those movements to right the wrongs in the world. so long as peace reigned commerce was uninterrupted, and the acquisition of wealth was not obstructed, men cared little for the intrigues and ambitions of royalty. if they sensed them at all, they lulled themselves into a feeling of security through the belief that progress had attained too far, civilization had secured too strong a hold, and democracy was too firmly rooted for any ordinary menace to be considered. so insidious and far reaching had become the inculcation of false philosophies summed up in the general term kultur, that the subjects of the autocratic-ridden empires believed they were being guided by benign influences. many enlightened men; at least it seems they must have been enlightened, in germany and austria--men who possessed liberated intellects and were not in the pay of the kulturists--professed to believe that despotism in the modern world could not be other than benevolent. the satanic hand was concealed in the soft glove; the cloven hoof artistically fitted into the military boot; the tail carefully tucked inside the uniform or dress suit; fiendish eyes were taught to smile and gleam in sympathy and humor, or were masked behind the heavy lenses of professorial dignity; the serpent's hiss was trained to song, or drowned in crashing chords and given to the world as a sublime harmony. suddenly the world awoke! the wooing harmony had changed to a blast of war; the conductor's baton had become a bayonet; the soft wind instrument barked the rifle's tone; its notes were bullets that hissed and screamed; tinkling cymbals sounded the wild blare of carnage, and sweet-throated horns of silver and brass bellowed the cannon's deadly roar. civilization was so shocked that for long the exact sequence of events was not comprehended. it required time and reflection to clear away the brain benumbing vapors of the dream; to reach a realization that liberty actually was tottering on her throne. german propagandists had been so well organized, and so effectively did they spread their poison; especially in the western world that great men; national leaders were deceived, while men in general were slow to get the true perspective; much later than those at the seat of government. a few far-seeing men had been alive to the german menace. some english statesmen felt it in a vague way, while in france where the experience of - , had produced a wariness of all things german, a limited number of men with penetrating, broadened vision, had beheld the fair exterior of kaiserism, even while they recognized in the background, the slimy abode of the serpent. for years they had sounded the warning until at last their feeble voices attracted attention. france, with her traditions of napoleon, moreau, ney, berthier and others, with rare skill set about the work of perfecting an army under the tutelage and direction of joffre and foch. the defense maintained by its army in the earlier part of the struggle provided the breathing space required by the other allies. all through the struggle the staying power of the french provided example and created the necessary morale for the co-operating allied forces, until our own gallant soldiers could be mustered and sent abroad for the knockout blow. as is usual where conspiracies to perform dark deeds are hatched a clew or record is left behind. in spite of germany's protestations of innocence, her loud cries that the war was forced upon her, there is ample evidence that for years she had been planning it; that she wanted it and only awaited the opportune time to launch it. it was a gradual unearthing and examination of this evidence that at length revealed to the world the astounding plot. it is not necessary to touch more than briefly the evidence of germany's designs, and the intrigues through which she sought world domination and the throttling of human liberty. the facts are now too well established to need further confirmation. the ruthless manner in which the kaiser's forces prosecuted the war, abandoning all pretense of civilization and relapsing into the most utter barbarism, is enough to convince anyone of her definite and well prepared program, which she was determined to execute by every foul means under the sun. she had skillfully been laying her lines and building her military machine for more than forty years. as the time approached for the blow she intended to strike, she found it difficult to conceal her purposes. noises from the armed camp--bayings of the dogs of war--occasionally stirred the sleeping world; an awakening almost occurred over what is known as the morocco incident. on account of the weakness of the moroccan government, intervention by foreign powers had been frequent. because of the heavy investment of french capital and because the prevailing anarchy in morocco threatened her interests in algeria, france came to be regarded as having special interests in morocco. in she gained the assent of britain and the cooperation of spain in her policy. germany made no protest; in fact, the german chancellor, von bulow, declared that germany was not specially concerned with moroccan affairs. but in germany demanded a reconsideration of the entire question. france was forced against the will of her minister of foreign affairs, delcasse, to attend a conference at algeciras. that conference discussed placing morocco under international control, but because france was the only power capable of dealing with the anarchy in the country, she was left in charge, subject to certain spanish rights, and allowed to continue her work. the germans again declared that they had no political interests in morocco. in , germany openly recognized the political interests of france in morocco. in france was compelled by disorders in the country to penetrate farther into the interior. germany under the pretext that her merchants were not getting fair treatment in morocco, reopened the entire question and sent her gunboat panther, to agadir on the west coast of africa, as if to establish a port there, although she had no interests in that part of the country. france protested vigorously and britain supported her. matters came very close to war. but germany was not yet ready to force the issue. her action had been simply a pretext to find out the extent to which england and france were ready to make common cause. she recalled her gunboat and as a concession to obtain peace, was permitted to acquire some territory in the french congo country. but german newspapers and german political utterances showed much bitterness. growling and snarling grew apace in germany, and to those who made a close study of the situation it became evident that germany sooner or later intended to launch a war. one of the characteristic german utterances of the time, came from albrect wirth, a german political writer of standing, in close touch with the thought and aims of his nation. the utterance about to be quoted may, in the light of later events, appear indiscreet, as germany wished to avoid an appearance of responsibility for the world war; but the minds of the german people had to be prepared and this could not be accomplished without some of the writers and public men letting the cat out of the bag. wirth said: "morocco is easily worth a big war, or several. at best--and even prudent germany is getting to be convinced of this--war is only postponed and not abandoned. is such a postponement to our advantage? they say we must wait for a better moment. wait for the deepening of the kiel canal, for our navy laws to take full effect. it is not exactly diplomatic to announce publicly to one's adversaries, 'to go to war now does not tempt us, but three years hence we shall let loose a world war'--no; if a war is really planned, not a word of it must be spoken; one's designs must be enveloped in profound mystery; then brusquely, all of a sudden, jump on the enemy like a robber in the darkness." the heavy footed german had difficulty in moving with the stealth of a robber, but the policy here recommended was followed. in , the three years indicated by wirth had expired. there began to occur dark comings and goings; mysterious meetings and conferences on the continent of europe. the german emperor, accompanied by the princes and leaders of the german states, began to cruise the border and northern seas of the fatherland, where they would be safe from listening ears, prying eyes, newspapers, telephones and telegraphs. it became known that the kaiser was cultivating the weak-minded russian czar in an attempt to win his country from its alliance with england and france. there were no open rumblings of war, but the air was charged with electricity like that preceeding a storm. an unaccountable business depression affected pretty much the entire world. money, that most sensitive of all things, began to show nervousness and a tendency to go into hiding. the bulk of the world was still asleep to the real meaning of events, but it had begun to stir in its dreams, as if some prescience, some premonition had begun to reach it even in its slumbers. finally the first big event occurred--the tragedy that was not intended to accomplish as much, but which hastened the dawn of the day in which began the spiritual emancipation of the governments of earth. the archduke francis ferdinand, nephew of the emperor of austria, heir to the throne of austria-hungary and commander in chief of its army, and his wife the duchess of hohenburg, were assassinated june , , by a serbian student, gavrio prinzip. the assassination occurred at sarajevo in bosnia, a dependency, or rather, a slavic state that had been seized by austria. it was the lightning flash that preceeded the thunder's mighty crash. much has been written of the causes which led to the tragedy. prinzip may have been a fanatic, but he was undoubtedly aided in his act by a number of others. the natural inference immediately formed was that the murder was the outcome of years of ill feeling between serbia and austria-hungary, due to the belief of the people in the smaller state, that their aspirations as a nation were hampered and blocked by the german element in the austrian empire. the countries had been on the verge of war several years before over the seizure of bosnia and herzegovina by austria, and later over the disposition of scutari and certain albanian territory conquered in the balkan-turkish struggle. events are coming to light which may place a new construction on the causes leading to the assassination at sarajevo. it was undoubtedly the pretext sought by germany for starting the great war. whether it may not have been carefully planned to serve that object and the serbian prinzip, employed as a tool to bring it about, is not so certain. several years prior to the war, the celebrated russian, tolstoy, gave utterance to a remarkable prophecy. tolstoy was a mystic, and it was not unusual for him to go into a semi-trance state in which he professed to peer far into the future and obtain visions of things beyond the ken of average men. the russian czar was superstitious and it is said that the german emperor had a strong leaning towards the mystic and psychic. in fact, it has been stated that the kaiser's claim to a partnership with the almighty was the result of delusions formed in his consultations with mediums--the modern descendants of the soothsayers of olden times. tolstoy stated that both the czar and the kaiser desired to consult with him and test his powers of divination. the three had a memorable sitting. some time afterwards the results were given to the world. tolstoy predicted the great war, and he stated his belief that the torch which would start the conflagration would be lighted in the balkans about . tolstoy was not a friend of either russian or german autocracy, hence his seance may have been but a clever ruse to discover what was in the minds of the two rulers. germany probably was not ready to start the war in , but there is abundant warrant for the belief that she was trimming the torch at that time, and, who knows, the deluded prinzip may have been the torch. the old dotard francis joseph who occupied the throne of austria-hungary, was completely under the domination of the germans. he could be relied upon to further any designs which the kaiser and the german war lords might have. the younger man, francis ferdinand, was not so easy to handle as his aged uncle. accounts agree that he was arrogant, ambitious and had a will of his own. he was unpopular in his country and probably unpopular with the germans. being of the disposition he was, it is very likely that the kaiser found it difficult to bend him completely to his will. being a stumbling block in the way of german aims, is it not reasonably probable that germany desired to get rid of him, thus leaving austria-hungary completely in the power of its tool and puppet, francis joseph, and in the event of his death, in the power of the young and suppliant karl; another instrument easily bent to the german will? the wife of the archduke, assassinated with him, was a bohemian, her maiden name being sophie chotek. she was not of noble blood as bohemia had no nobles. they had been driven out of the country centuries before and their titles and estates conferred on indigent spanish and austrian adventurers. not being of noble birth, she was but the morgantic wife of the austrian heir. titles were afterwards conferred upon her. she was made a countess and then a duchess. some say she had been an actress; not unlikely, for actresses possessed an especial appeal to austrian royalty. the cruel hapsburgs rendered dull witted and inefficient by generations of inbreeding, were fascinated by the bright and handsome women of the stage. at any rate, sophie chotek belonged to that virile, practical race bohemians, (also called czechs) that gave to the world john huss, who lighted the fires of religious and civil liberty in central europe, giving advent later to the work of martin luther. bohemians had always been liberty-loving. they had been anxious for three centuries to throw off the yoke of austria. there is no record that sophie chotek sympathized with the aims of her countrymen or that she was not in complete accord with the views of her husband and the political interests of the empire. but the experiences of the germans and austrians had taught them that a bohemian was likely to remain always a bohemian and that his freedom-loving people would not countenance plans having in view the enslavement of other nations. the germans may have looked with suspicion upon the bohemian wife of the archduke and thought it advisable to remove her also. prinzip was thrown into prison and kept there until he died. no statement he may have made ever had a chance to reach the world. no one knows whether he was a german or a serbian tool. he does not seem to have been an anarchist; neither does he seem to have been of the type that would commit such a crime voluntarily, knowing full well the consequences. it is not hard to believe that he was under pay and promised full protection. probably no bohemian considers sophie chotek a martyr; indeed, the evidence is strong that she was not. her heart and soul probably were with her royal spouse. but an interesting outcome is, that her assassination, a contributing cause to the war, finally led to the downfall of germany, the wreck of austria, the freedom of her native country, and that spiritual emancipation of nations and races, then so gloriously under way. also, to the thoughtful and philosophic observer of maturing symptoms transpiring continuously in the affairs of mankind; the fate of those nations of earth that in their strength and arrogance mock the master, furnish a striking corroborative vindication of the negro's faith in the promises of the lord; the glory and power of his coming. from the date, reckoning from moment and second, that gavrio prinzip done to death the heir to the throne of austria-hungary and his duchess, there commenced not alone a new day, a new hope and emancipation of the whites of earth; empire kingdom, principality and tribe, but of the blacks; the negro as well, so mysteriously; bewilderingly, moves god his wonders to perform. it was that subliminated faith in the ubiquity and omniscience of god; the unchangeableness of his word; than which the world has witnessed; known nothing finer; the story of the concurrent causes that projected the negro into the world war, from whence he emerged covered with glory, followed by the plaudits of mankind, that became the inspiration of this work--his story of devotion, valor and patriotism; of unmurmuring sacrifice; worthy the pens of the mighty, but which the historian, as best he may will tell: "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." chapter ii handwriting on the wall likened to belshazzar--the kaiser's feasts--in his heart barbaric pride of the potentates of old--german madness for war--insolent demands--forty-eight hours to prevent a world war--comment of statesmen and leaders--the war starts--italy breaks her alliance--germanic powers weighed and found wanting--spirit wins over materialism--civilization's lamp dimmed but not darkened. belshazzar of babylon sat at a feast. very much after the fashion of modern kings they were good at feasting in those olden days. the farthest limits of the kingdom had been searched for every delight and delicacy. honeyed wines, flamingo's tongues, game from the hills, fruits from vine and tree, spices from grove and forest, vegetables from field and garden, fish from stream and sea; every resource of mother earth that could contribute to appetite or sensual pleasure was brought to the king's table. singers, minstrels, dancers, magicians, entertainers of every description were summoned to the palace that they might contribute to the vanity of the monarch, and impress the onlooking nations about him. he desired to be known and feared as the greatest monarch on earth; ruling as he did over the world's greatest city. his triumphs had been many. he had come to believe that his power proceeded directly from the god bel, and that he was the chosen and anointed of that deity. this was the period of his prime; of babylon's greatest glory; his kingdom seemed so firmly established he had no thought it could be shaken. but misleading are the dreams of kings; his kingdom was suddenly menaced from without, by cyrus of persia, another great monarch. there were also dangers from within, but courtiers and flatterers kept this knowledge from him. priests of rival gods had set themselves up within the empire; spies from without and conspirators within were secretly undermining the power of the intrenched despot. such was belshazzar in his pride; such his kingdom and empire. and, so it was, this was to be an orgy that would set a record for all time to come. artists and artisans of the highest skill had been summoned to the work of beautifying the enormous palace; its gardens and grounds, innumerable slaves furnishing the labor. the gold and silver of the nation was gathered and beaten into ornaments and woven into beautiful designs to grace the occasion. there was a profusion of the most gorgeous plumage and richest fabrics, while over all were sprinkled in unheard of prodigality, the rarest gems and jewels. it was indeed to be a fitting celebration of the glory of bel, and the power and magnificence of his earthly representative; heathen opulence, heathen pride and sensuality were to outdo themselves. the revel started at a tremendous pace. no such wines and viands ever before had been served. no such music ever had been heard and no such dancers and entertainers ever before had appeared, but, fool that he was, he had reckoned without his host; had made a covenant with death and hell and had known it not, and the hour of atonement was upon him; the handwriting on the wall of the true and outraged god, conveyed the information; short and crisp, that he had been weighed; he and his kingdom in the balance and found wanting; the hour--his hour, had struck; the time of restitution and atonement long on the way, had come; babylon was to fall--fell!--and for twenty-five centuries its glory and its power has been a story that is told; its magnificence but heaps of sand in the desert where night birds shriek and wild beasts find their lair. in the kaiser's heart was the same barbaric pride, the same ambition, the same worship of a false god and the same belief that he was the especial agent of that deity. his extravagances of vision and ambition were no less demoralizing to humanity and civilization, than those that brought decay and ruin to the potentates of old. he graced them with all the luxury and exuberance that modern civilization, without arousing rebellious complaint among his subjects, would permit. his gatherings appeared to be arranged for the bringing together of the bright minds of the empire, that there might be an exchange of thought and sentiment that would work to the good of his country and the happiness of the world. frequently ministers, princes and statesmen from other countries were present, that they might become acquainted with the german idea--its kultur--working for the good of humanity. here was the beast mentioned in revelations, in a different guise; wearing the face of benevolence and clothed in the raiment of heaven. there were feasts of which the german people knew nothing, and to which foreign ambassadors were not invited. at these feasts the wines were furnished by belial. they were occasions for the glorification of the german god of war; of greed and conquest; ambition and vanity; without pity, sympathy or honor. ruthless, vain, arrogant minds met the same qualities in their leader. some knew and welcomed the fact that the devil was their guest of honor; perhaps others did not know it. deluded as they all were and blinded by pride and self-seeking, the same handwriting that told belshazzar of disaster was on the wall, but they could not or would not see it. there was no daniel to interpret for them. german madness for war asserted itself in the ultimatum sent by austria to serbia after the assassination at sarajevo. sufficient time had hardly elapsed for an investigation of the crime and the fixing of the responsibility, before austria made a most insolent demand upon serbia. the smaller nation avowed her innocence of any participation in the murder; offered to make amends, and if it were discovered that the conspiracy had been hatched on serbian soil, to assist in bringing to justice any confederates in the crime the assassin may have had. [illustration: negro soldiers on the rifle range at camp grant, illinois. being taught marksmanship. an ideal location resembling battle areas in france.] [illustration: medical detachment th infantry. a representative group of medical officers and their field assistants. this branch of the nd division rendered most valorous service.] [illustration: bayonet exercises in the training camp.] [illustration: sports and physical exercise in the training camp.] [illustration: negro troops drilling. scene at camp meade, md., where a portion of the rd division and other efficient units were trained.] [illustration: an equine barber shop near the camp. one of the duties incident to the training camp.] [illustration: troopers of th cavalry going into mexico. these heroic negro soldiers were ambushed near carrizal and suffered a loss of half their number in one of the bravest fights on record.] [illustration: tenth cavalry survivors of carrizal. despoiled of their uniforms by the mexicans they arrive at el paso in overalls. lem spillsbury, white scout in center. each soldier has a bouquet of flowers.] [illustration: america's war time president. this photograph of woodrow wilson was especially posed during the war. in his study at the white house.] [illustration: dr. j.e. moorland, senior secretary of colored men's dept., international y.m.c.a. the man largely responsible for success of his race in "y" work.] [illustration: a typical group of "y" workers, secretary snyder and staff. y.m.c.a. no. , camp grant, illinois.] [illustration: president woodrow wilson (at head of table) and his war cabinet. left--w.g. mcadoo secretary of the treasury; thomas w. gregory, atty. genl.; josephus daniels, sec. of navy; d.f. houston, sec. of agriculture; william b. wilson, sec. of labor. right--robert lansing, sec. of state; newton d. baker, sec. of war; a.s. burleson, postmaster-general; franklin k. lane, sec. of interior; william c. redfield, sec. of commerce.] with a war likely to involve the greater part of europe hanging on the issue, it was a time for cool judgment, sober statesmanship and careful action on all sides. months should have been devoted to an investigation. but germany and austria did not want a sober investigation. they were afraid that while it was proceeding the pretext for war might vanish. as surmised above, they also may have feared that the responsibility for the act would be placed in quarters that would be embarrassing to them. on july , , just twenty-five days after the murder, austria delivered her demands upon serbia and placed a time limit of forty-eight hours for their acceptance. with the fate of a nation and the probable embroiling of all europe hanging on the outcome, forty-eight hours was a time too brief for proper consideration. serbia could hardly summon her statesmen in that time. nevertheless the little country, realizing the awful peril that impended, and that she alone would not be the sufferer, bravely put aside all selfish considerations and practically all considerations of national pride and honor. the records show that every demand which austria made on serbia was granted except one, which was only conditionally refused. although this demand involved the very sovereignty of serbia--her existence as a nation--the government offered to submit the matter to mediation or arbitration. but austria, cats-pawing for germany, did not want her demands accepted. the one clause was inserted purposely, because they knew it could not be accepted. with serbia meeting the situation honestly and going over ninety percent of the way towards an amicable adjustment, the diplomacy that could not obtain peace out of such a situation, must have been imbecile or corrupt to the last degree. an american historian discussing causes in the early stages of the war, said: "the german imperial chancellor pays no high compliment to the intelligence of the american people when he asks them to believe that 'the war is a life-and-death struggle between germany and the muscovite races of russia', and was due to the royal murders at sarajevo. "to say that all europe had to be plunged into the most devastating war of human history because an austrian subject murdered the heir to the austrian throne on austrian soil in a conspiracy in which serbians were implicated, is too absurd to be treated seriously. great wars do not follow from such causes, although any pretext, however trivial, may be regarded as sufficient when war is deliberately sought. "nor is the imperial chancellor's declaration that 'the war is a life-and-death struggle between germany and the muscovite races of russia' convincing in the slightest degree. so far as the russian menace to germany is concerned, the staats-zeitung is much nearer the truth when its editor, mr. ridder, boasts that 'no russian army ever waged a successful war against a first-class power.' "the life-and-death struggle between germany and the muscovite races of russia is a diplomatic fiction invented after german autocracy, taking advantage of the serbian incident, set forth to destroy france. it was through no fear of russia that germany violated her solemn treaty obligations by invading the neutrality of belgium and luxemburg. it was through no fear of russia that germany had massed most of her army near the frontiers of france, leaving only six army corps to hold russia in check. germany's policy as it stands revealed by her military operations was to crush france and then make terms with russia. the policy has failed because of the unexpected resistance of the belgians and the refusal of great britain to buy peace at the expense of her honor." a nearer and equally clear view is expressed for the french by m. clemenceau, who early in the war said: "for twenty-five years william ii has made europe live under the weight of a horrible nightmare. he has found sheer delight in keeping it in a state of perpetual anxiety over his boastful utterances of power and the sharpened sword. "five threats of war have been launched against us since . at the sixth he finds himself caught in the toils he had laid for us. he threatened the very springs of england's power, though she was more than pacific in her attitude toward him. "for many years, thanks to him, the continent has had to join in a giddy race of armaments, drying up the sources of economic development and exposing our finances to a crisis which we shrank from discussing. we must have done with this crowned comedian, poet, musician, sailor, warrior, pastor; this commentator absorbed in reconciling hammurabi with the bible, giving his opinion on every problem of philosophy, speaking of everything, saying nothing." m. clemenceau summed up the kaiser as "another nero; but rome in flames is not sufficient for him--he demands the destruction of the universe." the socialist, upton sinclair, speaking at the time, blamed russia as well as germany and austria. he also inclined to the view that the assassination at sarajevo was instigated by austria. he said: "i assert that never before in human history has there been a war with less pretense of justification. it is the supreme crime of the ages; a blow at the very throat of civilization. the three nations which began it, austria, russia and germany, are governed, the first by a doddering imbecile, the second by a weak-minded melancholic, and the third by an epileptic degenerate, drunk upon the vision of himself as the war lord of europe. behind each of these men is a little clique of blood-thirsty aristocrats. they fall into a quarrel among themselves. the pretext is that serbia instigated the murder of the heir apparent to the austrian throne. there is good reason far believing that as a matter of fact this murder was instigated by the war party in austria, because the heir apparent had democratic and anti-military tendencies. first they murder him and then they use his death as a pretext for plunging the whole of civilization into a murderous strife." herman ridder, editor of the staats-zeitung of new york contributed a german-american view. mr. ridder saw the handwriting on the wall and he very soundly deprecated war and pictured its horrors. but he could not forget that he was appealing to a large class that held the german viewpoint. he therefore found it necessary to soften his phrase with some hyphenated sophistry. he dared not say that germany was the culprit and would be the principal sufferer. his article was: "sooner or later the nations engaged in war will find themselves spent and weary. there will be victory for some, defeat for others, and profit for none. there can hardly be any lasting laurels for any of the contending parties. to change the map of europe is not worth the price of a single human life. patriotism should never rise above humanity. "the history of war is merely a succession of blunders. each treaty of peace sows the seed of future strife. "war offends our intelligence and outrages our sympathies. we can but stand aside and murmur 'the pity of it all. the pity of it all.' "war breeds socialism. at night the opposing hosts rest on their arms, searching the heavens for the riddle of life and death, and wondering what their tomorrow will bring forth. around a thousand camp fires the steady conviction is being driven home that this sacrifice of life might all be avoided. it seems difficult to realize that millions of men, skilled by years of constant application, have left the factory, the mill, or the desk to waste not only their time but their very lives and possibly the lives of those dependent on them to wage war, brother against brother. "the more reasonable it appears that peace must quickly come, the more hopeless does it seem. i am convinced that an overwhelming majority of the populations of germany, england and france are opposed to this war. the governments of these states do not want war. "war deals in human life as recklessly as the gambler in money. "imagine the point of view of a commanding general who is confronted with the task of taking a fortress; 'that position will cost me five thousand lives; it will be cheap at the price, for it must be taken.' "he discounts five thousand human lives as easily as the manufacturer marks off five thousand dollars for depreciation. and so five thousand homes are saddened that another flag may fly over a few feet of fortified masonry. what a grim joke for europe to play upon humanity." there were not wanting those to point out to mr. ridder that the sacrifice of life could have been avoided had germany and its tool austria, played fair with serbia and the balance of europe. also, his statement that the government of germany did not want the war has been successfully challenged from a hundred different sources. h. g. wells, the eminent english author, contributed a prophecy which translated very plainly the handwriting on the wall. he said: "this war is not going to end in diplomacy; it is going to end diplomacy. "it is quite a different sort of war from any that have gone before. at the end there will be no conference of europe on the old lines, but a conference of the world. it will make a peace that will put an end to krupp, and the spirit of krupp and kruppism and the private armament firms behind krupp for evermore." austria formally declared war against serbia, july , . during the few days intervening between the dispatch of the ultimatum to serbia and the formal declaration of war, serbia and russia, seeing the inevitable, had commenced to mobilize their armies. on the last day of july, germany as austria's ally, issued an ultimatum with a twelve hour limit demanding that russia cease mobilization. they were fond of short term ultimatums. they did not permit more than enough time for the dispatch to be transmitted and received, much less considered, before the terms of it had expired. russia demanded assurances from austria that war was not forthcoming and it continued to mobilize. on august , germany declared war. france then began to mobilize. germany invaded the duchy of luxemburg and demanded free passage for its troops across belgium to attack france at that country's most vulnerable point. king albert of belgium refused his consent on the ground that the neutrality of his country had been guaranteed by the powers of europe, including germany itself, and appealed for diplomatic help from great britain. that country, which had sought through its foreign secretary, sir edward grey, to preserve the peace of europe, was now aroused. august , it sent an ultimatum to germany demanding that the neutrality of belgium be respected. as the demand was not complied with, britain formally declared war against germany. italy at that time was joined with germany and austria in what was known as the triple alliance. but italy recognized the fact that the war was one of aggression and held that it was not bound by its compact to assist its allies. the sympathies of its people were with the french and british. afterwards italy repudiated entirely its alliance and all obligations to germany and austria and entered the war on the side of the allies. thus the country of mazzini, of garibaldi and victor emmanuel, ranged itself on the side of emancipation and human rights. the refusal of italy to enter a war of conquest was the first event to set the balance of the world seriously thinking of the meaning of the war. if italy refused to join its old allies, it meant that italy was too honorable to assist their purposes; italy knew the character of its associates. when it finally repudiated them altogether and joined the war on the other side, it was a terrific indictment of the germanic powers, for italy had much more to gain in a material way from its old alliance. it simply showed the world that spirit was above materialism; that emancipation was in the air and that the lamp of civilization might be dimmed but could not be darkened by the forces of evil. chapter iii. militarism and autocracy doomed. germany's machine--her scientific endeavor to mold soldiers--influence on thought and lives of the people--militarism in the home--the status of woman--false theories and false gods--the system ordained to perish--war's shocks--america inclines to neutrality--german and french treatment of neutrals contrasted--experiences of americans abroad and enroute home--statue of liberty takes on new beauty--blood of negro and white to flow. those who had followed the kaiser's attitudes and their reflections preceeding the war in the german military party, were struck by a strange blending of martial glory and christian compunction. no one prays more loudly than the hypocrite and none so smug as the devil when a saint he would be. during long years the military machine had been under construction. human ingenuity had been reduced to a remarkable state of organization and efficiency. one of the principal phases of kultur was the inauguration of a sort of scientific discipline which made the german people not only soldiers in the field, but soldiers in the workshop, in the laboratory and at the desk. the system extended to the schools and universities and permeated the thought of the nation. it particularly was reflected in the home; the domestic arrangements and customs of the people. the german husband was the commander-in-chief of his household. it was not that benevolent lordship which the man of the house assumes toward his wife and family in other nations. the stern note of command was always evident; that attitude of "attention!" "eyes front!" and unquestioning obedience. german women always were subordinate to their husbands and the male members of their families. it was not because the man made the living and supported the woman. frequently the german woman contributed as much towards the support of the family as the males; it was because the german male by the system which had been inculcated into him, regarded himself as a superior being and his women as inferiors, made for drudgery, for child-bearing, and for contributors to his comforts and pleasures. his attitude was pretty much like that of the american indian towards his squaw. germany was the only nation on earth pretending to civilization in which women took the place of beasts of burden. they not only worked in the fields, but frequently pulled the plow and other implements of agriculture. it was not an uncommon sight in germany to see a woman and a large dog harnessed together drawing a milk cart. when it became necessary to deliver the milk the woman slipped her part of the harness, served the customer, resumed her harness and went on to the next stop. in belgium, in holland and in france, women delivered the milk also, but the cart always was drawn by one or two large dogs or other animals and the woman was the driver. in austria it was a strange sight to foreigners, but occasioned no remark among the people, to see women drawing carts and wagons in which were seated their lords and masters. not infrequently the boss wielded a whip. the pride of the german nation was in its efficient workmen. friends of the country and its system have pointed to the fact of universal labor as its great virtue; because to work is good. really, they were compelled to work. long hours and the last degree of efficiency were necessary in order to meet the requirements of life and the tremendous burdens of taxation caused by the army, the navy, the fortifications and the military machine in general; to say nothing of the expense of maintaining the autocratic pomp of the kaiser, his sons and satellites. every member of the german family had his or her task, even to the little three-year-old toddler whose business it was to look after the brooms, dust rags and other household utensils. there was nothing of cheerfulness or even of the dignity of labor about this. it was hard, unceasing, grinding toil which crushed the spirits of the people. it was part of the system to cause them to welcome war as a diversion. to the german mind everything had an aspect of seriousness. the people took their pleasures seriously. on their holidays, mostly occasions on which they celebrated an event in history or the birthday of a monarch or military hero, or during the hours which they could devote to relaxation, they gathered with serious, stolid faces in beer gardens. if they danced it was mostly a cumbersome performance. generally they preferred to sit and blink behind great foaming tankards and listen to intellectual music. no other nation had such music. it was so intellectual in itself that it relieved the listeners of the necessity of thinking. there was not much of melody in it; little of the dance movement and very little of the lighter and gayer manifestations of life. it has been described as a sort of harmonious discord, typifying mysterious, tragic and awe-inspiring things. the people sat and ate their heavy food and drank their beer, their ears engaged with the strains of the orchestra, their eyes by the movements of the conductor, while their tired brains rested and digestion proceeded. to the average german family a picnic or a day's outing was a serious affair. the labor of preparation was considerable and then they covered as much of the distance as possible by walking in order to save carfare. in the parade was the tired, careworn wife usually carrying one, sometimes two infants in her arms. the other children lugged the lunch baskets, hammocks, umbrellas and other paraphernalia. at the head of the procession majestically marched the lord of the outfit, smoking his cigar or pipe; a suggestion of the goose-step in his stride, carrying nothing, except his dignity and military deportment. with this kind of start the reader can imagine the good time they all had. militarism and autocracy doomed joy to the german mind in mass was an unknown quantity. the literature on which they fed was heavier and more somber than their music. when the average german tried to be gay and playful he reminded one of an elephant trying to caper. their humor in the main, manifested itself in coarse and vulgar jests. for athletics they had their turn vereins in which men went through hard, laborious exercises which made them muscle-bound. their favorite sports were hunting and fencing--the desire to kill or wound. they rowed some but they knew nothing of baseball, boxing, tennis, golf or the usual sports so popular with young men in england, france and america. aside from fencing, they had not a sport calculated to produce agility or nimbleness of foot and brain. their emotions expanded and their sentiments thrilled at the spectacle of war. uniforms, helmets and gold lace delighted their eyes. the parade, the guard mount, the review were the finest things they knew. to a people trained in such a school and purposely given great burdens that they might attain fortitude, war was second nature. they welcomed it as a sort of pastime. in the system on which kultur was based, it was necessary to strike deeply the religious note; no difference if it was a false note. the german ear was so accustomed to discord it could not recognize the true from the false. the kaiser was heralded to his people as a deeply religious man. in his public utterances he never failed to call upon god to grant him aid and bless his works. one of the old traditions of the fatherland was that the king, being specially appointed by god, could do no wrong. to the thinking portion of the nation this could have been nothing less than absurd fallacy, but where the majority do not think; if a thing is asserted strongly and often enough, they come to accept it. it becomes a belief. the people had become so impressed with the devoutness of the kaiser and his assumption of divine guidance, that the great majority of them believed the kaiser was always right; that he could do no wrong. when the great blow of war finally was struck the kaiser asked his god to look down and bless the sword that he had drawn; a prayer altogether consistent coming from his lips, for the god he worshipped loved war, was a god of famine, rapine and blood. from the moment of that appeal, military autocracy and absolute monarchy were doomed. it took time, it took lives, it took more treasure than a thousand men could count in a lifetime. but the assault had been against civilization, on the very foundation of all that humanity had gained through countless centuries. the forces of light were too strong for it; would not permit it to triumph. the president of the united states, from the bedside of his dying wife, appealed to the nations for some means of reaching peace for europe. the last thoughts of his dying helpmate, were of the great responsibility resting upon her husband incident to the awful crisis in the lives of the nations of earth, that was becoming more pronounced with each second of time. the pope was stricken to death by the great calamity to civilization. a few minutes before the end came he said that the almighty in his infinite mercy was removing him from the world to spare him the anguish of the awful war. the first inclination of america was to be neutral. she was far removed from the scenes of strife and knew little of the hidden springs and causes of the war. excepting in the case of a few of her public men; her editors, professors and scholars, european politics were as a sealed book. the president of the united states declared for neutrality; that individual and nation should avoid the inflaming touch of the war passion. we kept that attitude as long as was consistent with national patience and the larger claims of humanity and universal justice. as an evidence of our lack of knowledge of the impending conflict, a party of christian men were on the sea with the humanitarian object in view of attending a world's peace conference in constance, germany--germany of all places, then engaged in trying to burn up the world. arriving in paris, the party received its first news that a great european war was about to begin. steamship offices were being stormed by crowds of frantic american tourists. martial law was declared. the streets were alive with soldiers and weeping women. shops were closed, the clerks having been drafted into the army. the city hummed with militarism. underneath the excitement was the stern, stoic attitude of the french in preparing to meet their old enemy, combined with their calmness in refraining from outbreaks against german residents of paris. one of the party alluding to the incongruous position in which the peace delegates found themselves, said: "it might be interesting to observe the unique and almost humorous situation into which these peace delegates were thrown. starting out a week before with the largest hope and most enthusiastic anticipation of effecting a closer tie between nations, and swinging the churches of christendom into a clearer alignment against international martial attitudes, we were instantly 'disarmed,' bound, and cast into chains of utter helplessness, not even feeling free to express the feeblest sentiment against the high rising tide of military activity. we were lost on a tempestuous sea; the dove of peace had been beaten, broken winged to shore, and the olive branch lost in its general fury." describing conditions in paris on august , he says: "we are in a state of tense expectation, so acute that it dulls the senses; paris is relapsing into the condition of an audience assisting at a thrilling drama with intolerably long entr'acts, during which it tries to think of its own personal affairs. "we know that pages of history are being rapidly engraved in steel, written in blood, illuminated in the margin with glory on a background of heroism and suffering, not more than a few score miles away. "the shrieking camelots (peddlers) gallop through the streets waving their news sheets, but it is almost always news of twenty-four hours ago. the iron hand of the censor reduces the press to a monotonous repetition of the same formula. only headlines give scope for originality. of local news there is none. there is nothing doing in paris but steady preparation for meeting contingencies by organizing ambulances and relief for the poor." from the thousands of tales brought back by american tourists caught in germany at the outbreak of the war, there is more than enough evidence that they were not treated with that courtesy manifested towards them by the french. they were arrested as spies, subjected to all sorts of embarrassments and indignities; their persons searched, their baggage and letters examined, and frequently were detained for long periods without any explanation being offered. when finally taken to the frontier, they were not merely put across--frequently they were in a sense thrown across. nor were the subjects of other nations, particularly those with which germany was at war, treated with that fine restraint which characterized the french. here is an account by a traveller of the treatment of russian subjects: "we left berlin on the day germany declared war against russia. within seventy-five miles of the frontier, , russians in the train by which they were travelling were turned out of the carriage and compelled to spend eighteen hours without food in an open field surrounded by soldiers with fixed bayonets. "then they were placed in dirty cattle wagons, about sixty men, women and children to a wagon, and for twenty-eight hours were carried about prussia without food, drink or privacy. in stettin they were lodged in pig pens, and next morning were sent off by steamer to rugen, whence they made their way to denmark and sweden without money or luggage. sweden provided them with food and free passage to the russian frontier. five of our fellow-passengers went mad." the steamship philadelphia--note the name, signifying brotherly love, so completely lost sight of in the conflict--was the first passenger liner to reach america after the beginning of the european war. a more remarkable crowd never arrived in new york city by steamship or train. there were men of millions and persons of modest means who had slept side by side on the journey over; voyagers with balances of tens of thousands of dollars in banks and not a cent in their pocketbooks; men able and eager to pay any price for the best accommodations to be had, yet satisfied and happy sharing bunks in the steerage. there were women who had lost all baggage and had come alone, their friends and relatives being unable to get accommodations on the vessel. there were children who had come on board with their mothers, with neither money nor reservations, who were happy because they had received the very best treatment from all the steamship's officers and crew and because they had enjoyed the most comfortable quarters to be had, surrendered by men who were content to sleep in most humble surroundings, or, if necessary, as happened in a few cases, to sleep on the decks when the weather permitted. wealthy, but without funds, many of the passengers gave jewelry to the stewards and other employees of the steamship as the tips which they assumed were expected even in times of stress. the crew took them apologetically, some said they were content to take only the thanks of the passengers. one woman of wealth and social position, without money, and having lost her check book with her baggage, as had many others of the passengers, gave a pair of valuable bracelets to her steward with the request that he give them to his wife. she gave a hat--the only one she managed to take with her on her flight from switzerland--to her stewardess. the statue of liberty never looked so beautiful to a party of americans before. the strains of the star spangled banner, as they echoed over the waters of the bay, were never sweeter nor more inspiring. as the philadelphia approached quarrantine, the notes of the american anthem swelled until, as she slowed down to await the coming of the physicians and customs officials, it rose to a great crescendo which fell upon the ears of all within many hundred yards and brought an answering chorus from the throngs who waited to extend their hands to relatives and friends. there was prophecy in the minds of men and women aboard that ship. some of them had been brought into actual contact with the war; others very near it. in the minds of all was the vision that liberty, enlightenment and all the fruits of progress were threatened; that if they were to be saved, somehow, this land typified the spirit of succor; somehow the aid was to proceed from here. liberty never had a more cherished meaning to men of this republic. in the minds of many the conviction had taken root, that if autocracy and absolute monarchy were to be overthrown; that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" should "not perish from the earth," it would eventually require from america that supreme sacrifice in devotion and blood that at periods in the growth and development of nations, is their last resort against the menace of external attack, and, regardless of the reflections of theorists and philosophers, the best and surest guarantee of their longevity; that the principles upon which they were builded were something more than mere words, hollow platitudes, meaning nothing, worthy of nothing, inspiring nothing. it was the dawning of a day; new and strange in its requirements of america whose isolation and policy, as bequeathed by the fathers, had kept it aloof from the bickerings and quarrels of the nations that composed the "armed camp" of europe, during which, as subsequent events proved, the blood of the caucasian and the negro would upon many a hard fought pass; many a smoking trench in the battle zone of europe, run together in one rivulet of departing life, for the guarantee of liberty throughout all the earth, and the establishment of justice at its uttermost bounds and ends. chapter iv awakening of america president clings to neutrality--monroe doctrine and washington's warning--german crimes and german victories--cardinal mercier's letter--military operations--first submarine activities--the lusitania outrage--exchange of notes--united states aroused--role of passive onlooker becomes irksome--first modification of principles of washington and monroe--our destiny looms. august , , president wilson proclaimed the neutrality of the united states. a more consistent attempt to maintain that attitude was never made by a nation. in an appeal addressed to the american people on august th, the president implored the citizens to refrain from "taking sides." part of his utterance on that occasion was: "we must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another. "my thought is of america. i am speaking, i feel sure, the earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful american that this great country of ours, which is, of course, the first in our thoughts and in our hearts, should show herself in this time of peculiar trial a nation fit beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others, nor is disturbed in her own counsels, and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world." american poise had been somewhat disturbed over the treatment of american tourists caught in germany at the outbreak of the war. american sentiment was openly agitated by the invasion of belgium and the insolent repudiation by germany of her treaty obligations. the german chancellor had referred to the treaty with belgium as "a scrap of paper." these things had created a suspicion in american minds, having to do with what seemed germany's real and ulterior object, but in the main the people of this county accepted the president's appeal in the spirit in which it was intended and tried to live up to it, which attitude was kept to the very limit of human forbearance. a few editors and public men, mostly opposed to the president politically, thought we were carrying the principle of neutrality too far; that the violation of belgium was a crime against humanity in general and that if we did not at least protest against it, we would be guilty of national stultification if not downright cowardice. against this view was invoked the time-honored principles of the monroe doctrine and its great corollary, washington's advice against becoming entangled in european affairs. our first president, in his farewell address, established a precept of national conduct that up to the time we were drawn into the european war, had become almost a principle of religion with us. he said: "against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (i conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government--europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concern. hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities." the monroe doctrine was a statement of principles made by president monroe in his famous message of december , . the occasion of the utterance was the threat by the so-called holy alliance to interfere forcibly in south america with a view to reseating spain in control of her former colonies there. president monroe, pointing to the fact that it was a principle of american policy not to intermeddle in european affairs, gave warning that any attempt by the monarchies of europe "to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere" would be considered by the united states "as dangerous to our peace and safety." this warning fell in line with british policy at the time and so proved efficacious. [illustration: negro soldiers and red cross workers in front of canteen, hamlet, n.c.] [illustration: colored red cross workers from the canteen at atlanta, ga., feeding soldiers at railway station.] [illustration: colored women in hospital garments class of branch no. . new orleans chapter, american red cross. louise j. ross, director.] [illustration: red cross workers. prominent colored women of atlanta, ga., who organized canteen for relief of negro soldiers going to and returning from war.] [illustration: the game is on. a baseball match between negro and white troops in one of the training areas in france.] [illustration: col. william hayward of th infantry playing baseball with his negro soldiers at st. nazaire, france.] [illustration: jazz and southern melodies hasten cure. negro sailor entertaining disabled navy men in hospital for convalescents.] [illustration: enjoying a bit of cake baked at the american red cross canteen at is-sur-tille, france.] [illustration: corporal fred. mcintyre of th infantry, with picture of the kaiser which he captured from a german officer.] [illustration: lieut. robert l. campbell, negro officer of the th infantry who won fame and the d.s.c. in argonne forest. he devised a clever piece of strategy and displayed great heroism in the execution of it.] [illustration: emmett j. scott, appointed by secretary baker, as special assistant during the world war. he was formerly confidential secretary to the late booker t. washington.] [illustration: (top)--general diaz, commander-in-chief italian armies. marshal foch, commander-in-chief allied forces. (center)--general pershing, commander-in-chief american armies. admiral sims, in charge of american naval operations overseas. (bottom)--king albert, commander-in-chief belgian army. field marshal haig, head of british armies.] in a later section of the same message the proposition was also advanced that the american continent was no longer subject to colonization. this clause of the doctrine was the work of monroe's secretary of state, john quincy adams, and its occasion was furnished by the fear that russia was planning to set up a colony at san francisco, then the property of spain, whose natural heir on the north american continent, adams held, was the united states. it is this clause of the document that has furnished much of the basis for its subsequent development. in germany united with great britain and italy to collect by force certain claims against venezuela. president roosevelt demanded and finally, after threatening to dispatch admiral dewey to the scene of action, obtained a statement that she would not permanently occupy venezuelan territory. of this statement one of the most experienced and trusted american editors, avowedly friendly to germany, remarked at the time, that while he believed "it was and will remain true for some time to come, i cannot, in view of the spirit now evidently dominant in the mind of the emperor and among many who stand near him, express any belief that such assurances will remain trustworthy for any great length of time after germany shall have developed a fleet larger than that of the united states." he accordingly cautioned the united states "to bear in mind probabilities and possibilities as to the future conduct of germany, and therefore increase gradually our naval strength." bismarck pronounced the monroe doctrine "an international impertinence," and this has been the german view all along. dr. zorn, one of the most conservative of german authorities on international affairs, concluded an article in die woche of september , , with these words: "considered in all its phases, the monroe doctrine is in the end seen to be a question of might only and not of right." the german government's efforts to check american influence in the latin american states had of late years been frequent and direct. they comprised the encouragement of german emigration to certain regions, the sending of agents to maintain close contact, presentation of german flags in behalf of the kaiser, the placing of the german evangelical churches in certain south american countries under the prussian state church, annual grants for educational purposes from the imperial treasury at berlin, and the like. the "lodge resolution," adopted by the senate in , had in view the activities of certain german corporations in latin america, as well as the episode that immediately occasioned it; nor can there be much doubt that it was the secret interference by germany at copenhagen that thwarted the sale of the danish west indies to the united states in . in view of a report that a japanese corporation, closely connected with the japanese government, was negotiating with the mexican government for a territorial concession off magdalena bay, in lower california, the senate in adopted the following resolution, which was offered by senator lodge of massachusetts: "that when any harbor or other place in the american continent is so situated that the occupation thereof for naval or military purposes might threaten the communications or the safety of the united states, the government of the united states could not see without grave concern, the possession of such harbor or other place by any corporation or association which has such a relation to another government, not american, as to give that government practical power of control for naval or military purposes." all of the above documents, arguments and events were of the greatest importance in connection with the great european struggle. america was rapidly awakening, and the role of a passive onlooker became increasingly irksome. it was pointed out that washington's message said we must not implicate ourselves in the "ordinary vicissitudes" of european politics. this case rapidly was assuming something decidedly beyond the "ordinary." as the carnage increased and outrages piled up, the finest sensibilities of mankind were shocked and we began to ask ourselves if we were not criminally negligent in our attitude; if it was not our duty to put forth a staying hand and use the extreme weight of our influence to stop the holocaust. from august to , germany overran belgium. liege was occupied august ; brussels, august , and namur, august . the stories of atrocities committed on the civil population of that country have since been well authenticated. at the time it was hard to believe them, so barbaric and utterly wanton were they. civilized people could not understand how a nation which pretended to be not only civilized, but wished to impose its culture on the remainder of the world, could be so ruthless to a small adversary which had committed no crime and desired only to preserve its nationality, integrity and treaty rights. germany did not occupy antwerp until october , owing to the stiff resistance of the belgians and engagements with the french and british elsewhere. but german arms were uniformly victorious. august - occurred the battle of mons-charleroi, a serious defeat for the french and british, which resulted in a dogged retreat eventually to a line along the seine, marne and meuse rivers. the destruction of louvain occurred august , and was one of the events which inflamed anti-german sentiment throughout the world. the beautiful cathedral, the historic cloth market, the library and other architectural monuments for which the city was famed, were put to the torch. the belgian priesthood was in woe over these and other atrocities. cardinal mercier called upon the christian world to note and protest against these crimes. in his pastoral letter of christmas, , he thus pictures belgium's woe and her christian fortitude: "and there where lives were not taken, and there where the stones of buildings were not thrown down, what anguish unrevealed! families hitherto living at ease, now in bitter want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined; industry at a standstill; thousands upon thousands of workingmen without employment; working women; shop girls, humble servant girls without the means of earning their bread, and poor souls forlorn on the bed of sickness and fever crying: 'o lord, how long, how long?'--god will save belgium, my brethren; you can not doubt it. nay, rather, he is saving her--which of us would have the heart to cancel this page of our national history? which of us does not exult in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation? when in her throes she brings forth heroes, our mother country gives her own energy to the blood of those sons of hers. let us acknowledge that we needed a lesson in patriotism--for down within us all is something deeper than personal interests, than personal kinships, than party feeling, and this is the need and the will to devote ourselves to that most general interest which rome termed the public thing, res publica. and this profound will within us is patriotism." meanwhile there was a slight offset to the german successes. russia had overrun galicia and the allies had conquered the germany colony of togoland in africa. but on august the russians were severely defeated in the battle of tannenburg in east prussia. this was offset by a british naval victory in helgoland bight. (august .) so great had become the pressure of the german armies that on september the french government removed from paris to bordeaux. the seriousness of the situation was made manifest when two days later great britain, france and russia signed a treaty not to make peace separately. then it became evident to the nations of the earth that the struggle was not only to be a long one, but in all probability the most gigantic in history. the germans reached the extreme point of their advance, culminating in the battle of the marne, september - . here the generalship of joffre and the strategy of foch overcame great odds. the germans were driven back from the marne to the river aisne. the battle line then remained practically stationary for three years on a front of three hundred miles. the russians under general rennenkampf were driven from east prussia september . three british armored cruisers were sunk by a submarine september . by september general botha had gained some successes for the allies, and had under way an invasion of german southwest africa. by october belgium was so completely occupied by the germans that the government withdrew entirely from the country and established itself at le havre in france. by the end of the year had occurred the battle of yser in belgium (october - ); the first battle of ypres (decisive day october ), in which the british, french and belgians saved the french channel ports; de wet's rebellion against the british in south africa (october ); german naval victory in the pacific off the coast of chile (november ); fall of tsingtau, german possession in china, to the japanese (november ); austrian invasion of serbia (belgrade taken december , recaptured by the serbians december ); german commerce raider emden caught and destroyed at cocos island (november ); british naval victory off the falkland islands (december ); south african rebellion collapsed (december ); french government returned to paris (december ); german warships bombarded west hartlepool, scarborough and whitby on the coast of england (december ). on december the germans showed their christian spirit in an inauguration of the birthday of christ by the first air raid over england. the latter part of the year saw no important action by the united states excepting a proclamation by the president of the neutrality of the panama canal zone. the events of and succeeding years became of great importance to the united states and it is with a record of those having the greatest bearing on our country that this account principally will deal. on january secretary of state bryan found it necessary to explain and defend our policy of neutrality. january the american merchantman william p. frye was sunk by the german cruiser prinz eitel friedrich. on february the united states dispatched a note to the german government holding it to a "strict accountability if any merchant vessel of the united states is destroyed or any american citizens lose their lives." germany replied february stating that her "war zone" act was an act of self-defense against illegal methods employed by great britain in preventing commerce between germany and neutral countries. two days later the german official blockade of great britain commenced and the german submarines began their campaign of piracy and pillage. the united states on february sent an identic note to germany and great britain suggesting an agreement between them respecting the conduct of naval warfare. the british steamship falaba was sunk by a submarine march , with a loss of lives, one of which was an american. april the steamer harpalyce, in the service of the american commission for the aid of belgium, was torpedoed with a loss of lives. on april the german embassy in america sent out a warning against embarkation on vessels belonging to great britain. the american vessel cushing was attacked by a german aeroplane april . on may the american steamship gullflight was sunk by a german submarine and two americans were lost. that day the warning of the german embassy was published in the daily papers. the lusitania sailed at : noon. five days later occurred the crime which almost brought america into the second year of the war. the cunard line steamship lusitania was sunk by a german submarine with a loss of , lives, of which were americans. after the policy of frightfulness put into effect by the germans in belgium and other invaded territories, the massacres of civilians, the violation of women and killing of children; burning, looting and pillage; the destruction of whole towns, acts for which no military necessity could be pleaded, civilization should have been prepared for the lusitania crime. but it seems it was not. the burst of indignation throughout the united states was terrible. here was where the terms german and hun became synonomous, having in mind the methods and ravages of the barbaric scourge attilla, king of the huns, who in the fifth century sacked a considerable portion of europe and introduced some refinements in cruelty which have never been excelled. the lusitania went down twenty-one minutes after the attack. the berlin government pleaded in extenuation of the sinking that the ship was armed, and german agents in new york procured testimony which was subsequently proven in court to have been perjured, to bolster up the falsehood. in further justification, the german government adduced the fact that the ship was carrying ammunition which it said was "destined for the destruction of brave german soldiers." this contention our government rightly brushed aside as irrelevant. the essence of the case was stated by our government in its note of june as follows: "whatever be the other facts regarding the lusitania, the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers, and carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the conduct of the war, was sunk without so much as a challenge or a warning, and that men, women and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare." three notes were written to germany regarding the lusitania sinking. the first dated may advanced the idea that it was impossible to conduct submarine warfare conformably with international law. in the second dated june occurs the statement that "the government of the united states is contending for something much greater than mere rights of property or privileges of commerce. it is contending for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of humanity." in the third note dated july , it is asserted that "the events of the past two months have clearly indicated that it is possible and practicable to conduct submarine operations within the so-called war zone in substantial accord with the accepted practices of regulated warfare." the temper of the american people and the president's notes had succeeded in securing a modification of the submarine campaign. it required cool statesmanship to prevent a rushing into war over the lusitania incident and events which had preceeded it. there was a well developed movement in favor of it, but the people were not unanimous on the point. it would have lacked that cooperation necessary for effectiveness; besides our country was but poorly prepared for engaging in hostilities. it was our state of unpreparedness continuing for a long time afterwards, which contributed, no doubt, to german arrogance. they thought we would not fight. but the united states had become thoroughly awakened and the authorities must have felt that if the conflict was to be unduly prolonged, we must eventually be drawn into it. this is reflected in the modified construction which the president and others began to place on the monroe doctrine. the great underlying idea of the doctrine remained vital, but in a message to congress delivered december , , the president said: "in the day in whose light we now stand there is no claim of guardianship, but a full and honorable association as of partners between ourselves and our neighbors in the interests of america." speaking before the league to enforce peace at washington, may , , he said: "what affects mankind is inevitably our affair, as well as the affair of the nations of europe and of asia." in his address to the senate of january , , he said: "i am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of president monroe as the doctrine of the world--that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful." this was a modifying and enlarging of the doctrine, as well as a departure from washington's warning against becoming entangled with the affairs of europe. chapter v huns sweeping westward toward shores of atlantic--spread ruin and devastation--capitals of civilization alarmed--activities of spies--apologies and lies--german arms winning--gain time to forge new weapons--few victories for allies--roumania crushed--incident of u- . the powerful thrusts of the german armies toward the english channel and the atlantic ocean, the pitiless submarine policy, and the fact that germany and austria had allied with them bulgaria and turkey, began to spread alarm in the non-belligerent nations of the world. that germany was playing a machiavellian policy against the united states soon became evident. after each submarine outrage would come an apology, frequently a promise of reparation and an agreement not to repeat the offense, with no intention, however, of keeping faith in any respect. as a mask for their duplicity, the germans even sent a message of sympathy for the loss of american lives through the sinking of the lusitania; which but intensified the state of mind in this country. less than three weeks after the lusitania outrage the american steamship nebraskan was attacked (may ) by a submarine. the american steamship leelanaw was sunk by submarines july . the white star liner arabic was sunk by a submarine august ; sixteen victims, two american. our government received august a note from the german ambassador regarding the sinking of the arabic. it stated that the loss of american lives was contrary to the intention of the german government and was deeply regretted. on september ambassador von bernstorff supplemented the note with a letter to secretary lansing giving assurance that german submarines would sink no more liners. the allan liner hesperian was sunk september by a german submarine; lives lost, one american. on october the german government sent a communication regretting again and disavowing the sinking of the arabic, and stating its willingness to pay indemnities. meanwhile depression existed among the allies and alarm among nations outside the war over the german conquest of russian poland. they captured lublin, july ; warsaw, august ; ivangorod, august ; kovno, august ; novogeorgievsk, august ; brest-litovsk, august , and vilna, september . activities of spies and plottings within the united states began to divide attention with the war in europe and the submarine situation. dr. constantin dumba, who was austro-hungarian ambassador to the united states, in a letter to the austrian minister of foreign affairs, dated august , recommended "most warmly" to the favorable consideration of the foreign office "proposals with respect to the preparation of disturbances in the bethlehem steel and munitions factory, as well as in the middle west." he felt that "we could, if not entirely prevent the production of war material in bethlehem and in the middle west, at any rate strongly disorganize it and hold it up for months." the letter was intrusted to an american newspaper correspondent named archibald, who was just setting out for europe under the protection of an american passport. archibald's vessel was held up at falmouth, england, his papers seized and their contents cabled to the united states. on september secretary lansing instructed our ambassador at vienna to demand dr. dumba's recall and the demand was soon acceded to by his government. on december captain karl boy-ed, naval attache of the german embassy in washington, was dismissed by our government for "improper activity in naval affairs." at the same time captain franz von papen, military attache of the embassy, was dismissed for "improper activity in military matters." in an intercepted letter to a friend in germany he referred to our people as "those idiotic yankees." as a fitting wind-up of the year and as showing what the german promise to protect liners amounted to, the british passenger steamer persia was sunk in the mediterranean by a submarine december , . the opening of found the president struggling with the grave perplexities of the submarine problem, exchanging notes with the german government, taking fresh hope after each disappointment and endeavoring by every means to avert the impending strife and find a basis for the preservation of an honorable peace. it was now evident to most thinking people that the apparent concessions of the germans were granted merely to provide them time to complete a larger program of submarine construction. this must have been evident to the president; but he appears to have possessed an optimism that rose above his convictions. our government, january , put forth a declaration of principles regarding submarine attacks and inquired whether the governments of the allies would subscribe to such an agreement. this was one of the president's "forlorn hope" movements to try and bring about an agreement among the belligerents which would bring the submarine campaign within the restrictions of international law. could such an agreement have been effected, it would have been of vast relief to this country and might have kept us out of the war. the allies were willing to subscribe to any reasonable agreement provided there was assurance that it would be maintained. they pointed out, however, the futility of treating on the basis of promises alone with a nation which not only had shown a contempt for its ordinary promises, but had repudiated its sacred obligations. a ray of hope gleamed across our national horizon when germany, on february , sent a note acknowledging her liability in the lusitania affair. but the whole matter was soon complicated again by the "armed ship" issue. germany had sent a note to the neutral powers that an armed merchant ship would be treated as a warship and would be sunk on sight. secretary lansing made the statement for this government that by international law commercial ships have a right to arm themselves for self-defense. it was an additional emphasis on the position that the submarine campaign as conducted by germany was simply piracy and had no standing in international law. president wilson, in a letter to senator stone february , said that american citizens had a right to travel on armed merchant ships, and he refused to advise them against exercising the right. march the french steamer sussex, engaged in passenger traffic across the english channel, was torpedoed and sunk without warning. about eighty passengers, including american citizens, were killed or wounded. several notes passed between our government and germany on the sinking of the sussex and other vessels. our ambassador at berlin was instructed to take energetic action and to insist upon adequate attention to our demands. april our government delivered what was considered an ultimatum to the effect that unless germany abandoned her methods of submarine warfare, the united states would sever diplomatic relations. the president addressed congress on the matter the following day. germany had not yet completed her program of submarine building and thought it wise to temporize with the american government for a while longer. may she replied to the ultimatum of april , acknowledged the sinking of the sussex and in the main acceded to all the demands of the united states. there were certain phases which indicated that germany wished to use this country as a medium for securing certain agreements from the allies. the president accepted the german conditions generally, but made it clear in his reply that the conditions could not depend upon any negotiations between this country and other belligerents. the intimation was plain enough that the united states would not be a catspaw for german aims. up to this time in the year the advantage in arms had been greatly on the side of germany and her allies. in january the british had evacuated the entire gallipoli peninsula and the campaign in turkey soon came to grief. cettinje, the capital of montenegro, had also fallen to the teutonic allies, and that country practically was put out of the war. the british had made important gains in the german colonies in africa and had conquered most of the kamerun section there. between february and july the germans had been battling at the important french position of verdun, with great losses and small results. practically all the ground lost was slowly regained by the french in the autumn. the russians had entered persia in february, and april had captured the important city of trebizond in armenia from the turks. but on april general townshend surrendered his entire british force to the turks at kut el amara, after being besieged for days and finally starved into submission. throughout the balance of the year the advantage was greatly on the side of the germans, for the latter part of the year saw the beginning of the crushing of roumania, which had entered the war august on the side of the allies. bucharest, the capital, fell to the germans december ; dobrudja, january , and focsani, january of the ensuing year, . the crushing of roumania was accomplished almost entirely by treachery. the germans knew the plans of all the principal fortifications; the strength and plans of the roumanian forces, and every detail calculated to be of benefit. the country had been honeycombed with their spies prior to and during the war, very much as russia had been. it is quite evident that men high in the councils of the roumanian government and in full possession of the military secrets of the country were simply disguised german agents. between july and november had occurred the great battles of the somme during which the allies had failed to break the german lines. the austrians in june had launched a great attack and made much progress against the italians in the trentino. the principal offsets to the german gains during the last seven months of the year were the russian offensive in volhynia and bukovina, and the counter drive of the italians against the austrians. the russians captured czernovitz june , and by the end of the month had overrun the whole of bukovina. the italians drove out the austrians between august and september , winning august the important city and fortress of gorizia. submarine incidents important to this government were not lacking during the latter half of the year. the german submarine u- suddenly appeared october in the harbor at newport, r.i. the commander delivered letters for the german ambassador and immediately put to sea to begin ravages on british shipping off the nantucket coast. among the five or six vessels sunk was the steamer stephano, which carried american passengers. the passengers and crews of all the vessels were picked up by american destroyers and no lives were lost. the episode, which was an eight-day wonder, and resulted in a temporary tie-up of shipping in eastern ports, started numerous rumors and several legal questions, none of which, however, turned out finally to have been of much importance, as u- vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and its visit was not succeeded by any like craft. it is not improbable that the purpose of the german government in sending the boat to our shores was to convey a hint of what we might expect if we should become involved with germany. october the british steamer marina was torpedoed with a loss of six american lives. the straining of president washington's advice and the monroe doctrine were again evident throughout the year. president wilson in an address before the league to enforce peace, may , had said that the united states was ready to join any practical league for preserving peace and guaranteeing the political and territorial integrity of nations. november our government sent a protest to germany against the deportation of belgians. almost immediately upon the invasion of belgium the german authorities, in pursuance of their system of terrorization, shipped to germany considerable groups of the population. on october , , a general order was issued by the german military government in belgium providing that persons who should "refuse work suitable to their occupation and in the execution of which the military administration is interested," should be subject to one year's imprisonment or to deportation to germany. numerous sentences, both of men and women, were imposed under that order. the wholesale deportation of belgian workmen to germany, which began october , , proceeded on different grounds, for, having stripped large sections of the country of machinery and raw materials, the military authorities now came forward with the plea that it was necessary to send the labor after it. the number of workmen deported is variously estimated at between one and three hundred thousand. "the rage, the terror, the despair" excited by this measure all over belgium, our minister, brand whitlock, reported, "were beyond anything we had witnessed since the day the germans poured into brussels. i am constantly in receipt of reports from all over belgium that bear out the stories of brutality and cruelty. "in tearing away from nearly every humble home in the land a husband and a father or a son and brother, the germans have lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out. it is one of those deeds that make one despair of the future of the human race, a deed coldly planned, studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed so cruel that german soldiers are said to have wept in its execution, and so monstrous that even german officers are now said to be ashamed." poland and the occupied parts of france experienced similar treatment. chapter vi the hour and the man a beacon among the years--trying period for president wilson--germany continues dilatory tactics--peace efforts fail--all honorable means exhausted--patience ceases to be a virtue--enemy abandons all subterfuge--unrestricted submarine warfare--german intrigues with mexico--the zimmermann note--america seizes the sword--war is declared--pershing goes abroad--first troops sail--war measures--war operations an enormous beacon light in history will attach to the year . the outstanding feature of course was the entry of the united states into the great war--the deciding factor in the struggle. it marked the departure of america from the traditional policy of political isolation from europe. history will record that it was not a voluntary, but a forced, departure, due to the utter disregard by germany of our rights on the seas, at home and elsewhere. the first thirty days of the year found the man at the head of our government still hoping against hope, still struggling with all the odds against him, still courageously engaged in efforts for peace. it was a particularly trying time for president wilson, as a large portion of his own party and most of the nation was arrayed against him. the people in general felt that the time for writing notes, for parleying had passed. on december , , germany, in a formal note, had offered to enter into peace negotiations, but did not specify any terms. the note referred in boastful language to the victorious german armies. it was rejected by the allies as empty and insincere. the president on december , , had addressed all the beligerents asking them to indicate precisely the terms on which, they would make peace. germany's reply to this note was no more satisfactory than before. the allies replied demanding restorations, reparation and indemnities. on the nd of january the president appeared before the senate in his famous "peace without victory" address, in which he advocated a world league for peace. his views were received sympathetically, though the allies pointed out that no peace based on the condition of things before the war could be durable, and that as matters stood it would be a virtual victory for germany. it was the president's last effort to bring peace to the world without resorting to armed force. the most biased historian is bound to affirm that woodrow wilson exhausted every effort not only to keep the united states honorably at peace, but to bring about a pacific attitude and understanding among the belligerents. when finally he saw that no argument save that of the sword would avail, when finally the hour struck, he became the man of the hour courageously and nobly. after president wilson's failure to bring about even a pacific attitude among the warring nations, no peace appeal from any quarter calculated to receive respectful attention was made, excepting that issued by pope benedict august , four months after the united states had declared war. the president summarized the pope's proposals as follows: "his holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status existing before the war, and that then there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations based upon an acceptance of the principle of arbitration; that by a similar concert freedom of the seas be established; and that the territorial claims of france and italy, the perplexing problems of the balkan states and the restitution of poland be left to such conciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new temper of such a peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved." the president's reply to the pope forcibly stated the aim of the united states to free the world from the menace of prussian militarism controlled by an arrogant and faithless autocracy. distinguishing between the german rulers and the people, president wilson asserted that the united states would willingly negotiate with a government subject to the popular will. the note disavowed any intention to dismember countries or to impose unfair economic conditions. in part the president's language was: "responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before, that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate injury. the american people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the hands of the imperial german government, but they desire no reprisal upon the german people, who have themselves suffered all things in this war, which they did not choose. they believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the rights of governments--the rights of peoples great or small, weak or powerful--their equal right to freedom and security and self government and to a participation upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of the world, the german people, of course, included, if they will accept equality and not seek domination." about five weeks prior to the pope's proposition, the germans had again put forth a peace feeler. on july , the german reichstag adopted resolutions in favor of peace on the basis of mutual understanding and lasting reconciliation among the nations. the resolutions sounded well but they were accompanied by expressions to the effect that germany in the war was the victim of aggression and that it approved the acts of its government. they referred to the "men who are defending the fatherland," to the necessity of assuring the freedom of the seas, and to the impossibility of conquering a united german nation. there was no doubt in the mind of any neutral or any belligerent opposing germany that the german government was the real aggressor and that the freedom of the seas had never been restricted except by germany herself, hence there was no tendency to accept this as a serious bid for peace. the resolutions figured largely in german internal politics but were without effect elsewhere. stockholm, sweden was the scene of a number of peace conferences but as they were engineered by socialists of an extreme type and others holding views usually classed as anarchistic, no serious attention was paid to them. the "pacifists" in the allied and neutral countries were more or less active, but received little encouragement. their arguments did not appeal to patriotism. going back to the beginning of the year, within a week after the president's "peace without victory" speech before the senate, germany replied to it by announcing that beginning february , it would begin unrestricted submarine warfare in certain extensive zones around the british isles, france and italy. it would, however, out of the kindness of its heart, permit the united states to use a narrow track across the sea with a landing at falmouth, one ship a week, provided the american ships were painted red and white and carried various kinds of distinguishing marks. this of course was a direct repudiation by germany of all the promises she had made to the united states. the president saw the sword being forced into his hands but he was not yet ready to seize it with all his might. he preferred first to exhaust the expediency of an armed neutrality. on february , he went before a joint session of the house and senate and announced that ambassador von bernstorff had been given his passports and all diplomatic relations with the teuton empire severed. on february , an attempt at negotiation came through the swiss minister who had been placed in charge of german diplomatic interests in this country. the president promptly and emphatically replied that no negotiations could be even considered until the submarine order had been withdrawn. on february , the lower house of congress voted formal permission for the arming of american merchant ships as a protection against submarine attacks, and appropriated one hundred million dollars for the arming and insuring of the ships. a similar measure in the senate was defeated by senator robert m. lafollette of wisconsin, acting under a loose rule of the senate which permitted filibustering and unlimited debate. the session of congress expired march , and the president immediately called an extra session of the senate which amended its rules so that the measure was passed. senator lafollette's opposition to the war and some of his public utterances outside the senate led to a demand for his expulsion from that body. a committee of investigation was appointed which proceeded perfunctorilly for about a year. the senator was never expelled but any influence he may have had and any power to hamper the activities of the government, were effectually killed for the duration of the war. the suppression of the senator did not proceed so much from congress or the white house, as from the press of the country. without regard to views or party, the newspapers of the nation voluntarily and patriotically entered what has been termed a "conspiracy of silence" regarding the activities of the wisconsin senator. by refusing to print his name or give him any sort of publicity he was effectively sidetracked and in a short time the majority of the people of the country forgot his existence. it was a striking demonstration that propaganda depends for its effectiveness upon publicity, and has given rise to an order of thought which contends that the newspapers should censor their own columns and suppress movements that are detrimental or of evil tendency, by ignoring them. opposed to this is the view that the more publicity a movement gets, and the fuller and franker the discussion it evokes, the more quickly will its merits or demerits become apparent. if any evidence was lacking of german duplicity, violation of promises and general double-dealing, it came to light in the famous document known as the "zimmermann note" which came into the hands of the american state department and was revealed february . it was a confidential communication from dr. alfred zimmermann, german foreign minister, addressed to the german minister in mexico and proposed an alliance of germany, mexico and japan against the united states. its text follows: "on the st of february we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. in spite of this it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the united states of america. if this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with mexico: that we shall make war together and together make peace. we shall give general financial support, and it is understood that mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in new mexico, texas and arizona. the details are left to you for settlement. you are instructed to inform the president of mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain there will be an outbreak of war with the united states, and suggest that the president of mexico on his own initiative, should communicate with japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time offer to mediate between germany and japan. please call to the attention of the president of mexico that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now promises to compel england to make peace in a few months." the american steamers city of memphis, vigilancia and illinois had been sunk and fifteen lives lost in pursuance of the german submarine policy to torpedo without warning and without any regard to the safety of crews or passengers, all ships found within the barred zones. the president could no longer postpone drawing the sword. being convinced that the inevitable hour had struck, he proved himself the man of the hour and acted with energy. a special session of congress was called for april . the day is bound to stand out in history for in the afternoon the president delivered his famous message asking that war be declared against germany. he said that armed neutrality had been found wanting and in the end would only draw the country into war without its having the status of a belligerent. one of the striking paragraphs of the message follows: "with a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step i am taking, and of the grave responsibility which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what i deem my constitutional duty, i advise that the congress declare the recent course of the imperial german government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the united states; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defence, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the german empire to terms and end the war." congress voted a declaration of war april . only six senators out of a total of , and fifty representatives out of a total of , voted against it. congress also, at the request of the president, voted for the creation of a national army and the raising to war strength of the national guard, the marine corps and the navy. laws were passed dealing with espionage, trading with the enemy and the unlawful manufacture and use of explosives. provision was made for the insurance of soldiers and sailors, for priority of shipments, for the seizure and use of enemy ships in american harbors, for conserving and controlling the food and fuel supply of the country, for stimulating agriculture, for enlarging the aviation branch of the service, for extending credit to foreign governments, for issuing bonds and for providing additional revenues by increasing old and creating new taxes. the extra session of congress lasted a few days over six months. in that time it passed all the above measures and others of less importance. it authorized the expenditure of over nineteen billions of dollars ($ , , , ). including the amount appropriated at the second session of the preceeding congress, the amount reached the unheard of total of over twenty-one billions of dollars ($ , , , ). german intrigues and german ruthlessness created an additional stench in the nostrils of civilization when on september , the united states made public the celebrated "spurlos versenkt" telegram which had come into its possession. it is a german phrase meaning "sunk without leaving a trace" and was contained in a telegram from luxburg, the german minister at buenos aires. the telegram (of may , ) advised that argentine steamers "be spared if possible or else sunk without a trace being left." the advice was repeated july . the swedish minister at buenos aires sent these messages in code as though they were his own private dispatches. on august , the british admiralty had communicated to the international conference of merchant seaman, a statement of the facts in twelve cases of sinkings during the previous seven months in which it was shown how "spurlos versenkt" was applied. it was shown that in these cases the submarine commanders had deliberately opened fire on the crews of the vessels after they had taken to their small boats or had attempted to dispose of them in some other way. within six weeks after the declaration of war our government was preparing to send troops to france. an expeditionary force comprising about one division of regulars was announced may . general pershing who was to command arrived in england june , and in france june . the first body of our troops reached france june and the second a little later. the safe passage of these troops was remarkable, as their departure had been made known to germany through her spies, and submarines laid in wait for the transports. the vigilance of our convoying agencies continued throughout the war and was one of the high spots of excellence reached in our part of the struggle. of a total of over , , soldiers transported to france and many thousands returned on account of sickness and furloughs, only were lost as a direct result of german submarine operations. on december , the united states declared war against austria-hungary. this was largely on the insistence of italy and was valuable and gratifying to that ally. president wilson on december , issued a proclamation taking over the railroads of the country, w.g. mcadoo was appointed director general. the proclamation went into effect two days later and the entire rail transportation system, for the first time in the history of the nation, passed under the control and management of the government. excepting the revolution in russia which led to the abdication of czar nicholas ii (march - ) and so disorganized the country that it never figured effectively in the war afterwards, the year was one of distinct advantage to the allies. kut el amara was retaken by the british february . bagdad fell to the same forces march . from march th to th the germans retired to the "hindenburg line" evacuating a strip of territory in france miles long and averaging miles in width, from arras to soissons. between april and may , the british had important successes in the battle of arras, capturing vimy ridge april . between april and may the french made gains in the battle of the aisne, between soissons and reims. between may and september occurred an italian offensive in which general cadorna inflicted severe defeats on the austrians on the carso and bainsizza plateaus. the british blew up messines ridge, south of ypres, june and captured , german prisoners. june king constantine of greece was forced to abdicate and on june , greece entered the war on the side of the allies. a mutiny in the german fleet at wilhelmshaven and kiel occurred july and a second mutiny september . august - the french recaptured high ground at verdun, lost in . october - a french drive north of the aisne won important positions including malmaison fort. the germans retreated from the chemin de dames, north of the aisne, november . between november and december occurred the battle of cambrai in which the british employed "tanks" to break down the wire entanglements instead of the usual artillery preparations. bourlon wood dominating cambrai was taken november . a surprise counterattack by the germans december , compelled the british to give up one-fourth of the ground gained. jerusalem was captured by the british december . the british national labor conference on december , approved a continuation of the war for aims similar to those defined by president wilson. aside from the collapse of russia, culminating in an armistice between germany and the bolsheviki government of russia at brest-litovsk, december , the most important teutonic success was in the big german-austrian counterdrive in italy, october to december . the italians suffered a loss of territory gained during the summer and their line was shifted to the piave river, asiago plateau and brenta river. brazil declared war on germany october . chapter vii. negroes respond to the call. swift and unhalting array--few permitted to volunteer--only national guard accepted--no new units formed--selective draft their opportunity--partial division of guardsmen--complete division of selectives--many in training--enter many branches of service--negro nurses authorized--negro y.m.c.a. workers--negro war correspondent--negro assistant to secretary of war--training camp for negro officers--first time in artillery--complete racial segregation. when the call to war was sounded by president wilson, no response was more swift and unhalting than that of the negro in america. before our country was embroiled the black men of africa had already contributed their share in pushing back the hun. when civilization was tottering and all but overthrown, france and england were glad to avail themselves of the aid of their senegalese, algerian, soudanese and other troops from the tribes of africa. the story of their valor is written on the battlefields of france in imperishable glory. considering the splendid service of the--in many cases--half wild blacks from the region of the equator, it seems strange that our government did not hasten sooner and without demur to enlist the loyal blacks of this country with their glowing record in former wars, their unquestioned mental attainments, their industry, stamina and self reliance. yet at the beginning of america's participation in the war, it was plain that the old feeling of intolerance; the disposition to treat the negro unfairly, was yet abroad in the land. he was willing; anxious to volunteer and offered himself in large numbers at every recruiting station, without avail. true, he was accepted in numerous instances, but the condition precedent, that of filling up and rounding out the few negro regular and national guard organizations below war strength, was chafing and humiliating. had the response to the call for volunteers been as ardent among all classes of our people; especially the foreign born, as it was from the american negro, it is fair to say that the selective draft would not necessarily have been so extensive. it was not until the selective draft was authorized and the organization of the national army began, that the negro was given his full opportunity. his willingness and eagerness to serve were again demonstrated. some figures dealing with the matter, taken from the official report of the provost marshall general (general e.h. crowder) will be cited later on. of the four colored regiments in the regular army, the th infantry had been on the mexican border since ; the th infantry in hawaii all the years of the war; the ninth cavalry in the philippines since , and the th cavalry had been doing patrol and garrison duty on the mexican border and elsewhere in the west since early in . these four regiments were all sterling organizations dating their foundation back to the days immediately following the civil war. their record was and is an enviable one. it is no reflection on them that they were not chosen for overseas duty. the country needed a dependable force on the mexican border, in hawaii, the philippines, and in different garrisons at home. a number of good white regular army regiments were kept on this side for the same reasons; not however, overlooking or minimizing the fact not to the honor of the nation in its final resolve, that there has always been fostered a spirit in the counsels and orders of the department of war, as in all the other great government departments, to restrain rather than to encourage the patriotic and civic zeal of their faithful and qualified negro aids and servants. that is to say, to draw before them a certain imaginary line; beyond and over which the personal ambitions of members of the race; smarting for honorable renown and promotion; predicated on service and achievement, they were not permitted to go. a virtual "dead line"; its parent and wet nurse being that strange thing known as american prejudice, unknown of anywhere else on earth, which was at once a crime against its marked and selected victims, and a burden of shame which still clings to it; upon the otherwise great nation, that it has condoned and still remains silent in its presence. negro national guard organizations had grown since the spanish-american war, but they still were far from being numerous in . the ones accepted by the war department were the eighth illinois infantry, a regiment manned and officered entirely by negroes, the th new york infantry all negroes with five negro officers, all the senior officers being white; the ninth ohio, a battalion manned and officered by negroes; the st separate battalion of the district of columbia, an infantry organization manned and officered by negroes; and negro companies from the states of connecticut, maryland, massachusetts and tennessee. massachusetts also had a company known as the st headquarters company and military police. the eighth illinois became the th infantry in the united states army; the th new york became the th infantry; the ninth ohio battalion and the companies from connecticut, maryland, massachusetts and tennessee, as well as the district of columbia battalion, were all consolidated into the nd infantry. when the above organizations had been recruited up to war strength there were between , and , colored men representing the national guard of the country. with a population of , , negroes to draw from; the majority of those suitable for military service anxious to enlist, it readily can be seen what a force could have been added to this branch of the service had there been any encouragement of it. there was not lacking a great number of the race, many of them college graduates, competent to act as officers of national guard units. many of those commissioned during the spanish-american war had the experience and age to fit them for senior regimental commands. the th illinois was commanded by colonel franklin a. denison, a prominent colored attorney of chicago and a seasoned military man. he was the only colored man of the rank of colonel who was permitted to go to france in the combatant or any other branch of the service. after a brief period in the earlier campaigns he was invalided home very much against his will. the th new york was commanded by colonel william hayward, a white man. he was devoted to his black soldiers and they were very fond of him. officers immediately subordinate to him were white men. the district of columbia battalion might have retained its colored commander, major james e. walker, as he was a fine soldierly figure and possessed of the requisite ability, but he was removed by death while his unit was still training near washington. some of the negro officers of national guard organizations retained their commands, but the majority were superseded or transferred before sailing or soon after arrival in france. the th, the th and the nd infantry regiments in the united states army, mentioned as having been formed from the colored national guard units, became a part of the rd division. another regiment, the st, formed from the draft forces was also part of the same division. this division was brigaded with the french from the start and saw service through the war alongside the french poilus with whom they became great friends. there grew up a spirit of which, side by side, they faced and smashed the savage hun, never wavered or changed. besides the soldiers from illinois, new york, ohio, district of columbia, connecticut, maryland and tennessee, there were negro contingents from mississippi and south carolina in the rd division. one of the regiments of this division, the th ( th new york) was of the first of the american forces to reach france, following mutual admiration between these two widely different representatives of the human family, that during the period in the expeditionary force of regulars which reached france june , ; being among the first , that went abroad. however, the rd division, exclusively negro, had not been fully formed then and the regiment did not see much real fighting until the spring and summer of . [illustration: negro nurses carrying banner of famous negro regiment. marching down fifth avenue, new york. in great parade which opened red cross drive.] the nd division was another exclusively negro division. there were many more negro troops in training in france and large numbers at training camps in this country, but the nd and rd, being the earlier formed and trained divisions, saw practically all the fighting. units belonging to one or both divisions fought with special distinction in the forest of argonne, near chateau thierry, belleau wood, st. mihiel district, champagne sector, at metz and in the vosges mountains. in the nd division was the th field signal battalion, the only negro signal unit in the american army. the division also contained the th, th and st artillery regiments, each containing a machine gun battalion; the th trench mortar battery; the balance being made up of negro engineers, hospital units, etc., and the th, th, th and th infantry regiments. enlisted, drafted and assigned to active service, upwards of , negroes participated in the war. the number serving abroad amounted to about , . they were inducted into the cavalry, infantry, field and coast artillery, radio (wireless telegraphy, etc.), medical corps, ambulance and hospital corps, sanitary and ammunition trains, stevedore regiments, labor battalions, depot brigades and engineers. they also served as regimental clerks, surveyors and draftsmen. sixty served as chaplains and over as y.m.c.a. secretaries, there being a special and highly efficient negro branch of the y.m.c.a. numerous others were attached to the war camp community service in cities adjacent to the army camps. negro nurses were authorized by the war department for service in base hospitals at six army camps--funston, sherman, grant, dix, taylor and dodge. race women also served as canteen workers in france and in charge of hostess houses in this country. one negro, ralph w. tyler, served as an accredited war correspondent, attached to the staff of general pershing, dr. r.r. moton, who succeeded the late booker t. washington as head of the tuskegee institute, was sent on a special mission to france by president wilson and secretary baker. a race woman, mrs. alice dunbar nelson of wilmington, delaware, was named as a field worker to mobilize the negro women of the country for war work. her activities were conducted in connection with the women's committee of the council of national defense. the most conspicuous honor paid to a negro by the administration and the war department, was in the appointment, october , , of emmett j. scott as special assistant to the secretary of war. this was done that the administration might not be accused of failing to grant full protection to the negroes, and that a thorough examination might be made into all matters affecting their relation to the war and its many agencies. having been for years confidential secretary to booker t. washington, and being at the time of his appointment secretary of the tuskegee normal and industrial institute for negroes, mr. scott was peculiarly fitted to render necessary advice to the war department with respect to the negroes of the various states, to look after all matters affecting the interests of negro selectives and enlisted men, and to inquire into the treatment accorded them by the various officials connected with the war department. in the position occupied by him, he was thus enabled to obtain a proper perspective both of the attitude of selective service officials to the negro, and of the negro to the war, especially to the draft. in a memorandum on the subject addressed to the provost marshall general, december , , he wrote: "the attitude of the negro was one of complete acceptance of the draft, in fact of an eagerness to accept its terms. there was a deep resentment in many quarters that he was not permitted to volunteer, as white men by the thousands were permitted to do in connection with national guard units and other branches of military service which were closed to colored men. one of the brightest chapters in the whole history of the war is the negro's eager acceptance of the draft and his splendid willingness to fight. his only resentment was due to the limited extent to which he was allowed to join and participate in combatant or 'fighting' units. the number of colored draftees accepted for military duty, and the comparatively small number of them claiming exemptions, as compared with the total number of white and colored men called and drafted, presents an interesting study and reflects much credit upon this racial group." over , negro officers, many of them college graduates, were commissioned during the war. the only training camp exclusively for negro officers was at fort des moines, iowa. this camp ran from june , , to october , . a total of officers was graduated and commissioned from the camp. negro regulars and negro national army men who had passed the tests for admission to officers training camps were sent mainly to the training schools for machine gun officers at camp hancock, augusta, georgia; the infantry officers training school at camp pike, little rock, arkansas, and the artillery officers training school at camp taylor, louisville, kentucky. they were trained along with the white officers. the graduates from these camps along with a few national guardsmen who had taken the officers' examinations, and others trained in france, made up the balance of the , commissioned. in connection with the artillery training an interesting fact developed. it had been charged that negroes could not develop into artilleryman. a strong prejudice against inducting them into that branch of the service had always existed in the army. it was especially affirmed that the negro did not possess the mathematical ability necessary to qualify as an expert artillery officer. nevertheless, out of a number of negro aspirants, very small in comparison with the white men in training for officers' commissions at the camp, five of the negroes stood alongside their white brothers at the head of the class. the remainder were sprinkled down the line about in the same proportion and occupying the same relative positions as the whites. the prejudice against the negro as an artilleryman was further and effectually dispelled in the record made by the th, th and st artillery regiments and their machine gun battalions in the nd division. with the exception of the training camp for officers at des moines, iowa, no important attempt was made to establish separate negro training camps. in the draft quotas from each state were whites and blacks and all with few exceptions, were sent to the most convenient camp. arrangements existed, however, at the different camps for the separate housing and training of the negro troops. this was in line with the military policy of the government, as well as in deference to the judgment of both white and black officers. it undoubtedly was necessary to separate the two races. furthermore, as the military policy called for regiments, battalions and, divisions made up entirely of negroes, it was proper to commence the organization at the training camps. companies formed in this manner thus became homogeneous, accustomed to one another individually and to their officers. the situation was different from the spanish-american war, where negro units, at least in one case, served in white regiments. racial strife and rivalry were eliminated. the only rivalry that existed was the good-natured and healthy one of emulation between members of the same race. on the field of battle there was rivalry and emulation between the whites and blacks, but it was the rivalry of organizations and not of races. the whole was tempered by that splendid admiration and fellow-feeling which comes to men of all races when engaged as partners in danger or near death; in the defense and promotion of a great cause; the eternal verities of justice and humanity. chapter viii recrudescence of south's intolerance confronted by racial peejudice--- splendid attitude of negro shamed it--kept out of navy--only one per cent of navy personnel negroes--modified marines contemplated--few have petty officers' grades--separate ships proposed--negro efficiency in navy--material for "black ships"--navy opens door to negro mechanics. old feelings of race prejudice and intolerance, appearing mainly in the south, confronted the negro at the beginning of the war. the splendid attitude of the negro shamed and overcame this feeling in other sections of the country, and was beginning to have its effect even in the south. it is true that men of the race were not accepted for voluntary enlistment in numbers of consequence in any section, but had the voluntary system continued in vogue, the willingness and desire of the race to serve, coupled with the very necessities of the case, would have altered the condition. no new negro volunteer units were authorized, but the demand for men would soon have made it imperative. it would have been combatted by a certain element in the south, but the friends of the few volunteer units which did exist in that section were firm in their championship and were winning adherents to their view that the number should be increased. the selective draft with its firm dictum that all men within certain ages should be called and the fit ones chosen, put an end to all contention. the act was not passed without bitter opposition which developed in its greatest intensity among the southern senators and representatives; feelings that were inspired entirely by opposition to the negro. it would have been a bad thing for the country and would have prolonged the war, and possibly might have lost it, if the selective draft had been delayed. but it would have been interesting to see how far the country, especially the south, would have progressed in the matter of raising a volunteer army without accepting negroes. undoubtedly they soon would have been glad to recruit them, even in the south. unfortunately for the negro, the draft was not able to prevent their being kept out of the navy. it is a very desirable branch of the service vitiated and clouded, however, with many disgusting and aristocratic traditions. when the navy was young and the service more arduous; when its vessels were merely armed merchantmen, many of them simply tubs and death traps and not the floating castles of today, the services of negroes were not disdained; but times and national ideals had changed, and, the shame of it, not to the credit of a commonwealth, for whose birth a negro had shed the first blood, and a washington had faced the rigors of a valley forge, a lincoln the bullet of an assassin. the annual report of the chief of the bureau of navigation, rendered to the secretary of the navy and covering the fiscal year ending june , , showed that in the united states navy, the united states naval reserve force and the national naval volunteers, there was a total of , men. of that great number only , were negroes, a trifle over one percent. between june and november , the navy was recruited to a total force somewhat in excess of , men. carrying out the same percentage, it is apparent that the aggregate number of negroes serving, in the navy at the close of the war, could not have been much in excess of , . some extra enlistments of negroes were contemplated, as the navy had in process of establishment just prior to the armistice, a new service for negro recruits. it was to be somewhat similar to the pioneer units of the army, partaking in some degree of the character of marines, just as the pioneers partake of the character of infantry, but in general respects resembling more the engineer and stevedore units. about men had been selected for this service when the project was abandoned on account of the ending of the war. with the exception of a very limited number who have been permitted to attain the rank of petty officer, negroes in the navy were confined to menial occupations. they were attached to the firing forces as coal passers, while others served as cooks assistants, mess attendants and in similar duties. quite a number were full rated cooks. a few were water tenders, electricians and gunners' mates, each of which occupations entitled them to the aforesaid rank of petty officer. among the petty officers some had by sheer merit attained the rank of chief petty officer, which is about equal to the rank of sergeant in the army. the idea of separate ships for the negro might to some degree ameliorate the sting incident to race prohibition in that arm of government service. the query is advanced that if we can have black colonels, majors, captains and lieutenants in the army, why cannot we have black commanders, lieutenants, ensigns and such in the navy? negroes have often and in divers ways displayed their intelligence and efficiency in the navy. take, for instance, the case of john jordan, a negro of virginia, who was chief gunner's mate on admiral dewey's flagship the "olympia" during the spanish-american war, and was the man who fired the first shot at the enemy at manila bay. a negro chief electrician, salisbury brooks, was the originator of inventions which were adopted without reservation by the navy designers and changed the construction of modern battle ships. one of the principal instructors on the u.s.s. essex, the government training ship at norfolk, is matthew anderson, a negro. he has trained thousands of men, many of them now officers, in the art and duties of seamanship. scores of negroes; men of the type of these in the navy, would furnish the nucleus for officers and crews of separate negro ships. in a recent issue of "our navy" a magazine devoted entirely to naval affairs, especially as regards the enlisted man, a writer reflects the opinion of these men in the following article: "whether you like the black man or not, whether you believe in a square deal for him or not, you can't point an accusing finger at his patriotism, his americanism or his fighting ability. it is fair to neither the white man nor the black man to have the black man compete with the white man in the navy. true, we have black petty officers here and there in the navy, and in some cases black chief petty officers. it stands to reason that they must have been mighty good men to advance. they surely must know their business--every inch of it--to advance to these ratings. yet they are not wanted in these ratings because they involve the black man having charge of white men under him. outside of the messman branch you will find comparatively few negroes in the navy today. "there should be 'black ships' assigned to be manned by american negroes. these are days of democracy, equality and freedom," continues the writer. "if a man is good enough to go over the top and die for these principles, he is good enough to promote in the navy. why not try it? put the black men on their own ships. promote them, rate them, just the same as the white man. but above all keep them on their own ships. it is fair to them and fair to the white men. the brazilian and argentine navies have 'black ships.'" recruiting officers of the navy have recently opened the doors to discharged negro soldiers, and some civilians. if physically fit they are permitted to enlist as machinists and electricians. the navy has opened a school for machinists at charleston, s.c., and a school for electricians at hampton roads, va. men for the machinists' school are enlisted as firemen rd class. while in training they are paid $ a month. they also receive their clothing allotment, their food, dry comfortable quarters in which to live, and all text books and practical working tools. in return for this chance to become proficient in a very necessary trade, all that is required of those enlisting is a knowledge of common fractions, ambition to learn the trade, energy and a strict attention to the instruction given them. subjects taught in the course are arithmetic, note book sketching, practical engineering, theoretical engineering, clipping and filing, drilling, pipe fitting, repair work, rebabbiting, brazing, tin smithing, lathes, shapers, milling machines and grinders. it will be seen that they get a vast amount of mechanical knowledge and practically two trades, machinists and engineering. in the electrical school the course is equally thorough. the men get a high grade of instruction, regardless of cost of material and tools. the best text books that can be had are available for their use. this liberality in order to get machinists and electricians in the navy, argues that some change of attitude towards the negro is contemplated. it may evolve into the establishment of "black ships." the negro sailor has been pleading for years that his color has been a bar to him. with a ship of his own, would come his chance. he would strive; do all within his power to make it a success and would succeed. chapter ix. previous wars in which the negro figured. shot heard around the world--crispus atttucks--slave leads sons of freedom--the boston massacre--anniversary kept for years--william nell, historian-- , negroes in washington's forces--a stirring history--negro woman soldier--border indian wars--negro heroes our american school histories teach us that the "shot which was heard around the world",--the opening gun of the revolutionary war, was fired at lexington in . the phrase embodies a precious sentiment; time has molded many leaders, the inspiration for almost a century and a half of the patriotic youth of our land. this is as it should be. all honor and all praise to the deathless heroes of that time and occasion. but why has not history been more just; at least, more explicit? why not say that the shot which started the revolution--that first great movement for human liberty and the emancipation of nations--was fired five years earlier; was fired not by, but at, a negro, crispus attucks? the leader of the citizens in that event of march , , known as the boston massacre, he was the first man upon whom the british soldiers fired and the first to fall; the pioneer martyr for american independence. it is perhaps fitting; a manifestation of the inscrutable ways of providence, that the first life given in behalf of a nation about to throw off a yoke of bondage, was that of a representative of a race; despised, oppressed and enslaved. botta the historian, in speaking of the scenes of the th of march says: "the people were greatly exasperated. the multitude ran towards king street, crying, 'let us drive out these ribalds; they have no business here.' the rioters rushed furiously towards the custom house; they approached the sentinel, crying 'kill him, kill him!' they assaulted him with snowballs, pieces of ice, and whatever they could lay their hands upon. "the guard were then called, and in marching to the custom house, they encountered a band of the populace, led by a mulatto named attucks, who brandished their clubs and pelted them with snowballs. the maledictions, the imprecations, the execrations of the multitude, were horrible. in the midst of a torrent of invective from every quarter, the military were challenged to fire. the populace advanced to the points of their bayonets. "the soldiers appeared like statues; the cries, the howlings, the menaces, the violent din of bells still sounding the alarm, increased the confusion and the horrors of these moments; at length the mulatto attucks and twelve of his companions, pressing forward, environed the soldiers and striking their muskets with their clubs, cried to the multitude: 'be not afraid, they dare not fire; why do you hesitate, why do you not kill them, why not crush them at once?' "the mulatto lifted his arms against captain preston, and having turned one of the muskets, he seized the bayonet with his left hand, as if he intended to execute his threat at this moment, confused cries were heard: 'the wretches dare not fire!' firing succeeds. attucks is slain. other discharges follow. three were killed, five severely wounded and several others slightly." attucks was killed by montgomery, one of captain preston's soldiers. he had been foremost in resisting and was first slain. as proof of a front engagement, he received two balls, one in each breast. the white men killed with attucks were samuel maverick, samuel gray and jonas caldwell. john adams, afterwards president of the united states, was counsel for the soldiers in the investigation which followed. he admitted that attucks appeared to have been the hero of the occasion and the leader of the people. attucks and caldwell, not being residents of boston, were buried from faneuil hall, the cradle of liberty. the citizens generally participated in the solemnities. if the outrages against the american colonists had not been so flagrant, and so well imbedded as indisputable records of our history; if the action of the military authorities had not been so arbitrary, the uprising of attucks and his followers might be looked upon as a common, reprehensible riot and the participants as a band of misguided incendiaries. subsequent reverence for the occasion, disproves any such view. judge dawes, a prominent jurist of the time, as well as a brilliant exponent of the people, alluding in to the event, said: "the provocation of that night must be numbered among the master-springs which gave the first motion to a vast machinery--a noble and comprehensive system of national independence." ramsey's history of the american revolution, says: "the anniversary of the th of march was observed with great solemnity; eloquent orators were successively employed to preserve the remembrance of it fresh in the mind. on these occasions the blessings of liberty, the horrors of slavery, and the danger of a standing army, were presented to the public view. these annual orations administered fuel to the fire of liberty and kept it burning with an irresistible flame." the th of march continued to be celebrated for the above reasons until the anniversary of the declaration of american independence was substituted in its place; and its orators were expected to honor the feelings and principles of the former as having given birth to the latter. on the th of march , washington repaired to the intrenchments. "remember" said he, "it is the th of march, and avenge the death of your brethren." in the introduction to a book entitled "the colored patriots of the american revolution" by william c. nell, a negro historian, harriet beecher stowe said in : "the colored race have been generally considered by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, as deficient in energy and courage. their virtues have been supposed to be principally negative ones." speaking of the incidents in mr. nell's collection she says: "they will redeem the character of the race from this misconception and show how much injustice there may often be in a generally accepted idea". continuing, she says: "in considering the services of the colored patriots of the revolution, we are to reflect upon them as far more magnanimous, because rendered to a nation which did not acknowledge them as citizens and equals, and in whose interests and prosperity they had less at stake. it was not for their own land they fought, not even for a land which had adopted them, but for a land which had enslaved them, and whose laws, even in freedom, oftener oppressed than protected. bravery, under such circumstances, has a peculiar beauty and merit. "and their white brothers--may remember that generosity, disinterested courage and bravery, are of no particular race and complexion, and that the image of the heavenly father may be reflected alike by all. each record of worth in this oppressed and despised people should be pondered, for it is by many such that the cruel and unjust public sentiment, which has so long proscribed them, may be reversed, and full opportunities given them to take rank among the nations of the earth." estimates from competent sources state that not less than , negro soldiers did service in the american army during the revolution. rhode island first made her slaves free men and then called on them to fight. a black regiment was raised there, of which colonel christopher green was made commander. connecticut furnished a black battalion under command of colonel david humphrey. prior to the revolution, two virginia negroes, israel titus and samuel jenkins, had fought under braddock and washington in the french and indian war. it has been said that one of the men killed when major pitcairn commanding the british advance on concord and lexington, april , , ordered his troops to fire on the americans, was a negro bearing arms. peter salem a negro did service during the revolution, and is said to have killed this same major pitcairn, at the battle of bunker hill. in some old engravings of the battle, salem is pictured as occupying a prominent position. these pictures were carried on some of the currency of the monumental bank of charlestown, massachusetts and the freeman's bank of boston. other black men fought at bunker hill, of whom we have the names of salem poor, titus coburn, alexander ames, barzillai lew and gato howe. after the war these men were pensioned. prince, a negro soldier, was colonel barton's chief assistant in capturing the british officer, major general prescott at newport, r.i. primus babcock received an honorable discharge from the army signed by general washington. lambo latham and jordan freeman fell with ledyard at the storming of fort griswold. freeman is said to have killed major montgomery, a british officer who was leading an attack on americans in a previous fight. history does not record whether or not this was the same or a related montgomery to the one who killed crispus attucks at boston. hamet, one of general washington's negroes, was drawing a pension as a revolutionary soldier as late as , oliver cromwell served six years and nine months in col. israel shreve's regiment of new jersey troops under washington's immediate command. charles bowles became an american soldier at the age of sixteen years and served to the end of the revolution. seymour burr and jeremy jonah were negro soldiers in a connecticut regiment. a negro whose name is not known obtained the countersign by which mad anthony wayne was enabled to take stony point, and guided and helped him to do so. jack grove was a negro steward on board an american vessel which the british captured. he figured out that the vessel could be retaken if sufficient courage were shown. he insisted and at length prevailed upon his captain to make the attempt, which was successful. there was in massachusetts during those revolutionary days one company of negro men bearing a special designation, "the bucks." it was a notable body of men. at the close of the war its fame and services were recognized by john hancock presenting to it a beautiful banner. the european struggle recently ended furnished a remarkable example of female heroism and devotion to country in the case of the russian woman who enlisted as a common soldier in the army of the czar, served with distinction and finally organized an effective unit of female soldiers known as the "battalion of death." more resourceful and no less remarkable and heroic, is the case of deborah gannet, a negro woman soldier of the revolution, which may be summed up in the following resolution passed by the general court of massachusetts during the session of :-- "xxiii--whereas, it appears to this court that the said deborah gannett enlisted, under the name of robert shurtliff, in capt webb's company, in the fourth massachusetts regiment, on may , , and did actually perform the duties of a soldier, in the late army of the united states to the rd day of october, , for which she has received no compensation; and, whereas, it further appears that the said deborah exhibited an extraordinary instance of female heroism by discharging the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished, and was discharged from the service with a fair and honorable character, therefore, "resolved, that the treasurer of this commonwealth be, and he hereby is, directed to issue his note to the said deborah for the sum of thirty-four pounds, bearing interest from october , ." there is not lacking evidence that negroes distinguished themselves in the struggles of the pioneer settlers against the indians. this was particularly true of the early history of kentucky. the following incidents are recorded in thompson's "young people's history of kentucky:" "ben stockton was a slave in the family of major george stockton of fleming county. he was a regular negro, and though a slave, was devoted to his master. he hated an indian and loved to moralize over a dead one; getting into a towering rage and swearing magnificently when a horse was stolen; handled his rifle well, though somewhat foppishly, and hopped, danced and showed his teeth when a prospect offered to chase 'the yaller varmints'. his master had confidence in his resolution and prudence, while he was a great favorite with all the hunters, and added much to their fun on dull expeditions. on one occasion, when a party of white men in pursuit of indians who had stolen their horses called at stockton's station for reinforcements, ben, among others, volunteered. they overtook the savages at kirk's springs in lewis county, and dismounted to fight; but as they advanced, they could see only eight or ten, who disappeared over the mountain. pressing on, they discovered on descending the mountain such indications as convinced them that the few they had seen were but decoys to lead them into an ambuscade at the base, and a retreat was ordered. ben was told of it by a man near him; but he was so intent on getting a shot that he did not hear, and the order was repeated in a louder tone, whereupon he turned upon his monitor a reproving look, grimaced and gesticulated ludicrously, and motioned to the man to be silent. he then set off rapidly down the mountain. his white comrade, unwilling to leave him, ran after him, and reached his side just as he leveled his gun at a big indian standing tiptoe on a log and peering into the thick woods. at the crack of ben's rifle the savage bounded into the air and fell. the others set up a fierce yell, and, as the fearless negro said, 'skipped from tree to tree like grasshoppers.' he bawled out: 'take dat to 'member ben--de black white man!' and the two beat a hasty retreat. "in the family of capt. james estill, who established a station about fifteen miles south of boonesborough, was a negro slave, monk, who was intelligent, bold as a lion, and as faithful to his pioneer friends as though he were a free white settler defending his own rights. about daylight, march , , when all the men of the fort except four were absent on an indian trail, a body of the savages came upon miss jennie glass, who was outside, but near the station, milking--monk being with her. they killed and scalped miss glass and captured monk. when questioned as to the force inside the walls, the shrewd and self-possessed negro represented it as much greater than it was and told of preparations for defense. the indians were deceived, and after killing the cattle, they retreated across the river. when the battle of little mountain opened two days later, monk, who was still a prisoner with the indians cried out: 'don't give way, mas' jim! there's only about twenty-five redskins and you can whip 'em!' this was valuable and encouraging information to the whites. when the indians began to advance on lieutenant miller, when he was sent to prevent a flank movement and guard the horse-holders, monk called also to him to hold his ground and the white men would win. instead of being instantly killed as was to be apprehended, even though the savages might not understand his english, he made his escape before the fight closed and got back to his friends. on their return to the station, twenty-five miles, without sufficient horses for the wounded, he carried on his back, most of the way, james berry, whose thigh was broken. he had learned to make gunpowder, and obtaining saltpetre from peyton's cave, in madison county, he frequently furnished this indispensable article to estill's station and boonesborough. he has been described as being five feet five inches high and weighing two hundred pounds. he was a respected member of the baptist church, when whites and blacks worshipped together. he was held in high esteem by the settlers and his young master, wallace estill, gave him his freedom and clothed and fed him as long as he lived thereafter--till about . "a year or two after the close of the revolutionary war, a mr. woods was living near crab orchard, kentucky, with his wife, one daughter (said to be ten years old), and a lame negro man. early one morning, her husband being away, mrs. woods when a short distance from the house, discovered seven or eight indians in ambush. she ran back into the house, so closely pursued that before she could fasten the door one of the savages forced his way in. the negro instantly seized him. in the scuffle the indian threw him, falling on top. the negro held him in a strong grasp and called to the girl to take an axe which was in the room and kill him. this she did by two well-aimed blows; and the negro then asked mrs. woods to let in another that he with the axe might dispatch him as he came and so, one by one, kill them all. by this time, however, some men from the station nearby, having discovered that the house was attacked, had come up and opened fire on the savages, by which one was killed and the others put to flight." chapter x. from lexington to carrizal. negro in war of --incident of the chesapeake--battle of lake erie--perry's fighters percent negroes--incident of the "governor tompkins"--colonists form negro regiments--defense of new orleans--andrew jackson's tribute--negroes in mexican and civil wars--in the spanish-american war--negroes in the philippines--heroes of carrizal--general butler's tribute to negroes--wendell phillips on toussaint l'ouverture. prior to the actual war of and one of the most conspicuous causes leading to it, was the attack on the chesapeake, an american war vessel. here the negro in the navy figured in a most remarkable degree. the vessel was hailed, fired upon and forced to strike her colors by the british. she was boarded, searched and four persons taken from the crew charged with desertion from the english navy. three of these were negroes and one white. the charge against the negroes could not have been very strong, for they were dismissed, while the white man was hanged. the naval history of our second war with great britain is replete with incidents concerning the participation of the negro. mackenzie's history of the life of commodore perry states that at the famed battle of lake erie, fully ten percent of the american crews were blacks. perry spoke highly of their bravery and good conduct. he said they seemed to be absolutely insensible to danger. his fighters were a motley collection of blacks, soldiers and boys. nearly all had been afflicted with sickness. mackenzie says that when the defeated british commander was brought aboard the "niagara" and beheld the sickly and parti-colored beings around him, an expression of chagrin escaped him at having been conquered by such men. the following extract is from a letter written by commodore nathaniel shaler of the armed schooner "governor tompkins", dated january , . speaking of a fight with a british frigate, he said: "the name of one of my poor fellows who was killed ought to be registered in the book of fame and remembered with reverence as long as bravery is considered a virtue. he was a black man by the name of john johnson. a twenty-four-pound shot struck him in the hip and tore away all the lower part of his body. in this state the poor brave fellow lay on the deck and several times exclaimed to his shipmates: 'fire away, boys; don't haul the colors down.' another black man by the name of john davis was struck in much the same way. he fell near me and several times requested to be thrown overboard, saying he was only in the way of the others. when america has such tars, she has little to fear from the tyrants of the ocean." with the history fresh in mind of the successful negro insurrection in st. domingo, bringing out so conspicuous a military and administrative genius as toussaint l'ouverture, it is not surprising that the services of negroes as soldiers were not only welcomed, but solicited by various states during the war of . excepting the battle of new orleans, almost all the martial glory of the struggle was on the water. new york, however, passed a special act of the legislature and organized two regiments of negro troops, while there was heavy recruiting in other states. when in new orleans was in danger, the free colored people of louisiana were called into the field with the whites. general andrew jackson's commendatory address read to his colored troops december , , is one of the highest compliments ever paid by a commander to his troops. he said: "soldiers!--when, on the banks of the mobile, i called you to take up arms, inviting you to partake of the perils and glory of your white fellow-citizens, i expected much from you; for i was not ignorant that you possessed qualities most formidable to an invading enemy. i knew with what fortitude you could endure hunger and thirst, and all the fatigues of a campaign. i knew well how you loved your native country, and that you, as well as ourselves had to defend what man holds most dear--his parents, wife, children and property. you have done more than i expected. in addition to the previous qualities i before knew you to possess, i found among you a noble enthusiasm, which leads to the performance of great things. "soldiers! the president of the united states shall hear how praiseworthy was your conduct in the hour of danger, and the representatives of the american people will give you the praise your exploits entitle you to. your general anticipates them in applauding your noble ardor." many incidents are on record of the gallantry of negro soldiers and servants also serving as soldiers, in the war with mexico. colonel clay, a son of henry clay, was accompanied into the thick of the battle of buena vista, by his negro servant. he remained by his side in the fatal charge and saw clay stricken from his horse. although surrounded by the murderous mexicans he succeeded in carrying the mangled body of his master from the field. it has been stated and the evidence seems strong, that a negro saved the life of general zachary taylor at the battle of monterey. the story is that a mexican was aiming a deadly blow at the general, when the negro sprang between them, slew the mexican and received a deep wound from a lance. the negro was a slave at the time, but was afterwards emancipated by president taylor. upwards of , colored soldiers were regularly enlisted in the federal army and navy during the civil war. president lincoln commissioned eight negro surgeons for field and hospital duty. losses sustained by the negro troops amounting to upwards of , men, are shown to have been as heavy in proportion to the numbers engaged, as those of the white forces. the record of the negro troops in the civil war is one of uniform excellence. numerous official documents attest this fact, aside from the spoken and written commendations of many high officers. their bravery was everywhere recognized; many distinguished themselves and several attained to the rank of regularly commissioned officers. conspicuous in negro annals of that time is the case of charles e. nash, afterwards a member of congress. he received a primary education in the schools of new orleans, but had educated himself largely by his own efforts. in he enlisted in the rd regiment, united states chasseurs d'afrique and became acting sergeant-major of that command. at the storming of fort blakely he lost a leg and was honorably discharged. another, william hannibal thomas, afterwards became prominent as an author, teacher, lawyer and legislator. his best known book was entitled, "the american negro: what he was, what he is, and what he may become." he served as a soldier during the civil war and lost an arm in the service. the exploit of robert smalls was so brilliant that no amount of unfairness or prejudice has been able to shadow it. it is well known to all students of the war of the rebellion and is recorded in the imperishable pages of history. smalls was born a slave at beaufort, south carolina, but managed to secure some education. having led a sea-faring life to some extent, the early part of the war found him employed as pilot of the rebel transport planter. he was thoroughly familiar with the harbors and inlets of the south atlantic coast. on may , , the planter was in charleston harbor. all the white officers and crew went ashore, leaving on board a colored crew of eight men in charge of smalls. he summoned aboard his wife and three children and at o'clock in the morning steamed out of the harbor, passed the confederate forts by giving the proper signals, and when fairly out of reach, ran up the stars and stripes and headed a course for the union fleet, into whose hands he soon surrendered the ship. he was appointed a pilot in the united states navy and served as such on the monitor keokuk in the attack on fort sumter; was promoted to captain for gallant and meritorious conduct, december , , and placed in command of the planter, a position which he held until the vessel was taken out of commission in . he was a member of the south carolina constitutional convention, ; elected same year to the legislature, to the state senate and , and was a member of the forty-fourth and forty-fifth congresses. among the most inspiring pages of civil war history written by the negro, were the campaigns of port hudson, louisiana; fort wagner, south carolina and fort pillow, kentucky. negro troops participated in the siege of the former place by the federal forces under general banks, which began in may , and ended in the surrender of the fort july , . fort wagner was one of the defenses of charleston. it was reduced by general gilmore, september , and negro troops contributed in a glorious and heroic manner to the result. fort pillow had been taken by the federals and was garrisoned by a negro regiment and a detachment of cavalry. it was recaptured april , by the confederates under general forrest. practically the entire garrison was massacred, an act that will stain forever the name of forrest, and the cause for which he struggled. by the close of the civil war, the value and fitness of the negro as a soldier had been so completely demonstrated that the government decided to enlarge the regular army and form fifty percent of the increase from colored men. in eight new infantry regiments were authorized of which four were to be negroes and four new cavalry regiments of which two were to be negroes. the negro infantry regiments were numbered the th th, th and st. the cavalry regiments were known as the th and th. in there was a general reduction in the infantry forces of the regular army and the th and st were consolidated into one regiment numbered the th and the th and th into one regiment numbered the th. the strength and numerical titles of the cavalry were not changed. for over forty years the colored american was represented in our regular army by those four regiments. they have borne more than their proportionate share of hard service, including many indian campaigns. the men have conducted themselves so worthily as to call forth the best praise of the highest military authorities. general miles and general merritt, actively identified with the indian wars, were unstinting in their commendation of the valor and skill of negro fighters. between and , three colored men were regularly graduated and commissioned from the united states military academy at west point and served in the regular army as officers. they were john h. alexander, charles young and h.o. flipper. the latter was dismissed. all served in the cavalry. alexander died shortly before the spanish-american war and up to the time of his demise, enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his associates, white and black. young became major in the volunteer service during the spanish-american war and was placed in command of the ninth battalion of ohio volunteers. after the spanish-american war he returned to the regular army with a reduced rank, but ultimately became a major in that service. upon america's entry into the european war he was elevated to the rank of colonel. at the breaking out of the spanish-american war in , negro military organizations existed principally in the regular army. these were soon filled to their maximum strength and the desire of negroes north and south to enlist, seemed likely to meet with disappointment. congress, to meet the insistence of colored men for service, authorized the raising of ten negro volunteer regiments of "immunes"--men who had lived in sections where the yellow fever and other malignant or malarial visitations had occurred, and who had suffered from them or shown evidences that they in all probability would be immune from the diseases. the plan to place white men in all commands above the grade of second lieutenant, prevented negroes from enlisting as they otherwise would have done. four immune regiments were organized--the th, th, th and th. several of the states appreciating the value of the negro as a soldier and in response to his intense desire to enlist, placed volunteer negro organizations at the disposal of the government. there were the third alabama and sixth virginia infantry; eighth illinois infantry; companies a and b indiana infantry; thirty-third kansas infantry, and a battalion of the ninth ohio infantry. the eighth illinois was officered by colored men throughout. j.r. marshall its first colonel commanded the regiment during the spanish-american war and did garrison duty in santiago province for some time after the war; being for a while military governor of san luis. gov. russell of north carolina, called out a negro regiment, the third infantry, officered by colored men throughout. colonel charles young commanding. it was not mustered into the service. company l. sixth massachusetts infantry, was a negro company serving in a white regiment. john l. waller, deceased, a negro formerly united states consul to madagascar, was a captain in the kansas regiment. about one hundred negro second-lieutenants were commissioned in the volunteer force during the spanish-american war. there was a negro paymaster, major john r. lynch of mississippi, and two negro chaplains, the rev. c.t. walker of georgia and the rev. richard carroll of south carolina. owing to the briefness of the campaign in cuba, most of the service of negro troops devolved upon the regulars who were fit and ready. but all troops were at mobilization or training bases and willing and anxious to serve. no pages in the history of this country are more replete with the record of good fighting, military efficiency and soldierly conduct, than those recording the story of negro troops in cuba. colonel roosevelt said that the conduct of the ninth and tenth cavalry reflected honor upon the whole american people, especially on their own race. he could hardly say otherwise in view of the splendid support given by those two regiments that--such is, and will continue to be the verdict of history, saved him and his "rough riders" from annihilation at san juan hill. cuba, in her struggles for freedom, had among her own people two splendid negro leaders, antonio and jose maceo. following the cuban campaign, negro troops saw distinguished service in the philippine islands uprisings. they have from time to time since garrisoned and preserved order in those possessions. a very limited number of negro officers have been attached to their racial contingents in the philippines, and there will be found but a few of competent military authority in this country, who will deny that educated, intelligent and qualified negroes, are fitted for positions of leadership and command. the negro of this country is primarily and essentially concerned with the destiny and problems of his race. his work encouraged as it must be, by the laws and spirit of the age, will determine his future and mark the commencement of the elimination of the shameful prejudice against him in the land, for which, from lexington to the bloody trenches of france, he has given of his blood to preserve. before leaving the subject of the negro in previous wars, it is highly fitting to review the heroic incident of june , , at carrizal, mexico. here is a tale of daring that to duplicate, would tax the imagination of war fiction writers, and among incidents of fact will range along with the texans' defense of the alamo, where men fought and perished against great odds. the occasion was the celebrated expedition conducted by general j.j. pershing into mexico in pursuit of the bandit leader villa. a picked detachment consisting of portions of troops c and k of the colored tenth cavalry, was dispatched from pershing's main force towards the town of villa ahumada. the force was commanded by captain charles t. boyd of troop c and captain lewis morey of troop k. lieutenant adair was second in command in troop c to captain boyd. including officers and civilian scouts, the force numbered about men. early on the morning of june , the detachment wishing to pass through the garrisoned town of carrizal, sought the permission of the mexican commander. amidst a show of force, the officers were invited into the town by the commander, ostensibly for a parley. fearing a trap they refused the invitation and invited the mexicans to a parley outside the town. the mexican commander came out with his entire force and began to dispose them in positions which were very threatening to the americans. captain boyd informed the mexican that his orders were to proceed eastward to ahumada and protested against the menacing position of the mexican forces. the mexican replied that his orders were to prevent the americans from proceeding in any direction excepting northward, the direction from which they had just come. captain boyd refused to retreat, but ordered his men not to fire until they were attacked. the mexican commander retired to the flank and almost immediately opened with machine gun fire from a concealed trench. this was quickly followed by rifle fire from the remainder of the force. the mexicans outnumbered the troopers nearly two to one and their most effective force was intrenched. the americans were on a flat plain, unprotected by anything larger than bunches of cactus or sage brush. they dismounted, laid flat on the ground and responded to the attack as best they could. the horses were mostly stampeded by the early firing. the spray of lead from the machine gun had become so galling that captain boyd decided to charge the position. not a man wavered in the charge. they took the gun, the captain falling dead across the barrel of it just as the last mexican was killed or put to flight. lieutenant adair was also killed. the mexicans returned in force and recaptured the position. captain morey had been concerned in warding off a flank attack. his men fought no less bravely than the others. they finally were driven to seek refuge in an adobe house, that is; all who were able to reach it. here they kept the mexicans at bay for hours firing through windows and holes in the walls. captain morey seriously wounded, with a few of his survivors, finally escaped from the house and hid for nearly two days in a hole. the soldiers refused to leave their officer. when they finally were able to leave their place of concealment, the several that were left assisted their captain on the road towards the main force. arriving at a point where reinforcements could be summoned, the captain wrote a report to his commander and sent his men to headquarters with it. they arrived in record time and a party was sent out, reaching the wounded officer in time to save his life. about half of the american force was wiped out and most of the others were taken prisoners. they inflicted a much heavier loss on the mexicans. among the killed was the mexican commander who had ordered the treacherous attack. it may be that "someone had blundered." this was not the concern of the black troopers; in the face of odds they fought by the cactus and lay dead under the mexican stars. in closing this outline of the negro's participation in former wars, it is highly appropriate to quote the tributes of two eminent men. one, general benjamin f. butler, a conspicuous military leader on the union side in the civil war, and wendell phillips, considered by many the greatest orator america ever produced, and who devoted his life to the abolition movement looking to the freedom of the slave in the united states. said general butler on the occasion of the debate in the national house of representatives on the civil rights bill; ten years after the bloody battle of new market heights; speaking to the bill, and referring to the gallantry of the black soldiers on that field of strife: "it became my painful duty to follow in the track of that charging column, and there, in a space not wider than the clerk's desk and three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of of my colored comrades, fallen in defense of their country, who had offered their lives to uphold its flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice; and as i rode along among them, guiding my horse this way and that way, lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as i looked on their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country whose flag had only been to them a flag of stripes, on which no star of glory had ever shone for them--feeling i had wronged them in the past and believing what was the future of my country to them--among my dead comrades there i swore to myself a solemn oath, 'may my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if i ever fail to defend the rights of those men who have given their blood for me and my country this day, and for their race forever,' and, god helping me, i will keep that oath." mr. phillips in his great oration on toussaint l'ouverture, the black of st. domingo; statesman, warrior and libeeator,--delivered in new york city, march , , said among other things, a constellation of linguistic brilliants not surpassed since the impassioned appeals of cicero swept the roman senate to its feet, or demosthenes fired his listeners with the flame of his matchless eloquence; "you remember that macaulay says, comparing cromwell with napoleon, that cromwell showed the greater military genius, if we consider that he never saw an army till he was forty; while napoleon was educated from a boy in the best military schools in europe. cromwell manufactured his own army; napoleon at the age of twenty-seven was placed at the head of the best troops europe ever saw. they were both successful; but, says macaulay, with such disadvantages, the englishman showed the greater genius. whether you allow the inference or not, you will at least grant that it is a fair mode of measurement. "apply it to toussaint. cromwell never saw an army until he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. cromwell manufactured his own army--out of what? englishmen--the best blood in europe. out of the middle class of englishmen, the best blood of the island. and with it he conquered what? englishmen--their equals. this man manufactured his army out of what? out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery, , of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass, he forged a thunderbolt, and hurled it at what? at the proudest blood in europe, the spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in europe, the french, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in europe, the english, and they skulked home to jamaica." the world is acquainted with the treacherous infamy inspired by the great napoleon, that inveigled the black chieftain and liberator of his people on shipboard, the voyage to france, and his subsequent death--starved!--in the dungeon of the prison castle of st. joux. whittier, the poet evangelist, whose inspired verse contributed much to the crystallization of the sentiment and spirit that finally doomed african slavery in america, thus referred to the heartless tragedy and the splendid black who was its victim: "sleep calmy in thy dungeon-tomb, beneath besancon's alien sky, dark haytien!--for the time shall come, yea, even now is nigh-- when, everywhere, thy name shall be redeemed from color's infamy; and men shall learn to speak of thee, as one of earth's great spirits, born in servitude, and nursed in scorn, casting aside the weary weight and fetters of its low estate, in that strong majesty of soul, which knows no color, tongue or clime, which still hath spurned the base control of tyrants through all time!" chapter xi. hour of his nation's peril. negro's partriotic attitude--selective draft in effect--features and results--bold reliance on faith in a people--no color line drawn--distribution of registrants by states--negro and white registrations compared--negro percentages higher--claimed fewer exemptions--inductions by states--better physically than whites--tables, facts and figures. as stated in a previous chapter, the negro's real opportunity to show his patriotic attitude did not come until the passage of the compulsory service law; selective draft, was the name attached to it later and by which it was generally known. on may , , the day the law was enacted by congress, no advocate of preparedness could with confidence have forecasted the success of it. there were many who feared the total failure of it. the history of the united states disclosed a popular adherence to the principle of voluntary enlistment, if not a repudiation of the principle of selection or compulsory military service. it was to be expected that many people would look upon the law as highly experimental; as an act that, if it did not produce grave disorders in the country, would fall short of the results for which it was intended. it was fortunate for the country at this time, that the military establishment possessed in the person of general crowder, one who had made a special study of selective drafts and other forms of compulsory service, not alone in this country, but throughout the nations of the world and back to the beginning of recorded history. he had become as familiar with all phases of it as though it had been a personal hobby and lifetime pursuit. the law was extremely plain and permitted of no guessing or legal quibbling over its terms. it boldly recited the military obligations of citizenship. it vested the president with the most complete power of prescribing regulations calculated to strike a balance between the industrial, agricultural and economic needs of the nation on the one hand and the military need on the other. within days between may , when the law was approved, and june , the day the president had fixed as registration day, a great, administrative machine was built. practically the entire male citizenship of the united states within the age limits fixed by law, twenty-one to thirty years inclusive, presented itself at the , enrollment booths with a registered result of nearly , , names. the project had been so systematized that within hours almost complete registration returns had been assembled by telegraph in washington. the order in which the ten-million registrants were to be called was accomplished on july by a great central lottery in washington. the boards proceeded promptly to call, to examine physically and to consider claims for exemption of over one and one half million men, a sufficient number to fill the first national quota of , . thus in less than three and one-half months the nation had accepted and vigorously executed a compulsory service law. on june , , , men were added to the rolls. on august , , that number was increased by , ; finally on september , , under the provision of the act of august , , , , were added to the lists of those available for military service, which, including interim and other accessions, amounted to a grand total of , , enrolled and subject to the terms of the selective service law. this tremendous exhibition of man power struck terror to the heart of the hun and hastened him to, if possible, deliver a telling blow against the allies before the wonderful strength and resources of the american nation could be brought to bear against him. commenting on the facility with which the selective draft was put into effect, the report of the provost marshall general stated in part: "the expedition and smoothness with which the law was executed emphasized the remarkable flexibility, adaptability and efficiency of our system of government and the devotion of our people. here was a gigantic project in which success was staked not on reliance in the efficiency of a man, or an hierarchy of men, or, primarily, on a system. here was a bold reliance on faith in a people. most exacting duties were laid with perfect confidence on the officials of every locality in the nation, from the governors of states to the registrars of elections, and upon private citizens of every condition, from men foremost in the industrial and political life of the nation to those who had never before been called upon to participate in the functions of government. by all administrative tokens, the accomplishment of their task was magic." no distinction regarding color or race was made in the selective draft law, except so far as non-citizen indians were exempt from the draft. but the organization of the army placed negro soldiers in separate units; and the several calls for mobilization, were, therefore, affected by this circumstance, in that no calls could be issued for negro registrants until the organizations were ready for them. figures of total registration given previously in this chapter include interim accessions and some that automatically went on the rolls after september , . inasmuch as the tables prepared by the provost marshall general's department deal only with those placed on the rolls on regular registration days and do not include the accessions mentioned, comparisons which follow will be based on those tables. they show the total registration as , , , of which , , were white and , , were black. following is a table showing the distribution of colored and white registrants by states: colored total registrants colored june , colored total and white colored registrants colored registrants. to sept , sept , registrants. . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------- united states , , , , , , , , ===================================================== alabama , , , , arizona , arkansas , , , , california , , , , colorado , , , , connecticut , , , , delaware , , , , district of columbia , , , , florida , , , , georgia , , , , idaho , illinois , , , , , indiana , , , , iowa , , , , kansas , , , , kentucky , , , , louisiana . , , , , maine , maryland , , , , massachusetts , , , , michigan , , , , minnesota , , , , mississippi , , , , missouri , , , , montana , nebraska , , , , nevada , new hampshire , new jersey , , , , new mexico , new york , , , , , north carolina , , , , north dakota , ohio , , , , , oklahoma , , , , oregon , pennsylvania , , , , , rhode island , , , , south carolina , , , , south dakota , tennessee , , , , texas , , , , utah , vermont , virginia , , , , washington , , , west virginia , , , , wisconsin , , , wyoming , white registrants white total percent of june , registrants white percent total to sept sept , registrants. of total registrants. . . registrants. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- united states . , , , , , , . =================================================================== alabama . , , , . arizona . , , , . arkansas . , , , . california . , , , . colorado . , , , . connecticut . . , , , . delaware . , , , . district of columbia . , , , . florida . , , , . georgia . , , , . idaho . , , , . illinois . , , , , . indiana . , , , . iowa . , , , . kansas . , , , . kentucky . , , , . louisiana . , , , . maine . , , , . maryland . , , , . massachusetts . , , , . michigan . , , , . minnesota . , , , . mississippi . , , , . missouri . , , , . montana . , , , . nebraska . , , , . nevada . , , , . new hampshire . , , , . new jersey . , , , . new mexico . , , , . new york . , , , , , , . north carolina . , , , . north dakota . , , , . ohio . , , , , . oklahoma . , , , . oregon . , , , . pennsylvania . , , , , , . rhode island . , , , south carolina . , , , . south dakota . , , , . tennessee . , , , . texas . , , , . utah . , , , . vermont . , , , . virginia . , , , . washington . , , , . west virginia . , , , . wisconsin . , , , . wyoming . , , , . results of the classification of december , to september , , in respect to colored and white registrants are shown in the following table: colored and white classification compared. number. percent percent of total of classified. classified. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- total colored and white registered: june , , to sept. , , , . ----- total colored registered , , . . class i , ----- . deferred classes , ----- ----- total white registered , , . . class i , , ----- . deferred classes , , ----- ----- percentage accepted for service on calls before dec. , (report for ). colored ----- ----- . white ----- ----- . it will be seen that a much higher percentage of negroes were accepted for service than of white men. it is true that enlistments which were permitted white men but denied negroes, depleted the whites eligible to class i to some extent. probably there were more negro delinquents in proportion to their numbers in the south than white delinquents. the conditions under which they lived would account for that. delinquents, under the regulations, were placed in class . then there is the undoubted fact that the negro sought and was granted fewer exemptions on the ground of dependency. many negroes in the south, where the rate of pay was low, were put in class i on the ground that their allotment and allowances while in the army, would furnish an equivalent support to their dependents. but whatever the reason, the great fact stands out that a much greater percentage of colored were accepted for service than white men. the following table gives the colored and white inductions by states: total colored colored colored per and white registrants, percentage inducted percent of registrants, june , of colored june , colored june , , , to and white , to registrants. to sept. , sept. , registrants. nov. , . . . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- united states , , , , . , . =================================================================== alabama , , . , . arizona , . . arkansas , , . l , . california , , . . colorado , , . . connecticut , , . . delaware , , . , . district of columbia , , . , . florida , , . , . georgia , , . , . idaho , . . illinois , , . , . indiana , , . , . iowa , , . . kansas , , . , . kentucky , , . , . louisiana , , . , . maine , . . maryland , , . , . massachusetts , , . , . michigan , , . , . minnesota , , . . mississippi , , . , . missouri , , . , . montana , . . nebraska , , . . nevada , . . new hampshire , . . new jersey , , . , . new mexico , . . new york , , , . , . north carolina , , . , . north dakota , . ----- ohio , , . , . oklahoma , , . , . oregon , . . pennsylvania , , . , . rhode island , , . . south carolina , , . , . south dakota , . . tennessee , , . , . texas , , . , . utah , . . vermont , . . virginia , , . , . washington , . . west virginia , , . , . wisconsin , . . wyoming , . . alaska hawaii porto rico white percent of white registrants, colored inductions, percent june , and june , of white , to white , to registrants. sept. , registrants. nov. , . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------- united states , , . , , . ===================================================== alabama , . , . arizona , . , . arkansas , . , . california , . , . colorado , . , . connecticut , . , . delaware , . , . district of columbia , . , . florida , . , . georgia , . , . idaho , . , . illinois , . , . indiana , . , . iowa , . , . kansas , . , . kentucky , . , . louisiana , . , . maine , . , . maryland , . , . massachusetts , . , . michigan , . , . minnesota , . , . mississippi , . , . missouri , . , . montana , . , .o nebraska , . , . nevada , . , . new hampshire , . , . new jersey , . , . new mexico , . , . new york , , . , . north carolina , . , . north dakota , . , . ohio , . , . oklahoma , . , . oregon , . , . pennsylvania , . , . rhode island , . , . south carolina , . , . south dakota , . , . tennessee , . , . texas , . , . utah , o . , . vermont , . , . virginia , . , . washington , . , . west virginia l , . , . wisconsin , . , . wyoming , . , . alaska , hawaii , porto rico , further light on the question of more negroes in proportion to their numbers being selected for service than white men, is found in a comparison of the negroes and whites rejected for physical reasons. the following table gives the figures for the period between december , and september , : colored and white physical rejections compared. number. percent of percent of examined partial disqualifications. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- total, colored and white examined dec. , , to sept. , , , . ----- group a , , . ----- disqualified partly or totally , ----- . group b , . . group c , . . group d , . . total, colored examined , . ----- group a , . ----- disqualified partly or totally , ----- . group b , . . group c , . . group d , . . total white examined , , . ----- group a , , . ----- disqualified partly or totally , ----- . group b , . . group c , . . group d , . . the percentage of negroes unqualifiedly accepted for service, was . % of the number examined; the white men accepted numbered . % of the number examined. the negroes it will be seen rated about % higher physically than the whites. no better refutation could be desired of the charge, having its inspiration in the vanquished, but unrepentant defenders of negro slavery, mourning about its dead carcass, that the negro is deteriorating physically, or that the so-called degenerative influences of civilization affect him in greater degree than they do the white man. chapter xii. negro slackers and pacifists unknown such words not in his vocabulary--desertions explained--general crowder exonerates negro--no willful delinquency--strenuous efforts to meet regulations--no "conscientious objectors"--no draft evaders or resisters--negro's devotion sublime--justifies his freedom--forgets his sorrows--rises above his wrongs--testimony of local boards--german propaganda wasted--a new americanism. the only phase of the selective draft in which the negro seemed to be discredited in comparison with his white brother, was in the matter of desertions. at first glance and without proper analysis, the record appeared to be against the negro. upon detailed study, however, the case takes on a different aspect. the records of the provost marshall general show that out of , reported deserters, , were white registrants, and , colored, the ratio of white reported deserters to white registrants being . , and the ratio of colored reported deserters to colored registrants being . . everyone knows now that many, yes, the bulk of the reported desertions among both whites and blacks, were not desertions at all. circumstances simply prevented the men from keeping in touch with their local boards or from reporting when called. desertions among white registrants might have shown a greater percentage had they not availed themselves of the exemption feature of the law. negroes did not understand this clause in the act so well. besides, as previously stated, many negroes were placed in class , even where they had dependants, because their rate of pay in the army would enable them to contribute as much to the support of their dependants as would their earnings outside of army service. this was a policy with many draft boards, but it is not exactly clear in view of the increased earning power of the negroes through wartime demands for their labor. following are the complete figures on so-called desertions, the variances in the several states being given: total white and colored registrants, june , , to total reported percent of percent of sept. , white desertions, total white . registrants. white. registrants. registrants. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- united states , , , , , . . ======================================================================================== alabama , , , . . arizona , , , . . arkansas , , , . . california , , , . . colorado , , , . . connecticut , , , . . delaware , , . . district of columbia , , . . florida , , , . . georgia , , , . . idaho , , , . . illinois , , , . . indiana , , , . . iowa , , , . . kansas , , , . . kentucky , , , . . louisiana , , , . . maine , , , . . maryland , , , . . massachusetts , , , . . michigan , , , . . minnesota , , , . . mississippi , , , . . missouri , , , . . montana , , , . . nebraska , , , . . nevada , , , . . new hampshire , , , . . new jersey , , , . . new mexico , , , . . new york , , , , , . . north carolina , , , . . north dakota , , , . . ohio , , , . . oklahoma , , , . . oregon , , , . . pennsylvania , , , . . rhode island , , , . . south carolina , , , . . south dakota , , , . . tennessee , , , . . texas , , , . . utah , , , . . vermont , , . . virginia , , , . . washington , , , . . west virginia , , , . . wisconsin , , , . . wyoming , , , . . alaska hawaii porto rico total reported percent percent colored desertions, of total of colored registrants. colored. registrants. registrants. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- united states , , , . . ============================================================================ alabama , , . . arizona . . arkansas , , . . california , . . colorado , . . connecticut , . . delaware , . . district of columbia , . . florida , , . . georgia , , . . idaho . . illinois , , . . indiana , , . . iowa , . . kansas , . . kentucky , , . . louisiana , , . . maine . . maryland , , . . massachusetts , . . michigan , , . . minnesota , . . mississippi , , . . missouri , , . . montana . . nebraska , . . nevada . . new hampshire . . new jersey , , . . new mexico . . new york , , . . north carolina , , . . north dakota . . ohio , , . . oklahoma , , . . oregon . . pennsylvania , , . . rhode island , . . south carolina , , . . south dakota . . tennessee , , . . texas , , . . utah . . vermont . . virginia , , . . washington . . west virginia , , . . wisconsin . . wyoming . . [illustration: negro troops newly arrived in france, lined up for inspection.] [illustration: negro troops on a practice run near their camp in france.] [illustration: presentation of banner to negro stevedores for winning first week's "race to berlin", marseilles, france.] [illustration: negro winners in stevedore contest being entertained by th infantry quartet and band at marseilles, france.] [illustration: going to fight for uncle sam. typical group of negro selective service men leaving for the training camp.] [illustration: negro troops arriving in france. a comparison with the upper picture shows the rapid transformation from civilians to fighting men.] [illustration: "moss's buffaloes" ( th infantry), serenading famous military chieftains in france. in window at left stands general john j. pershing, commander-in-chief of american expeditionary forces; at right general gouraud, commander of the fourth french army.] [illustration: heroes of the brawny arm whose service was no less effective than that of the combatants. a detail of negro railway builders engaged on the line from brest to tours.] [illustration: negro engineers building roads in france. an indispensable feature of the service of supply.] [illustration: negro troops in france enjoy an old-fashioned meal.] [illustration: negro machine gunners on the road near maffrecourt, france. part of th infantry.] [illustration: captain hinton and officers of st battalion. th negro infantry on road near maffrecourt, france.] [illustration: auto horn warns americans of coming gas attack. soldiers don masks and sound the alarm. insert, left corner, machine gunners.] no elaborate defense of the negro will be attempted in the matter of the desertion record. it is not necessary. the words of provost marshall general crowder, the man who knew all about the selective draft and who engineered it through its wonderfully successful course, completely absolved the negro in this connection. the following quotation in reference to the above figures is taken verbatim from the report of general crowder to the secretary of war, dated december , . "these figures of reported desertions, however, lose their significance when the facts behind them are studied. there is in the files of this office, a series of letters from governors and draft executives of southern states, called forth by inquiry for an explanation of the large percentage of negroes among the reported deserters and delinquents. with striking unanimity the draft authorities replied that this was due to two causes; first, ignorance and illiteracy; especially in the rural regions, to which may be added a certain shiftlessness in ignoring civic obligations; and secondly, the tendency of the negroes to shift from place to place. the natural inclination to roam from one employment to another has been accentuated by unusual demands for labor incident to the war, resulting in a considerable flow of colored men to the north and to various munition centers. this shifting reached its height in the summer of , shortly after the first registration, and resulted in the failure of many men to keep in touch with their local boards, so that questionnaires and notices to report did not reach them. "with equal unanimity the draft executives report that the amount of willful delinquency or desertion has been almost nil. several describe the strenuous efforts of the negroes to comply with the regulations, when the requirements were explained to them, many registrants travelling long distances to report in person to the adjutant general of the state. 'the conviction resulting from these reports' says general crowder, 'is that the colored men as a whole responded readily and gladly to their military obligations once their duties were understood." so far as the records show, there were neither "slackers" nor "pacifists" among the negroes. hon. emmett j. scott, special assistant to the secretary of war, said that the war department had heard of only two colored "conscientious objectors". when those two were cross-examined it was revealed that they had misinterpreted their motives and that their objections proceeded from a source very remote from their consciences. pacifists and conscientious objectors came principally from the class who held religious scruples against war or the taking up of arms. the law permitted these to enter a special so-called non-combatant classification. it is a well known fact that negro religionists are members of the church militant, so they could not be included in the self-declared conscientious pacifistic sects. neither was the negro represented in that class known as draft resisters or draft evaders. a very good reason exists in the fact that opposition to the draft came from a class which did not admit the negro to membership. practically all draft resistance was traceable to the activities of radicals, whose fantastic dreams enchanted and seduced the ignorant and artless folk who came under their influence. the resisters were all poor whites led by professional agitators. negroes had no such organizations nor leaders. the part played by the negro in the great world drama upon which the curtain has fallen, was not approached in sublime devotion by that displayed by any other class of america's heterogeneous mixture of tribe and race, hailing from all the ends of the earth, that composes its great and wonderful population. blind in a sense; unreasoning as a child in the sacredness and consecration of his fealty; clamoring with the fervor of an ancient crusader; his eye on heaven, his steps turned towards the holy sepulchre, for a chance to go; a time and place to die, his was a distinct and marked patriotism; quite alone in "splendid isolation" but shining like the sun; unstreaked with doubt; unmixed with cavil or question, which, finally given reign on many a spot of strife in "sunny france"; the stars and stripes above him; a prayer in his heart; a song upon his lips, spelt death, but death glorious; where he fell--holy ground! "the fittest place where man can die is where he dies for man!" a product of slavery, ushered into a sphere of civil and political activity, clouded and challenged by the sullen resentment of his former masters; his soul still embittered by defeat; slowly working his way through many hindrances toward the achievement of success that would enable both him and the world to justify the new life of freedom that had come to him; faced at every hand by the prejudice born of tradition; enduring wrongs that "would stir a fever in the blood of age"; still the slave to a large extent of superstition fed by ignorance, is it to be wondered at that some doubt was felt and expressed by the best friends of the negro, when the call came for a draft upon the man power of the nation; whether, in the face of the great wrongs heaped upon him; the persecutions he had passed through and was still enduring, he would be able to forgive and forget; could and would so rise above his sorrows as to reach to the height and the full duty of citizenship; would give to the stars and stripes the response that was due? on the part of many leaders among the negroes, there was apprehension that the sense of fair play and fair dealing, which is so essentially an american characteristic, when white men are involved, would not be meted out to the members of their race. how groundless such fears, may be seen from the statistical record of the draft with relation to the negro. his race furnished its quota uncomplainingly and cheerfully. history, indeed, will be unable to record the fullness and grandeur of his spirit in the war, for the reason that opportunities, especially for enlistment, as heretofore mentioned, were not opened to him to the same extent as to the whites. but enough can be gathered from the records to show that he was filled not only with patriotism, but of a brand, all things considered, than which there was no other like it. that the men of the negro race were as ready to serve as the white is amply proved by the reports of local boards. a pennsylvania board, remarking upon the eagerness of its negro registrants to be inducted, illustrated it by the action of one registrant, who, upon learning that his employer had had him placed upon the emergency fleet list, quit his job. another registrant who was believed by the board to be above draft age insisted that he was not, and in stating that he was not married, explained that he "wanted only one war at a time." the following descriptions from oklahoma and arkansas boards are typical, the first serving to perpetuate one of the best epigrams of the war: "we tried to treat the negroes with exactly the same consideration shown the whites. we had the same speakers to address them. the rotary club presented them with small silk flags, as they did the whites. the band turned out to escort them to the train; and the negroes went to camp with as cheerful a spirit as did the whites. one of them when asked if he were going to france, replied: 'no, sir; i'm not going "to france". i am going "through france".'" "in dealing with the negroes," the arkansas board report says, "the southern boards gained a richness of experience that is without parallel. no other class of citizens was more loyal to the government or more ready to answer the country's call. the only blot upon their military record was the great number of delinquents among the more ignorant; but in the majority of cases this was traced to an ignorance of the regulations, or to the withholding of mail by the landlord, often himself an aristocratic slacker, in order to retain the man's labor." many influences were brought to bear upon the negro to cause him to evade his duty to the government. some effort in certain sections of the country was made to induce them not to register. that the attempt to spread german propaganda among them was a miserable failure may be seen from the statement of the chief of the bureau of investigation of the department of justice, made to the united states senate committee: "the negroes didn't take to these stories, however, as they were too loyal. money spent in the south for propaganda was thrown away." then too, these evil influences were more than offset by the various publicity and "promotion of morale" measures carried on through the office of the special assistant to the secretary of war, the hon. emmet j. scott, and his assistants. correspondence was kept up with influential negroes all over the country. letters, circulars and news items for the purpose of effecting and encouraging continued loyalty of negro citizens, were regularly issued to the various papers comprising both the white and negro press. a special committee of colored speakers was appointed to deliver public patriotic addresses all over the country, under the auspices of the committee on public information, stating the war aims of the government and seeking to keep unbroken the spirit of loyalty of negro american citizens. a special conference of negro editors was summoned to washington in june, by the same committee in order to gather and disseminate the thought and public opinion of the various leaders of the negro race. such was only a part of the work of the department of the special assistant to the secretary of war in marshalling the man power of the nation. [illustration: negro troops of u.s. army receiving holy baptism while in training for overseas duty at norcross rifle range. camp cordon, ga.] it is only fair to quote the opinion and appreciation of this representative of the negro race of the selective service administration, especially as it affected the negro and in reference to occasional complaints received. the extract is from a memorandum addressed to the office of the provost marshal general on september , and is copied from the report of that official to the secretary of war: "throughout my tenure here i have keenly appreciated the prompt and cordial cooperation of the provost marshall general's office with that particular section of the office of the secretary of war especially referred to herein. the provost marshall general's office has carefully investigated and has furnished full and complete reports in each and every complaint or case referred to it for attention, involving discrimination, race prejudice, erroneous classification of draftees, etc., and has rectified these complaints whenever it was found upon investigation that there was just ground for same. especially in the matter of applying and carrying out the selective service regulations, the provost marshall general's office has kept a watchful eye upon certain local exemption boards which seemed disinclined to treat the negro draftees on the same basis as other americans subject to the draft law. it is an actual fact that in a number of instances where flagrant violations have occurred in the application of the draft law, to negro men in certain sections of the country, local exemption boards have been removed bodily and new boards have been appointed to supplant them. in several instances these new boards so appointed have been ordered by the provost marshall general to reclassify colored men who had been unlawfully conscripted into the army or who had been wrongfully classified; as a result of this action hundreds of colored men have had their complaints remedied and have been properly reclassified." it is also valuable to note the opinion of this representative of his race as to the results of the negroes' participation in the war: "in a word, i believe the negro's participation in the war, his eagerness to serve, and his great courage and demonstrated valor across the seas, have given him a new idea of americanism and likewise have given to the white people of our country a new idea of his citizenship, his real character and capabilities, and his per cent americanism. incidentally the negro has been helped in many ways physically and mentally and has been made into an even more satisfactory asset to the nation." of the negroes inducted into service, nearly all were assigned to some department of the army or to special work in connection with the army. of the few who were permitted to enlist, a very small percentage was permitted to enlist in the navy. of this small number only a few were allowed the regular training and opportunities of combatants, to the discredit of our nation, not as yet, grown to that moral vision and all around greatness, not to be small. chapter xiii roster of negro officers. commissioned at fort des moines--only exclusive negro training camp--mostly from civilian life--names, rank and residence. fort des moines, iowa, was the only training camp established in the united states exclusively for negro officers. a few were trained and commissioned at camps hancock, pike and taylor, and a few received commissions at officers' training camps in france, but the war department records do not specify which were white and which negro. the fort des moines camp lasted from june until october . following is the roster of negro officers commissioned. with the exception of those specified as from the united states army or the national guard, all came from civilian life: cleve l. abbott, first lieutenant, watertown, s.d. joseph l. abernethy, first lieutenant, prairie view, tex. ewart g. abner, second lieutenant, conroe, tex. charles j. adams, first lieutenant, selma, ala. aurelious p. alberga, first lieutenant, san francisco, calif. ira l. aldridge, second lieutenant, new york, n.y. edward i. alexander, first lieutenant, jacksonville, fla. fritz w. alexander, second lieutenant, donaldsville, ga. lucien v. alexis, first lieutenant, cambridge, mass. john h. allen, captain, u.s. army. levi alexander, jr., first lieutenant, ocala, fla. clarence w. allen, second lieutenant, mobile, ala. richard s. allen, second lieutenant, atlantic city, n.j. james w. alston, first lieutenant, raleigh, n.c. benjamin e. ammons, first lieutenant, kansas city, mo. leon m. anderson, first lieutenant, washing ton, d.c. levi anderson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. robert anderson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. david w. anthony, jr., first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. james c. arnold, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. russell c. atkins, second lieutenant, winston-salem, n.c. henry o. atwood, captain, washington, d.c. charles h. austin, second lieutenant, u.s. army. george j. austin, first lieutenant. new york, n.y. herbert avery, captain, u.s. army. robert s. bamfield, second lieutenant, wilmington, n.c. julian c. banks, second lieutenant, kansas city, mo. charles h. barbour, captain, u.s. army. walter b. barnes, first lieutenant, u.s. army. william i. barnes, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. stephen b. barrows, second lieutenant, u.s. army. thomas j. batey, first lieutenant, oakland, cal. wilfrid bazil, second lieutenant, brooklyn, n.y. james e. beard, first lieutenant, u.s. army. ether beattie, second lieutenant, u.s. army. william h. benson, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. albert p. bentley, first lieutenant, memphis, tenn. benjamin bettis, second lieutenant, u.s. army. harrison w. black, first lieutenant, lexington, ky. charles j. blackwood, first lieutenant, trinidad, colo. william blaney, first lieutenant, u.s. army. isaiah s. blocker, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. william d. bly, first lieutenant, leavenworth, kans. henry h. boger, second lieutenant, aurora, ill. elbert l. booker, first lieutenant, wymer, wash. virgil m. boutte, captain, nashville, tenn. jas. f. booker, captain, u.s. army. william r. bowie, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. clyde r. brannon, first lieutenant, fremont, neb. lewis broadus, captain, u.s. army. deton j. brooks, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. william m. brooks, second lieutenant, des moines, ia. carter n. brown, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. emmet brown, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. george e. brown, second lieutenant, new york city, n.y. oscar c. brown, first lieutenant, edwards, miss. rosen t. brown, first lieutenant, u.s. army. samuel c. brown, second lieutenant, delaware, ohio. william h. brown, jr., first lieutenant, u.s. army. arthur a. browne, first lieutenant, xenia, ohio. howard r.m. browne, first lieutenant, kansas city, kans. sylvanus brown, first lieutenant, san antonio, tex. charles c. bruen, first lieutenant, mayslick, ky. william t. burns, first lieutenant, u.s. army. james a. bryant, first lieutenant, indianapolis, ind. william l. bryson, captain, u.s. army. john e. buford, second lieutenant, langston, okla. thomas j. bullock, second lieutenant, new york city, n.y. john w. bundrant, second lieutenant, omaha, neb. john p. burgess, first lieutenant, mullens, s.c. dace h. burns, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. william h. burrell, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. john m. burrell, second lieutenant, east orange, n.j. herman l. butler, first lieutenant, u.s. army, homer c. butler, first lieutenant, new york, n.y. felix buggs, second lieutenant, u.s. army. napoleon l. byrd, first lieutenant, madison, wis. john b. cade, second lieutenant, ellerton, ga. walter w. cagle, first lieutenant, u.s. army. charles w. caldwell, second lieutenant, orangeburg, s.c. andrew b. callahan, second lieutenant, montgomery, ala. alvin h. cameron, first lieutenant, nashville, tenn. alonzo campbell, captain, u.s. army. lafayette campbell, second lieutenant, union, w. va. robert l. campbell, first lieutenant, greensboro, n.c. william b. campbell, first lieutenant, austin, tex. guy w. canady, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. lovelace b. capehart, jr., second lieutenant, raleigh, n.c. adolphus f. capps, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. curtis w. carpenter, second lieutenant, baltimore, md. early carson, captain, u.s. army. john o. carter, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. wilson cary, second lieutenant, u.s. army. robert w. cheers, second lieutenant, baltimore, md. david k. cherry, captain, greensboro, n.c. frank r. chisholm, first lieutenant, brooklyn, n.y. robert b. chubb, captain, u.s. army. ewell w. clark, first lieutenant, giddings, tex. frank c. clark, second lieutenant, national guard, washington, d.c. william h. clarke, first lieutenant, birmingham, ala. william h. clarke, first lieutenant, helena, ark. roscoe clayton, captain, u.s. army. lane g. cleaves, second lieutenant, memphis, tenn. joshua w. clifford, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. sprigg b. coates, captain, u.s. army. frank coleman, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. william collier, second lieutenant, u.s. army. william n. colson, second lieutenant, cambridge, mass. leonard o. colston, first lieutenant, u.s. army. jones a. coltrane, first lieutenant, spokane, wash. john combs, first lieutenant, u.s. army. barton w. conrad, first lieutenant, cambridge, mass. lloyd f. cook, first lieutenant, u.s. army. charles c. cooper, captain, national guard, district of columbia. george p. cooper, first lieutenant, u.s. army. joseph h. cooper, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. chesley e. corbett, first lieutenant, wewoka, okla. harry w. cox, first lieutenant, sedalia, mo. james w. cranson, captain, united states army. horace r. crawford, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. judge cross, first lieutenant, u.s. army. clarence b. curley, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. merrill h. curtis, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. edward l. dabney, first lieutenant, hampton, va. joe dabney, captain, u.s. army. victor r. daly, first lieutenant, corona, long island, n.y. eugene a. dandridge, first lieutenant, national guard, district of columbia. eugene l.c. davidson, first lieutenant, cambridge, mass. henry g. davis, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. irby d. davis, first lieutenant, sumter, s.c. william e. davis, captain, washington, d.c. charles c. dawson, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. william s. dawson, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. aaron day, jr., captain, prairie view, tex. milton t. dean, captain, u.s. army. francis m. dent, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. thomas m. dent, jr., first lieutenant, washington, d.c. james b. dickson, second lieutenant, asheville, n.c. spahr h. dickey, captain, san francisco, cal. elder w. diggs, first lieutenant, indianapolis, ind. william h. dinkins, first lieutenant, selma, ala. beverly l. dorsey, captain, u.s. army. edward c. dorsey, captain, u.s. army. harris n. dorsey, first lieutenant, u.s. army. seaborn douglas, second lieutenant, hartford, conn. vest douglas, first lieutenant, u.s. army. frank l. drye, first lieutenant, little rock, ark. edward dugger, first lieutenant, roxbury, mass. jackson e. dunn, first lieutenant, u.s. army. benjamin f. dunning, second lieutenant, norfolk, va. charles j. echols, jr., captain, u.s. army. charles ecton, captain, u.s. army. george e. edwards, first lieutenant, u.s. army. leonard edwards, second lieutenant, augusta, ga. james l. elliott, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. charles j. ellis, second lieutenant, springfield, ill. harry c. ellis, first lieutenant, patrick, ia. roscoe ellis, captain, u.s. army. leslie h. engram, second lieutenant, montezuma, ga. alexander e. evans, first lieutenant, columbia, s.c. will h. evans, second lieutenant, montgomery, tex. norwood c. fairfax, second lieutenant, eagle rock, va. john r. fairley, first lieutenant, kansas city, mo. clifford l. farrer, first lieutenant, el paso, tex. leonard j. faulkner, first lieutenant, columbus, o. william h. fearence, first lieutenant, texarkana, tex. charles h. fearing, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. robert w. fearing, second lieutenant, brooklyn, n.y. alonzo g. ferguson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. gurnett e. ferguson, captain, dunbar, w. va. thomas a. firmes, captain, u.s. army. dillard j. firse, first lieutenant, cleveland, o. octavius fisher, first lieutenant, detroit, mich. james e. fladger, second lieutenant, kansas city, mo. benjamin f. ford, first lieutenant, u.s. army. edward w. ford, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. frank l. francis, second lieutenant, u.s. army. henry o. franklin, second lieutenant, san francisco, cal. ernest c. frazier, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. arthur freeman, first lieutenant, u.s. army. sewell g. freeman, second lieutenant, aragon, ga. edward s. gaillard, first lieutenant, indianapolis, ind. tacitus e. gaillard, second lieutenant, kansas city, mo. james h.l. gaines, second lieutenant, little rock, ark. ellsworth gamblee, first lieutenant, cincinnati, o. lucian p. garrett, second lieutenant, louisville, ky. william l. gee, first lieutenant, gallipolis, ohio. clayborne george, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. warmith t. gibbs, second lieutenant, cambridge, mass. howard c. gilbert, first lieutenant, columbus, ohio. walter a. giles, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. archie h. gillespie, captain, u.s. army william gillum, captain, u.s. army. floyd gilmer, first lieutenant, u.s. army. william glass, captain, u.s. army. jesse j. gleeden, second lieutenant, little rock, ark. leroy h. godman, captain, columbus, ohio. edward l. goodlett, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. nathan o. goodloe, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. frank m. goodner, first lieutenant, u.s. army. elijah h. goodwin, first lieutenant, u.s. army. james a. gordon, first lieutenant, st. joseph, mo. herbert r. gould, first lieutenant, dedham, mass. james e. gould, first lieutenant, dedham, mass. francis h. gow, first lieutenant, charleston, w. va. william t. grady, second lieutenant, dudley, n.c. jesse m.h. graham, second lieutenant, clarksville, tenn. william h. graham, captain, u.s. army. towson s. grasty, first lieutenant, pittsburgh, pa. thornton h. gray, first lieutenant, fairmount heights, md. miles m. green, captain, u.s. army. thomas e. green, first lieutenant, u.s. army. walter green, captain, u.s. army. jesse j. green, first lieutenant, georgetown, ky. thomas m. gregory, first lieutenant, newark, n.j. jefferson e. grigsby, second lieutenant, chapelle, s.c., thomas grundy, captain, u.s. army. william w. green, captain, u.s. army. george b. greenlee, first lieutenant, marion, n.c. nello b. greenlee, second lieutenant, new york, n.y. herbert h. guppy, second lieutenant, boston, mass. george c. hall, captain, u.s. army. leonidas h. hall, jr., second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. george w. hamilton, jr., first lieutenant, topeka, kans. rodney d. hardeway, second lieutenant, houston, tex. clarence w. harding, first lieutenant, u.s. army. clifton s. hardy, second lieutenant, champaign, ill. clay harper, first lieutenant, u.s. army. ted o. harper, second lieutenant, columbus, ohio. tillman h. harpole, first lieutenant, kansas city, mo. bravid w. harris, jr., first lieutenant, warrenton, n.c. edward h. harris, first lieutenant, u.s. army. eugene harris, captain, u.s. army. william harris, first lieutenant, u.s. army. byrd mcd. hart, captain, u.s. army. albert l. hatchett, first lieutenant, san antonio, tex. lawrence hawkins, second lieutenant, bowie, md. charles m. hayes, second lieutenant, hopkinsville, ky. merriam c. hayson, first lieutenant, kenilworth, d.c. alonzo heard, captain, u.s. army. almando henderson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. douglas j. henderson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. robert m. hendrick, first lieutenant, tallahassee, fla. thomas j. henry, jr., first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. vodrey henry, first lieutenant, u.s. army. jesse s. heslip, first lieutenant, toledo, ohio. lee j. hicks, captain, ottawa, kans. victor la naire hicks, second lieutenant, columbia, mo. arthur k. hill, first lieutenant, lawrence, kans. daniel g. hill, jr., second lieutenant, cantonsville, md. walter hill, first lieutenant, u.s. army. william hill, captain, u.s. army. clarence o. hilton, first lieutenant, farmville, va. lowell b. hodges, first lieutenant, houston, tex. horatio b. holder, first lieutenant, cairo, ga. george a. holland, captain, u.s. army. james g. hollingsworth, captain, u.s. army. george c. hollomand, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. wayne l. hopkins, second lieutenant, columbus, ohio. james l. horace, second lieutenant, little rock, ark. reuben homer, captain, u.s. army. charles s. hough, second lieutenant, jamestown, ohio. charles h. houston, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. henry c. houston, captain, u.s. army. cecil a. howard, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. clarence k. howard, second lieutenant, montgomery, ala. charles p. howard, first lieutenant, des moines, ia. arthur hubbard, first lieutenant, u.s. army. jerome l. hubert, first lieutenant, houston, tex. william h. hubert, second lieutenant, mayfield, ga. jefferson e. hudgins, first lieutenant, u.s. army. samuel m. huffman, first lieutenant, columbus, ohio. samuel a. hull, first lieutenant, jacksonville, fla. john r. hunt, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. bush a. hunter, second lieutenant, lexington, ky. benjamin h. hunton, first lieutenant, newport news, va. frederick a. hurt, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. walter l. hutcherson, first lieutenant, amherst, va. samuel b. hutchinson, jr., second lieutenant, boston, mass. james e. ivey, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. beecher a. jackson, first lieutenant, texarkana, tex. george w. jackson, first lieutenant, ardmore, mo. joseph t. jackson, first lieutenant, charleston, w. va. landen jackson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. matthew jackson, captain, u.s. army. maxey a. jackson, second lieutenant, marian, ky. joyce g. jacobs, second lieutenant, chicago, ill. wesley h. jamison, second lieutenant, topeka, kans. charles jefferson, second lieutenant, u.s. army. benjamin r. johnson, first lieutenant, new york, n.y. campbell c. johnson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. ernest c. johnson, second lieutenant, washington d.c. everett w. johnson, first lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. hanson johnson, captain, u.s. army. hillery w. johnson, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. joseph l. johnson, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. merle o. johnson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. robert e. johnson, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. thomas johnson, captain, u.s. army. virginius d. johnson, first lieutenant, richmond, va. william n. johnson, second lieutenant, omaha, neb. william t. johnson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. willie johnson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. charles a. jones, second lieutenant, san antonio, tex. clifford w. jones, first lieutenant, u.s. army. dee jones, captain, u.s. army. edward d. jones, second lieutenant, hartford, conn. james w. jones, captain, washington, d.c. james o. jones, second lieutenant, paulding, ohio. paul w. jones, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. percy l. jones, second lieutenant, u.s. army. vivian l. jones, second lieutenant, des moines, ia. warren f. jones, captain, u.s. army. william jones, first lieutenant, u.s. army. charles g. kelly, captain, tuskegee, ala. elliott h. kelly, first lieutenant, camden, s.c. john b. kemp, captain, u.s. army. john m. kenney, captain, u.s. army. will kernts, first lieutenant, u.s. army. otho e. kerr, first lieutenant, hampton, va. orestus j. kincaid, first lieutenant, u.s. army. jesse l. kimbrough, first lieutenant, los angeles, cal. moses king, first lieutenant, u.s. army. laurence e. knight, first lieutenant, u.s. army. edward c. knox, first lieutenant, u.s. army. john w. knox, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. azzie b. koger, first lieutenant, reidsville, n.c. linwood g. koger, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. charles e. lane, jr., first lieutenant, washington, d.c. david a. lane, jr., first lieutenant, washington, d.c. frank l. lane, second lieutenant, houston, tex. benton r. latimer, first lieutenant, warrenton, ga. ernest w. latson, first lieutenant, jacksonville, fla. laige i. lancaster, first lieutenant, hampton, va. oscar g. lawless, first lieutenant, new orleans, la. samuel lawson, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. wilfred w. lawson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. geo. e. lee, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. george w. lee, second lieutenant, memphis, tenn. lawrence a. lee, second lieutenant, hampton, va. john e. leonard, first lieutenant, u.s. army. garrett m. lewis, first lieutenant, san antonio, tex. henry o. lewis, first lieutenant, boston, mass. everett b. liggins, second lieutenant, austin, tex. victor c. lightfoot, second lieutenant, south pittsburg, tenn. john q. lindsey, first lieutenant, u.s. army. redden l. linton, second lieutenant, boston, ga. glenda w. locust, second lieutenant, sealy, tenn. aldon l. logan, first lieutenant, lawrence, kans. james b. lomack, first lieutenant, national guard, dist. of columbia. howard h. long, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. victor long, first lieutenant, u. s, army. lonnie w. lott, second lieutenant, austin, tex. charles h. love, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. edgar a. love, first lieutenant, baltimore, md. frank w. love, captain, u.s. army. george b. love, first lieutenant, greensboro, n.c. john w. love, first lieutenant, baltimore, md. joseph lowe, captain, u.s. army. walter lowe, first lieutenant, st louis, mo. charles c. luck, jr., second lieutenant, san marcus, tex. walter lyons, first lieutenant, u.s. army. harry j. mack, second lieutenant, cheney, pa. amos b. madison, first lieutenant, omaha, neb. edgar f. malone, second lieutenant, u.s. army. edgar o. malone, captain, u.s. army. earl w. mann, first lieutenant, champaign, ill. vance h. marchbanks, captain, u.s. army. leon f. marsh, first lieutenant, berkeley, cal. alfred e. marshall, second lieutenant, greenwood, s.c. cyrus w. marshall, second lieutenant, baltimore, md. cuby martin, first lieutenant, u.s. army. joseph h. martin, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. eric p. mason, first lieutenant, giddings, tex. denis mcg. matthews, first lieutenant, los angeles, cal. joseph e. matthews, second lieutenant, cleburne, tex. anderson n. may, captain, atlanta, ga. walter h. mazyck, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. peter mccall, captain u.s. army. milton a. mccrimmon, captain, u.s. army. robert a. mcewen, second lieutenant, e. st. louis, ill. osceola e. mckaine, first lieutenant, u.s. army. james e. mckey, first lieutenant, u.s. army. carey mclane, first lieutenant, u.s. army. archie mclee, first lieutenant, new york, n.y. leonard w. mcleod, first lieutenant, hampton, va. albert mcreynolds, first lieutenant, u.s. army. marshall meadows, first lieutenant, u.s. army. louis r. mehlinger, captain, washington, d.c. louis r. middleton, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. benjamin h. mills, first lieutenant, u.s. army. harry w. mills, captain, u.s. army. warren n. mims, first lieutenant, u.s. army. j. wardlaw mitchell, second lieutenant, milledgeville, ga. pinkney l. mitchell, second lieutenant, austin, tex. john h. mitcherson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. ralph e. mizell, second lieutenant, champaign, ill. hubert m. moman, second lieutenant, tougaloo, miss. john m. moore, first lieutenant, meridian, miss. loring b. moore, second lieutenant, brunswick, ga. elias a. morris, first lieutenant, helena, ark. thomas e. morris, captain, u.s. army. james b. morris, second lieutenant, des moines, ia. cleveland morrow, first lieutenant, u.s. army. henry morrow, first lieutenant, u.s. army. abraham morse, first lieutenant, u.s. army. benjamin h. mosby, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. benedict mosley, first lieutenant, u.s. army. scott a. moyer, second lieutenant, u.s. army. albert c. murdaugh, second lieutenant, columbia, s.c. alonzo myers, captain, philadelphia, pa. thomas j. narcisse, second lieutenant, jeanerette, la. earl h. nash, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. homer g. neely, first lieutenant, palestine, tex. gurney e. nelson, second lieutenant, greensboro, n.c. william s. nelson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. william f. nelson, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. james p. nobles, first lieutenant, u.s. army. grafton s. norman, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. richard m. norris, first lieutenant, u.s. army. ambrose b. nutt, second lieutenant, cambridge, mass. benjamin l. ousley, second lieutenant, tougaloo, miss. charles w. owens, captain, united states army. charles g. owlings, second lieutenant, norfolk, va. william w. oxley, first lieutenant, cambridge, mass. wilbur e. pannell, second lieutenant, staunton, va. charles s. parker, second lieutenant, spokane, wash. walter e. parker, second lieutenant, little rock, ark. clemmie c. parks, first lieutenant, ft. scott, kans. adam e. patterson, captain, chicago, ill. humphrey c. patton, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. clarence h. payne, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. william d. peeks, captain, u.s. army. robert r. penn, first lieutenant, new york, n.y. marion r. perry, second lieutenant, pine bluff, ark. hanson a. person, second lieutenant, wynne, ark. harry b. peters, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. james h. peyton, second lieutenant, montgomery, ala. joseph phillips, captain, columbus, ohio. david a. pierce, second lieutenant, clarksville, tenn. harrison j. pinkett, first lieutenant, omaha, nebr. james c. pinkston, first lieutenant, u.s. army. percival r. piper, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. anderson f. pitts, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. fisher pride, first lieutenant, u.s. army. herman w. porter, second lieutenant, cambridge, mass. james c. powell, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. wade h. powell, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. william j. powell, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. gloucester a. price, second lieutenant, fort meyer, fla. john f. pritchard, first lieutenant, u.s. army. henry h. proctor, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. john h. purnell, first lieutenant, trappe, md. howard d. queen, captain, u.s. army. richard r. queen, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. harold l. quivers, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. washington h. racks, second lieutenant, u.s. army. john e. raiford, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. hazel l. raine, first lieutenant, u.s. army. fred d. ramsey, first lieutenant, wedgefleld, s.c. james o. redmon, second lieutenant, newton, iowa. charles g. reed, first lieutenant, charleston, s.c. rufus reed, captain, u.s. army. lightfoot h. reese, second lieutenant, newman, ga. william l. reese, second lieutenant, bennetsville, s.c. robert s. reid, second lieutenant, newman, ga. samuel reid, captain, u.s. army. adolph reyes, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. elijah reynolds, captain, u.s. army. john f. rice, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. douglas c. richardson, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. harry d. richardson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. leonard. h. richardson, first lieutenant, oakland, cal. maceo a. richmond, second lieutenant, des moines, ia. francis e. rivers, first lieutenant, new haven, conn. marion c. rhoten, first lieutenant, u.s. army. charles e. roberts, first lieutenant, atlantic city, n.j. clyde roberts, second lieutenant, u.s. army. edward robertson, second lieutenant, u.s. army. charles w. robinson, second lieutenant, cleveland, ohio. george c. robinson, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. peter l. robinson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. william w. robinson, first lieutenant, u.s. army. julian p. rogers, first lieutenant, montgomery, ala. john w. rowe, first lieutenant, danville, ky. thomas rucker, captain, u.s. army. edward p. rudd, first lieutenant, new york city. mallalieu w. rush, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. john russell, captain, u.s. army. louis h. russell, second lieutenant, new york, n.y. earl ryder, second lieutenant, springfield, ill. chester sanders, captain, u.s. army. joseph b. sanders, second lieutenant, u.s. army. walter r. sanders, captain, u.s. army. clifford a. sandridge, captain, u.s. army. lorin o. sanford, captain, u.s. army. elliott d. saunders, second lieutenant, u.s. army. walker l. savoy, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. elmer p. sawyer, second lieutenant, providence, r.i. george s. schuyler, first lieutenant, u.s. army. james e. scott, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. james e. scott, first lieutenant, hampton, va. joseph h. scott, first lieutenant, darlington, s.c. walter w. scott, second lieutenant, brooksville, miss. william f. scott, captain, u.s. army. fletcher sewell, captain, u.s. army. shermont r. sewell, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. charles a. shaw, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. warren b. shelton, second lieutenant, hot springs, ark. robert t. shobe, first lieutenant, u.s. army. hal short, first lieutenant, iowa city, ia. harry w. short, second lieutenant, iowa city, ia. ogbon n. simmons, first lieutenant, waldo, fla. richard simmons, captain, u.s. army. william e. simmons, first lieutenant, burlington, vt. austin simms, second lieutenant, darien, ga. john h. simms, jr., first lieutenant, jacksonville, fla. [illustration: artillery at work in a french forest. this was a phase of operation in which the negro units of the th brigade distinguished themselves in the closing days of the war.] [illustration: sentry box outside of regimental headquarters with warning horn for gas attacks. camouflaged gate on the left.] [illustration: one of the huge guns, -inch caliber of the american railway artillery, which did such frightful execution near the close of the war. camouflaged throughout.] [illustration: a railroad in france. this one was used by a portion of the rd division in the champagne to transport troops and supplies to the front.] [illustration: passenger cars used by famous rd. negro division in champagne, france.] [illustration: sending message by carrier pigeon. officer and soldiers of th infantry outside of dugout in france.] [illustration: kitchen and dining quarters at the front. soldiers belong to famous rd division american negro soldiers brigaded with the french.] [illustration: infantry and gunners at close grips. drawing represents a brilliant counter-attack in a shell-torn wood in france.] [illustration: a typical trench scene. negroes of the rd division serving with french in the champagne.] [illustration: secret organizations present at the breaking of the ground for mcdonough memorial hospital, w. rd street, new york. named in honor of mr. david kearney mcdonough, pioneer negro physician of that city. to be used as a base unit for colored soldiers.] [illustration: lieut. john applebee of the red cross home service, comforting and reassuring soldiers anxious about the welfare of their families. camp no. . gievres. france.] [illustration: crown prince and kaiser bill. two german dogs and their captors. the soldiers are privates robinson cleve, th engineers and daniel nelson, nd infantry.] [illustration: types of negro engineers who were such important factors in our overseas forces.] [illustration: four caverns, studded with ivory, furnish harmony in the training camp.] abraham l. simpson, captain, louisville, ky. lawrence simpson, first lieutenant, chicago, ill. william r. smalls, first lieutenant, manassas, va. daniel smith, captain, u.s. army. enos b. smith, second lieutenant, u.s. army. ernest smith, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. fairel n. smith, first lieutenant, orangeburg, s.c. joseph w. smith, second lieutenant, concord, s.c. oscar h. smith, first lieutenant, u.s. army. pitman e. smith, first lieutenant, columbus, ohio. russell smith, first lieutenant, u.s. army. walter h. smith, first lieutenant, chattanooga, tenn. levi e. southe, second lieutenant, chicago, ill. carlos sowards, second lieutenant, u.s. army. edward w. spearman, captain, u.s. army. walter r. st. clair, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. lloyd a. stafford, captain, u.s. army. moody staten, captain, u.s. army. percy h. steele, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. waddell c. steele, first lieutenant, u.s. army. grant stewart, first lieutenant, u.s. army. robert k. stephens, captain, u.s. army. leon stewart, first lieutenant, u.s. army. thomas r. stewart, first lieutenant, ft. wayne, ind. william a. stith, first lieutenant, u.s. army. james m. stockett, jr., first lieutenant, providence, r.i. wilbur f. stonestreet, second lieutenant, topeka, kans. daniel t. taylor, second lieutenant, u.s. army. hannibal b. taylor, second lieutenant, guthrie, okla. pearl e. taylor, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. benjamin f. thomas, captain, u.s. army. bob thomas, captain, u.s. army. vincent b. thomas, second lieutenant, washington, d.c. charles m. thompson, first lieutenant, columbia, s.c. joseph thompson, captain, u.s. army. pierce mcn. thompson, first lieutenant, albany, ga. richard c. thompson, first lieutenant, harrisburg, pa. toliver t. thompson, first lieutenant, houston, tex. william h. thompson, first lieutenant, jacksonville, fla. william w. thompson, captain, united states army. james w. thornton, first lieutenant, west raleigh, n.c. leslie j. thurman, captain, u.s. army. samuel j. tipton, captain, u.s. army. frederick h. townsend, second lieutenant, newport, r.i. anderson trapp, first lieutenant, u.s. army. charles a. tribbett, first lieutenant, new haven, conn. joseph e. trigg, captain, syracuse, n.y. archibald r. tuck, second lieutenant, oberlin, o. victor j. tulane, first lieutenant, montgomery, ala. william j. turnbow, first lieutenant, u.s. army. allen turner, first lieutenant, u.s. army. edward turner, first lieutenant, omaha, nebr. samuel turner, second lieutenant, u.s. army. shadrach w. upshaw, second lieutenant, austin, tex. ferdinand s. upshur, second lieutenant, philadelphia, pa. george l. vaughn, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. austin t. walden, captain, macon, ga. john p. walker, first lieutenant, u.s. army. lewis w. wallace, captain, u.s. army. thomas h. walters, first lieutenant. new york, n.y. robert l. ward, first lieutenant, detroit, mich. james h.n. waring, jr., first lieutenant, washington, d, c. genoa s. washington, captain, u.s. army. george g. washington, second lieutenant, u.s. army. bolivar e. watkins, first lieutenant, st. louis, mo. alstyne m. watson, second lieutenant, tallapoosa, ga. baxter w. watson, second lieutenant, u.s. army. louis l. watson, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. william h. weare, first lieutenant, u.s. army. walter t. webb, first lieutenant, baltimore, md. carter w. wesley, first lieutenant, houston, tex. harry wheeler, first lieutenant, u.s. army. chauncey d. white, first lieutenant, mathews, va. emmett white, captain, u.s. army. journee w. white, second lieutenant, los angeles, cal. lorenzo c. white, second lieutenant, hampton, va. johnson c. whittaker, first lieutenant, lawrence, kans. horace g. wilder, second lieutenant, u.s. army. arthur r. williams, second lieutenant, edwards, miss. everett b. williams, first lieutenant, syracuse, n.y. gus williams, first lieutenant, u.s. army. james b. williams, first lieutenant, baltimore, md. john williams, second lieutenant, u.s. army. oscar h. williams, second lieutenant, new york, n.y. richard a. williams, captain, lawnside, n.j. robert g. williams, first lieutenant, u.s. army. seymour e. williams, second lieutenant, muskogee, okla. major williams, second lieutenant, u.s. army. walter b. williams, captain, u.s. army. william h. williams, captain, u.s. army. elmore s. willie, first lieutenant, u.s. army. harry e. wilson, first lieutenant, des moines, ia. john e. wilson, first lieutenant, leavenworth, kans. william h. wilson, second lieutenant, greensboro, n.c. meredith b. wily, first lieutenant, el paso, tex. christopher c. wimbish, first lieutenant, atlanta, ga. hugh h. wimbish, second lieutenant, atlanta, ga. rolland t. winstead, second lieutenant, rocky mount, n.c. george w. winston, captain, united states army. ernest m. wood, second lieutenant, mebane, n.c. benjamin f. wright, second lieutenant, new york, n.y. elbert s. wright, second lieutenant, baldwin, kans. john wynn, second lieutenant, u.s. army. edward york, captain, united states army. charles young, first lieutenant, u.s. army. william a. young, second lieutenant, sumter, s.c. charles g. young, first lieutenant, washington, d.c. chapter xiv. across dividing seas. black thousands assemble--soldiers of liberty--severing home ties--man's work must be done--first negroes in france--meeting with french colonials--early history of th new york--they sail away--become french fighting men--hold % of american lines--terror to germans--only barrier between boche and paris--imperishable record of new yorkers--turning point of war. "doan you see the black clouds ris'n ober yondah like as tho we's gwan ter hab a storm? no, you's mistaken, dem's "loyal black folks sailing off ter fight fer uncle sam." from the plantations of the south, from the mines, the workshops and factories; from the levees of the mississippi, the cities, villages, farms of the north, the east, the south, the west; from the store, the counting house, the office and the institution of learning they came--the black thousands to strike for their altars and their homes; to fight for uncle sam. how splendid was the spectacle of their response! "their's not to ask the why; their's but to do and die." bearing the burden placed upon them by white men as they have for centuries, nevertheless, in this supreme moment of their country's life; "a day that shall live in story"; many of them did not know what it all was about; where germany was located, nor the significance attaching to the word hun. in a vague way they understood that across the sea an armed and powerful nation was threatening the happiness of mankind; the freedom of the world. in the presence of this contemplated crime, they were wide-eyed, open-souled, awake! their sires had known bondage, and they, their children, had felt and knew the effects of it. america which for centuries had oppressed their forefathers had finally through the arbitrament of war, freed them. white men and black men; in the dark days of ' -' , numbering many thousands, had lain down their lives to save the union, and in doing so had brought them freedom. they had been told that america was threatened; that was enough. it was to them a summons; sharp, quick, incisive to duty. it was, although one hundred and forty years after, the voice of washington at valley forge; the call of perry to their fathers, needing soldiers at the battle of lake erie; of jackson at new orleans. it was to their listening ears the echo of bull run, of santiago, of manila, and later of carrizal; uncle sam needed them! that was enough; what more was to be said? denied the opportunity to enlist, the negro's patriotic, patient soul asserted itself; if he must go as a drafted soldier, it would be in the same fine spirit that would have inspired him as a loyal enlisted man. life, as to all men, was sweet to them. they had mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, wives and sweethearts; the ties of association; of home, from all of which they would be separated and for all of which they cherished that love, which alone of human fires: "burns and burns, forever the same, for nature feeds the pyre." above and over all these things, tending to augment the seriousness of the sacrifice he was to be called upon to make, was the spirit, the optimism, the joy of life that attends vigorous youth and young manhood. nature in all of its enticing charm and beauty, was smiling in the home places these men were leaving; flowers bloomed; birds sang; insects buzzed cheerily. there were green fields and babbling brooks; the stately beauty of trees, and the delights of lake, river and vale. the cities from which they came, were many of them, splendid monuments of the work of man. the sun clothed in glory the days, moon and stars gave a loveliness to the nights. leaving these things to face suffering and hardship; possible death in strange lands, caused many a pang; but a man's work had to be done, and they were there to do it. well they knew there would be no chance in france to follow the wild bee to its tree; to track the fox or hunt the 'possum or the coon. the hum they would hear would be that of machine gun bullets; their sting, death or serious wounding. for game they would hunt the hun; would kill or be by him killed. there were busy times in thousands of homes when the young negroes of the land; from east, west, north and south went forth to war. bright faces hiding the pangs of parting; happy, singing lads left their homes to enter a new life on earth or, the tragedy of it; also the glory; a new life in the great beyond; beyond the stars and flaming suns. the training camp was their first destination and was to be their home for months. correspondents in france wrote of negro soldiers being among the first expeditionary force to set foot upon the soil of the battle torn republic. this force arrived there in june, , and was composed of marines and infantry from the regular army. floyd gibbons, the intrepid representative of the chicago tribune, speaking of the first negro contingents in his remarkable book entitled, "and they thought we wouldn't fight", said: "there was to be seen on the streets of st. nazaire that day some representative black americans, who had also landed in that historical first contingent. there was a strange thing about these negroes. it will be remembered that in the early stages of our participation in the war it had been found that there was hardly sufficient khaki cloth to provide uniforms for all of our soldiers. that had been the case with these american negro soldiers. "but somewhere down in washington, somehow or other, someone resurrected an old, large heavy iron key and this, inserted into an ancient rusty lock, had opened some long forgotten door in one of the government arsenals. there were revealed old dust-covered bundles wrapped up in newspapers, yellow with age, and when these wrappings of the past were removed, there were seen the uniforms of old union blue that had been laid away back in ' --uniforms that had been worn by men who fought and bled and died to save the union, and ultimately free those early 'black americans'. "and here on this foreign shore, on this day in june more than half a century later, the sons and grandsons of those same freed slaves wore those same uniforms of union blue as they landed in france to fight for a newer freedom; freedom for the white man no less than themselves, throughout all the earth. "some of these negroes were stevedores from the lower mississippi levees; who sang as they worked in their white army undershirts, across the chest of which were penciled in blue and red, strange mystic devices, religious phrases and other signs, calculated to contribute the charm of safety to the running of the submarine blockade. "two of these american negroes, walking up the main street of st. nazaire, saw on the other side of the thoroughfare a brother of color wearing the lighter blue uniform of a french soldier. this french negro was a colonial black from the north of africa and of course had spoken nothing but french from the day he was born. one of the american negroes crossed the street and accosted him. "'looka here, boy', he inquired good-naturedly, 'what can you all tell me about this here wah?' "'comment, monsieur?' responded the non-understanding french black, and followed the rejoinder with a torrent of excited french. "the american negro's mouth fell open. for a minute he looked startled, and then he bulged one large round eye suspiciously at the french black while he inwardly debated on the possibility that he had become color-blind. having reassured himself, however, that his vision was not at fault, he made a sudden decision and started on a new tack. "'now, never mind that high-faluting language' he said, 'you all just tell me what you know about this here wah and quit you' putting on aihs.' "the puzzled french negro could only reply with another explosion of french interrogations, coupled with vigorous gesticulations. the american negro tried to talk at the same time and both of them endeavoring to make the other understand, increased the volumes of their tones until they were standing there waving their arms and shouting into one another's faces. the american gave it up. "'my gawd', he said shaking his head as he recrossed the street and joined his comrades, 'this is sure some funny country. they got the ignorantest colored people here i ever saw.'" it has been noted that the first negro combatant regiment to reach france was the celebrated national guard organization known as the th new york infantry, rechristened the th when made a part of the rd division of the united states army. this was such a well drilled and equipped regiment that early in the war it was permitted to go across with the first , ; all of which was due to the aggressiveness and insistence of its white commander, colonel william hayward. he simply gave the war department no rest, stating that he was willing his men should unload ships, fell trees and build docks or cantonments so long as they were permitted to sail. the regiment had been organized by colonel hayward at the suggestion of governor whitman of new york. it was to be patterned after the th illinois where colored men of means sufficient to support commissions, were the officers. the regiment was started in june and by october had , in the ranks. colonel hayward was the only white officer, the negro commission-holders at that time being captain marshall, captain fillmore, lieutenant lacey, lieutenant reed and lieutenant europe. the latter was attached to the machine gun section but became later the famous musician of the outfit. he was the only negro officer who remained with the regiment throughout, the others being superseded or transferred after several months service in france. early in , the federal government said it would recognize the regiment if it could muster fifty-one officers. as recruiting had been slow and a negro regiment in new york was looked upon as an experiment, colonel hayward was obliged to secure the needed officers from among his friends in the th new york, the motor battery, squadron a and other organizations. by this time the enlisted strength had grown to , . on april , , two days after the united states entered the war, the regiment was inspected by federal officers and a week later was recognized as a regular unit of the federal guard. but, as the colonel expressed it, they were a "street urchin of a regiment." they had no armory, no place to drill except in the open and no place where more than a single company at a time could meet. in his post-war observations, the colonel has noted that when the regiment returned to these shores and was feasted and entertained by the people of new york in the st regiment armory, it was the first occasion on which the old th was ever assembled under one roof. after its federal recognition the regiment was sent to the peekskill rifle range to learn to shoot, a valuable experience as developed later. many of the boys became expert marksmen, a skill that became of precious value to them and their comrades. in june, , they went to a war strength of , men and officers. one battalion did pioneer work at camp upton, another at camp dix. a third guarded miles of railroads in new york, new jersey and pennsylvania. the machine gun company guarded , interned spies and pro-german prisoners at ellis island. colonel hayward has pointed with pride to the fact that in all their territory there was not a wreck, an explosion, an escaped prisoner or any other trouble. two battalions later went to spartanburg for training, but remained there only a couple of weeks. "i wonder what got those colored boys to volunteer" someone asked their colonel as they were embarking for france. he replied: "i have often thought of that. with many the cause was sheer patriotism. others said they had gone into the th for social reasons, to meet with their friends. one--this seemed to me a most pathetic touch--said: 'i j'ined up because when colonel hayward asked me it was the first time anyone had ever asked me to j'ine up with anything in my whole lifetime.'" if any great amount of superstition had existed among the men or officers of the new york regiment, they would have been greatly depressed over the series of incidents that preceded their arrival in france. in the first place they had been assigned to police and pioneer duty at camps near new york, a duty which no fighting man relishes. they embarked on the transport pocahontas november , . two hundred miles at sea a piston rod was bent and the vessel put back to port. they got away again december , were out a day and had to return on account of fire in the coal bunkers. a third attempt on december , in a blizzard, was frustrated by a collision with a tanker in new york harbor. after this series of bad starts, anyone inclined to indulge in forebodings would have predicted the certainty of their becoming prey for the submarines on the way over. but the fourth attempt proved successful and they landed in france on december , . they had hoped to celebrate christmas day on french soil, but were forced by the elements and the precautions of convoys and sailing master to observe the anniversary on board the ship. the colonel undoubtedly thought that those first in france would be the first to get a chance at the boche, but the department took him at his word, and for over two months his men were kept busy in the vicinity of st. nazaire, largely as laborers and builders. early in they went into training quarters near st. nazaire. the st, another negro regiment, made up of draft selectives principally from south carolina, was later given quarters nearby. the black soldiers of the th were brigaded as a part of the th division of the th corps of the th french army. from st. nazaire they went to givrey-en-argonne, and there in three weeks the french turned them into a regulation french regiment. they had lebel rifles, french packs and french gas masks. for days they were in the trenches or on the field of battle. in april, , the regiment held percent of all the territory held by american troops, though it comprised less than one percent of all the american soldiers in france. officers of the th reported for an entire year only six cases of drunkenness, and twenty-four of serious disease. the regiment fought in the champagne, in the vosges mountains, on the aisne, at main de massiges, butte de mesnil, dormouse, sechault, the argonne, ripont, kuppinase, tourbe, and bellevue ridge. it was the first unit of any of the allied armies to reach the left bank of the rhine following the signing of the armistice, moving from thann on november th and reaching blodesheim the next day. negro soldiers were a source of terror to the germany throughout the war, and objects of great curiosity to the german people afterwards. wherever they appeared in the area occupied by the americans they attracted great attention among the civilians. in treves, coblenz and other places during the early days of the occupation, crowds assembled whenever negro soldiers stopped in the streets and it became necessary for the military police to enforce the orders prohibiting gatherings in the public thoroughfares. returning soldiers have told how they were followed in the german towns by great troops of stolid, wide-eyed german children who could not seem to decide in their minds just what sort of being these negro fighters were. the curiosity of the children no doubt was inspired by stories told among their elders of the ferocity of these men. the associated press has related a conversation with a discharged german soldier in rengsdorf, in which it is stated that the german army early in the war offered a reward for the capture alive of each negro. the soldier said that throughout the war the germans lived in great terror of the negroes, and it was to overcome this fear that rewards were offered. one evening on the front a scouting party composed of ten germans including the discharged soldier, encountered two french negroes. in the fight which followed two of the scouting party were killed. one of the negroes escaped the other being taken prisoner. during the fight two of the germans left their comrades and ran to the protection of their own trenches, but these it was explained, were young soldiers and untrained. the reward of marks subsequently was divided among the remaining six germans for capturing the one french negro. the rd division, which was made up of the th, th, st and the nd regiments of infantry, was put into service green, so green they did not know the use of rockets and thought a gas alarm and the tooting of sirens meant that the germans were coming in automobiles. the new york regiment came largely from brooklyn and the district around west th street in new york city, called san juan hill in reference to certain notable achievements of negro troops at a place of that name in the spanish-american war. they learned the game of war rapidly. the testimony of their officers was to the effect that it was not hard to send them into danger--the hard part being to keep them from going into it of their own accord. it was necessary to watch them like hawks to keep them from slipping off on independent raiding parties. the new york regiment had a band of pieces, second to none in the american army. it is stated that the officers and men in authority in the french billeting places had difficulty in keeping the villagers from following the band away when it played plantation airs and syncopations as only negroes can play them. on april , , the th took over a sector of - / kilometers in the bois de hauzy on the left of a fringe of the argonne forest. there they stayed until july st. there was no violent fighting in the sector, but many raids back and forth by the negroes and the germans, rifle exchanges and occasionally some artillery action. one important engagement occurred june th, which the soldiers called the million dollar raid, because they thought the preparatory barrage of the germans must have cost all of that. the germans came over, probably believing they would find the negro outfit scared stiff. but the negro lads let them have grenades, accurate rifle fire and a hail from some concealed machine gun nests. sergt. bob collins was later given the croix de guerre for his disposition of the machine guns on that occasion. while holding the sector of hauzy wood, the th was the only barrier between the german army and paris. however, had there been an attempt to break through, general gouraud, the french army commander, would have had strength enough there at once to stop it. about this time everyone in the allied armies knew that the supreme german effort was about to come. it was felt as a surety that the brunt of the drive would fall upon the th french army, of which the th regiment and other portions of the american rd division were a part. this army was holding a line kilometers long, stretching between rheims and the argonne forest. it was the intention of the germans to capture chalons and then proceed down the marne valley to paris. it was expected that the big german drive would begin on july th, but as it turned out it did not begin until the night of the th--the french national holiday. on july st, the th had been moved from its sector further toward the east where the center of the attack was expected. upon the th of july the french made a raid for the purpose of getting prisoners and information. this had a tremendous effect upon the whole course of the war, for through it general gouraud's staff learned that at midnight the boche artillery preparation was to begin, and at : o'clock on the morning of the th the germans were coming over the top. this phase of the operation is described by col. hayward as follows: "this is what gen. gouraud--pa gouraud we called him--did: he knew the boche artillery would at the appointed hour start firing on our front lines, believing as was natural, that they would be strongly held. so he withdrew all his forces including the old th, to the intermediate positions, which were at a safe distance back of the front lines. then, at the point where he expected would be the apex of the drive he sent out two patrols, totalling sixteen men. "these sixteen had certain camouflage to perform. they were to set going a certain type of french machine gun which would fire of its own accord for awhile after being started off. they were to run from one of these guns to the other and start them. also the sixteen were to send up rockets, giving signals, which the germans of course knew as well as we. then again they were to place gas shells--with the gas flowing out of them--in all the dugouts of the first line. meanwhile the french artillery had registered directly on our own front trenches, so that it could slaughter the germans when they came across, believing those trenches to be occupied as usual. "everything worked out as expected, and as luck had it, most of those gallant sixteen frenchmen got back safely. "five minutes before the germans started their artillery preparation for the drive gen. gouraud started his cannon going and there was a slaughter in the german lines. then when the german infantry crossed to our front line trenches (now entirely vacant) they were smashed up because the french guns were firing directly upon these positions, which they knew mathematically. and those of the boche who went down in the dugouts for safety were killed by the gas which the frenchmen had left there for them. "this battle--the supreme german drive--raged over eighty-five kilometers ( miles). west of rheims the enemy broke through the line, but they did not break through anywhere in gen. gouraud's sector. stonewall gouraud stopped them. the american units which took in the defense that was so successful were the nd division, including the gallant th of new york, who were to the west of us, our own little regiment, and the american railroad artillery. "that was the turning point of the war, because soon thereafter began marshal foch's great counter thrust, in which the st and nd american divisions participated so wonderfully about belleau wood, chateau-thierry and that district. gouraud in my belief, turned the tide of the war, and i am proud that the new york city colored boys had a share of that vital fight. "right here i may say that this orphan, urchin regiment of ours placed in the pathway of the boche in the most significant battle the world has ever known, had only thirty-seven commissioned officers, and four of those wounded, had to be carried in stretchers to their positions in the trenches in order to direct the fighting." colonel hayward was himself in the hospital with a broken leg. disregarding the orders of the surgeons he went to the front line on crutches and personally directed his men in the fight. in all of his written and quoted utterances since the war, he has refrained from mentioning this fact, but it is embodied in the regimental records. shortly after the french national holiday, the th was sent about kilometers west to a position in front of the butte de mesnil, a high hill near maison en champagne, occupied by the germans. around that district they held half a dozen sectors at different times with only one week of rest until september th. artillery duels were constant. it is related that near the butte de mesnil the regiment lost a man an hour and an officer a day from the shell fire of the boche. so accurate were the gunners handling the german s that frequently a solitary soldier who exposed himself would actually be "sniped" off by a cannoneer. in the september fighting the th saw the toughest period of its entire service. in company with a moroccan negro unit and others, the regiment participated in the attack on the butte de mesnil. the new yorkers took the important town of sechault and it was for that exploit that their flag was decorated with the croix de guerre. throughout the western argonne fighting and the various sectors of the champagne in which the th operated, especially during the months of july, august and september, their service was typical of that of other units of the rd division. the going was tough for all of them and each contributed everlasting fame to american arms and undying renown to the negro race. heroes of the old th infantry. officers and men of the th new york colored regiment awarded the croix de guerre for gallantry in action: sergt. a.a. adams corp. john allen lieut. r.r. dearmond lieut. g.a. arnston corp. farrandus baker sergt. e.w. barrington sergt m.w. barron sergt. william d. bartow capt. aaron t. bates corp. fletcher battle corp. r. bean corp. j.s. beckton pvt. myril billings sergt. ed. bingham lieut. j.c. bradner pvt. arthur brokaw pvt. h.d. brown pvt. t.w. brown lieut. elmer c. bucher pvt. wm. h. bunn sergt. wm. butler pvt. j.l. bush sergt. joseph carmen corp. t. catto corp. g.h. chapman sergt. major benedict w. cheesman capt. john h. clarke, jr. lieut. p.m. clendenin capt. frederick w. cobb sergt. robert collins lieut. j.h. connor sergt. wm. h. cox sergt c.d. davis lieut. charles dean pvt. p. demps wagoner martin dunbar corp. elmer earl pvt. frank ellis sergt. sam fannell capt. robt. f. ferguson, jr. capt. charles w. fillmore capt. edward j. farrell capt. hamilton fish, jr. capt edwin r.d. fox lieut. conrad fox sergt. richard w. fowler pvt. roland francis pvt. b. freeman pvt. i. freeman sergt wm. a. gains wagoner richard o. goins pvt. j.j. gordon lieut. r.c. grams pvt. stillman hanna pvt. hugh hamilton pvt. g.e. hannibal pvt. frank harden pvt. frank hatchett corp. ralph hawkins colonel wm. hayward lieut. e.h. holden sergt. wm. h. holliday corp. earl horton pvt. g. howard lieut. stephen h. howey sergt. major clarence c. hudson pvt. ernest hunter sergt. s. jackson corp. clarence johnson sergt. d.f. johnson pvt. gilbert johnson sergt. george jones lieut. gorman r. jones sergt. james h. jones pvt. smithfield jones pvt. j.c. joynes lieut. w.h. keenan lieut. elwin c. king lieut. harold m. landon lieut. nils h. larsen major david a. l'esperance lieut. w.f. leland pvt. d.w. lewis pvt. w.d. link major arthur w. little lieut. walter r. lockhart sergt. b. lucas pvt. lester a. marshall pvt. lewis martin sergt. a.j. mcarthur capt. seth b. macclinton pvt. elmer mcgowan pvt. herbert mcgirt capt. comerford mcloughlin pvt. l. mcvea sergt. h. matthews sergt. jesse a. miller sergt wm. h. miller sergt. e. mitchell pvt. herbert mills corp. m. molson lieut. e.d. morey sergt. w. morris sergt. g.a. morton lieut. e.a. nostrand sergt. samuel nowlin capt. john o. outwater lieut. hugh a. page lieut. oliver h. parish sergt. c.l. pawpaw pvt. harvey perry sergt. clinton peterson lieut. col. w.a. pickering lieut. richardson pratt sergt. john pratt sergt. h.d. primas pvt. jeremiah reed lieut. durant rice pvt. john rice sergt. samuel richardson sergt charles risk pvt. f. ritchie lieut. g.s. robb corp. fred rogers pvt. lionel rogers pvt. george rose lieut. r.m. rowland sergt. percy russell sergt. l. sanders pvt. william sanford lieut. h.j. argent pvt. marshall scott capt. lewis e. shaw capt. samuel shethar lieut. hoyt sherman major g. franklin shiels pvt. a. simpson sergt. bertrand u. smith pvt. daniel smith sergt. herman smith corp. r.w. smith major lorillard spencer sergt. j.t. stevens corp. dan storms lieut. george f. stowell corp. t.w. taylor lieut. frank b. thompson sergt. lloyd thompson sergt. a.l. tucker sergt. george valaska lieut. d.h. vaughan capt. edward a. walton capt charles warren sergt. leon washington pvt. casper white capt. james d. white sergt. jay white sergt. jesse j. white sergt. c.e. williams pvt. robert williams sergt. reaves willis pvt. h. wiggington sergt. l. wilson pvt. tim winston sergt. e. woods pvt. george wood lieut. a.d. worsham sergt. e.c. wright sergt. henry johnson pvt. needham roberts chapter xv. over there. henry johnson and needham roberts--the tiger's cubs--negro first to get palm--johnson's graphic story--smashes the germans--irvin cobb's tribute--christian and mohammedan negroes pals--valor of rd division--laughter in face of death--negro and poilu happy together--butte de mesnil--valiant and humorous elmer mccowin--winning war crosses--verdict of the french--the negro's faith. a most conspicuous negro hero of the war, and for that matter of any race serving with the american army, was sergeant henry johnson of albany, n.y. his exploit was shared by a company mate, needham roberts. for pure bull dog grit and tigerish fighting, the exploit has seldom, if ever, been equalled in the annals of any war. it resulted in the war crosses for each with a special citation, and the whole french force in that section of the champagne lined up to see them get the decorations. across the red and green ribbon of johnson's decoration was a golden palm, signifying extraordinary valor. johnson was the first private of any race in the american army to get the palm with his croix de guerre. here is the story as told in johnson's own words after his arrival back in new york: "there isn't so much to tell", said johnson with characteristic modesty. "there wasn't anything so fine about it. just fought for my life. a rabbit would have done that. "well, anyway, me and needham roberts were on patrol duty on may . the corporal wanted to send out two new drafted men on the sentry post for the midnight-to-four job. i told him he was crazy to send untrained men out there and risk the rest of us. i said i'd tackle the job, though i needed sleep. "german snipers had been shooting our way that night and i told the corporal he wanted men on the job who knew their rifles. he said it was imagination, but anyway he took those green men off and left needham and me on the posts. i went on at midnight. it was moonlight. roberts was at the next post. at one o'clock a sniper took a crack at me from a bush fifty yards away. pretty soon there was more firing and when sergeant roy thompson came along i told him. "'what's the matter men' he asked, 'you scared?' "'no i ain't scared', i said, 'i came over here to do my bit and i'll do it. but i was jes' lettin' you know there's liable to be some tall scrappin' around this post tonight'. he laughed and went on, and i began to get ready. they'd a box of hand grenades there and i took them out of the box and laid them all in a row where they would be handy. there was about thirty grenades, i guess. i was goin' to bust that dutch army in pieces if it bothered me. "somewhere around two o'clock i heard the germans cutting our wire out in front and i called to roberts. when he came i told him to pass the word to the lieutenant. he had just started off when the snippin' and clippin' of the wires sounded near, so i let go with a hand grenade. there was a yell from a lot of surprised dutchmen and then they started firing. i hollered to needham to come back. "a german grenade got needham in the arm and through the hip. he was too badly wounded to do any fighting, so i told him to lie in the trench and hand me up the grenades. "'keep your nerve' i told him. 'all the dutchmen in the woods are at us, but keep cool and we'll lick 'em.' roberts crawled into the dugout. some of the shots got me, one clipped my head, another my lip, another my hand, some in my side and one smashed my left foot so bad that i have a silver plate holding it up now. "the germans came from all sides. roberts kept handing me the grenades and i kept throwing them and the dutchmen kept squealing, but jes' the same they kept comin' on. when the grenades were all gone i started in with my rifle. that was all right until i shoved in an american cartridge clip--it was a french gun--and it jammed. "there was nothing to do but use my rifle as a club and jump into them. i banged them on the dome and the side and everywhere i could land until the butt of my rifle busted. one of the germans hollered, 'rush him! rush him!' i decided to do some rushing myself. i grabbed my french bolo knife and slashed in a million directions. each slash meant something, believe me. i wasn't doing exercises, let me tell you. "i picked out an officer, a lieutenant i guess he was. i got him and i got some more of them. they knocked me around considerable and whanged me on the head, but i always managed to get back on my feet. there was one guy that bothered me. he climbed on my back and i had some job shaking him off and pitching him over my head. then i stuck him in the ribs with the bolo. i stuck one guy in the stomach and he yelled in good new york talk: 'that black -------- got me.' "i was still banging them when my crowd came up and saved me and beat the germans off. that fight lasted about an hour. that's about all. there wasn't so much to it." no, there was not much to it, excepting that next morning the americans found four german bodies with plentiful indications that at least thirty-two others had been put on the casualty list and several of the german dead probably had been dragged back by their comrades. thirty-eight bombs were found, besides rifles, bayonets and revolvers. it was irvin cobb, the southern story writer, who first gave to the world a brief account of the exploit of johnson and roberts in the saturday evening post during the summer of . he commented as follows: "if ever proof were needed, which it is not, that the color of a man's skin has nothing to do with the color of his soul, this twain then and there offered it in abundance." mr. cobb in the same article paid many tributes to the men of the th and st serving at that time in that sector. among other things he said: "they were soldiers who wore their uniforms with a smartened pride; who were jaunty and alert and prompt in their movements; and who expressed as some did vocally in my hearing, and all did by their attitude, a sincere heartfelt inclination to get a whack at the foe with the shortest possible delay." continuing, mr. cobb uttered a sentiment that is sure to awaken a glow in the hearts of all sympathizers and friends of the negro race. "i am of the opinion personally," he said, "and i make the assertion with all the better grace, i think, seeing that i am a southerner with all the southerner's inherited and acquired prejudices touching on the race question--that as a result of what our black soldiers are going to do in this war, a word that has been uttered billions of times in our country, sometimes in derision, sometimes in hate, sometimes in all kindliness--but which i am sure never fell on black ears but it left behind a sting for the heart--is going to have a new meaning for all of us, south and north too, and that hereafter n-i-g-g-e-r will merely be another way of spelling the word american." many a man in the four regiments comprising the rd division when he heard about the exploit of may th, oiled his rifle, sharpened his bayonet and whetted his trench knife, resolved to go henry johnson and needham roberts one better if the opportunity came to him. it did come to many of them in the days that followed and although none got a chance to distinguish himself in equal degree with the redoubtable johnson, it was because the boche had become too wary. they had cultivated a healthy respect for the colored men and called them "blutlustige schwartze manner," meaning "blood-thirsty black men." another nickname they had was "hell fighters." when the rd division was brigaded with the french on the aisne, at least two of the component regiments were under a french general having in his command several thousand moroccan negroes. he placed them on the other side of the river fearing they would quarrel over religious differences. however, it was impossible to keep them from fraternizing. there were no religious disputes, nor is it of record that the americans attempted to convert the mohammedans. but they did initiate their turbaned comrades into the mysteries of a certain american game and it is said that the disciples of allah experienced considerable hard luck. most of the rd division was under fire from the early days of may, , until the close of the war. the th, which left new york with officers and , men, returned with only officers and , men of the original organization. a few had been transferred to casual companies and other commands, but many will never come back; their bodies being part of the soil of france--killed in action, died of wounds or disease. the tale of the rd is full of deeds of valor, laughter in the face of death, of fearful carnage wrecked upon the foe, of childlike pride in the homage their allies paid them, and now and then an incident replete with the bubbling negro humor that is the same whether it finds its outlet on the cotton-fields of dixie or the battlefields of france. between the french and the colored troops the spirit was superb. the french poilu had not been taught that the color of a man's skin made a difference. he had no prejudices. how could he have, coming from a nation whose motto is liberty, fraternity, equality? he formed his judgment from bravery and manhood and honor. the negro soldiers ate, slept and drank with the poilus. they were happy together. an incident of the valor of the rd division was in the fight at butte de mesnil, as tough a spot as any in the line between the sea and switzerland. the ground had been fought over back and forth, neither side holding it for long. the french said it was the burying place of , of their troops and germans, and that it could not be held permanently. the negro boys tackled the job. in four days they had advanced fourteen kilometers ( . miles) and they never retreated. the negro troops to a great extent went into action with little training, but they learned quickly in the hard school of experience. they excelled in grenade throwing and machine gun work. grenade throwing is very ticklish business. releasing the pin lights the fuse. five seconds after the fuse is lighted the grenade explodes. it must be timed exactly. if thrown too quickly the enemy is liable to pick it up and hurl it back in time to create the explosion in one's own lines. no one cares to hold a grenade long after the fuse is lighted so the boys sometimes threw them ahead of the signal. "shorty" childress of b company, st infantry, had been drilled with dummy grenades. when given the real thing he released the pin and immediately heard the fulminating fuse working its way down into the charge. it was too much for his nerves. he threw the grenade as far as he could send it. the lieutenant reprimanded him severely. "what do you mean," he said, "by hurling that explosive ahead of the proper time. do you want the boches to pick it up, fire it back here and blow us all to smithereens?" "shorty" was properly abashed. he hung his head and responded: "lieutenant, i begs your pardon, i didn't mean to heave it so soon, but i could actually feel that thing a swellin' in my hand." but they soon acquired the idea, and after a short time very few of the grenades reached the enemy either ahead of or behind time. here is the valiant and humorous story of elmer mccowin, lenox avenue, new york city, a private in company k, th infantry, and how he won the distinguished service cross. he said: "on september th, the captain asked me to carry dispatches. the germans pumped machine gun bullets at me all the way, but i made the trip and got back safely. then i was sent out again. as i started the captain hollered to bring him back a can of coffee. he was joking but i didn't know it. "being a foot messenger i had some time ducking those german bullets. those bullets seemed very sociable but i didn't care to meet up with any of them, so i kept on traveling on high gear. none touched my skin, though some skinned pretty close. "on the way back it seemed the whole war was turned on me. one bullet passed through my trousers and it made me hop, skip and jump. i saw a shell hole six feet deep. take it from me i dented it another six feet when i plunged into it. in my fist i held the captain's can of coffee. "when i climbed out of the hole and started running again a bullet clipped a hole in the can and the coffee started to run out. but i turned around stopped a second, looked the kaiser in the face and held up the can of coffee with my finger plugging up the hole to show the germans they were fooled. just then another bullet hit the can and another finger had to act as a stopper. i pulled out an old rabbit's foot that my girl had given me and rubbed it so hard the hair almost came off. "it must have been the good luck thing that saved my life because the bullets were picking at my clothes and so many hit the can that at the end all my fingers were in use to keep the coffee in. i jumped into shell holes and wriggled along the ground and got back safely. and what do you think? when i got back into our own trenches i stumbled and spilled the coffee." not only did lieutenant george miller, battalion adjutant, confirm the story, but he added: "when that boy came back with the coffee his clothes were riddled with bullets. yet half an hour later he went out into no man's land and brought back a number of wounded until he was badly gassed. even then he refused to go to the rear and went out again for a wounded soldier. all this under fire. that's the reason he got the d.s.c." corporal elmer earl, also of company k, living in middletown, n.y., won the d.s.c. he explained: "we had taken a hill sept. in the argonne. we came to the edge of a swamp when the enemy machine guns opened fire. it was so bad that of the of us who went into a particular strip, only came out without being killed or wounded. i made a number of trips out there and brought back about a dozen wounded men." the proudest recollection which negro officers and privates will carry through life is that of the whole-hearted recognition given them in the matter of decorations by the french army authorities. four colored regiments of the rd division attained the highest record in these awards. these regiments being brigaded with the french, their conduct in action was thus under their observation. not only was each of these regiments cited as a unit for the croix de guerre, but individual soldiers received the coveted decoration. a large number of distinguished service crosses were also distributed to the rd division by general pershing. the verdict pronounced by critical french commanders may be considered as an unquestionable confirmation that the negro troops were under all conditions brave fighters. this fact and the improved status of the negro as a result of it was pointed to by the new york tribune, in a leading editorial in its issue of february , . it said: "the bas-relief of the shaw memorial became a living thing as the dusky heroes of the th cheered the liberty statue and happily swarmed down the gangplank. appropriately the arrival was on the birthday of the "revered lincoln," and never was the young and martyred idealist of massachusetts filled with greater pride than swelled in colonel hayward as he talked of his men the best regiment, he said, with pardonable emphasis, 'of all engaged in the great war.' "these were men of the champagne and the argonne whose step was always forward; who held a trench ninety days without relief, with every night a raid night; who won medals for conspicuous bravery; who saw the war expire under their pressure in a discouraged german cannonade. first class fighting men! hats off to them! the tribunal of grace does not regard skin color when assessing souls. "the boys cheered the bartholdi statue. it makes some whites uncomfortable. it converts into strange reading glib eulogies of democratic principles. "a large faith possesses the negro. he has such confidence in justice,--the flow--of which he believes will yet soften hard hearts. we have a wonderful example of a patience that defies discouragement; the "souls of black folk"! when values are truly measured, some things will be different in this country." chapter xvi. through hell and suffering. negro officers make good--wonderful record of the th illinois--"black devils" win decorations galore--tribute of french commander--his farewell to prairie fighters--they fought after war was over--hard to stop them--individual deeds of heroism--their dead, their wounded and suffering--a poem. in the past when the subject of the negro's fighting ability was under discussion, there were always found those whose grudging assent to his merits as a soldier was modified by the assertion that he had to be properly commanded; in other words must have white officers. never having been given a conspicuous opportunity to demonstrate his capacity for leadership in battle, until the formation of the th illinois infantry in the spanish-american war, the negro was forced to rest under the imputation that as a follower he did fairly well, but as a leader he was a failure. let anyone who still holds that view study the record of the th illinois, or the th, as it was rechristened when entering the service of the general government in the recent war. seventy-one war crosses with special citations for valor and merit, and twenty-one distinguished service crosses were awarded officers and men of the regiment. many men in the th were veterans of the spanish-american war as well as the campaign of on the mexican border, which, while not an actual war, was for some months a locality of service and hard service at that; the regiment passing through it with great credit. it was organized as a single battalion in , increased to a regiment and sent to cuba in , every officer and man in the regiment being a negro. upon its return, over half of the city of chicago turned out in greeting. until july th, , the regiment had never had a white officer. then its colonel, f.a. denison, was relieved on account of illness and a white officer in the person of colonel thomas a. roberts for the first time was placed in command. shortly before the armistice two other white officers were attached to the regiment, in the persons of major william h. roberts, a brother of the colonel, and captain john f. prout; second lieutenant m.f. stapleton, white, also served as adjutant of the first battalion. the th received brief training at camp logan, houston, texas, and landed in france april , ; going within a few weeks into actual service. like nearly all of the new regiments arriving at that time its operations were confined mainly to trench warfare. trench warfare continued until july , when the men got their real baptism of fire in a section of the argonne and were in all the important engagements of their portion of the champagne and other fronts, fighting almost continuously from the middle of july until the close of the war, covering themselves with a distinction and glory, as knights in the warfare for mankind, that will endure as long as the story of valorous deeds are recorded. like the other regiments of the rd division, the th was brigaded with the french; first with the rd french division and later under direct command of general vincendon of the th division, a part of the famous th french army under general mangin. shortly after the signing of the armistice, the division commander sent the regiment the following communication: officers, non-commissioned officers and men: your efforts have been rewarded. the armistice is signed. the troops of the entente to whom the armies of the american republic have nobly come to join themselves, have vanquished the most powerful instrument of conquest that a nation could forge--the haughty german army acknowledges itself conquered. however hard our conditions are, the enemy government has accepted them all. the th r.i.u.s. has contributed largely to the success of the th division, and has taken in bitter strife both cannon and machine guns. its units, fired by a noble ardor, got at times even beyond the objectives given them by the higher command; they have always wished to be in the front line, for the place of honor is the leading rank. they have shown in our advance that they are worthy of being there. vincendon. "black devils" was the name the prussian guard who faced them gave to the men of the th. their french comrades called them "the partridges," probably on account of their cockiness in action (a cock partridge is very game), and their smart, prideful appearance on parade. a general outline of the service of the illinois men after coming out of the trenches, as well as an illustration of the affection and high appreciation in which they were held by the french, is contained in the following order issued by general vincendon in december: officers and soldiers of the th r.i.u.s.: you are leaving us. the impossibility at this time that the german army can recover from its defeat, the necessity which is imposed on the people of the entente of taking up again a normal life, leads the united states to diminish its effectiveness in france. you are chosen to be among the first to return to america. in the name of your comrades of the th division i say to you, au revoir. in the name of france, i thank you. the hard and brilliant battles of chavigny, leury and the bois de beaumont having reduced the effectiveness of the division, the american government generously put your regiment at the disposition of the french high command. in order to reinforce us, you arrived from the trenches of the argonne. we at first, at mareuil sur ourcq, in september, admired your fine appearance under arms, the precision of your review and the suppleness of your evolutions that presented to the eye the appearance of silk unrolling in wavy folds. we advanced to the line. fate placed you on the banks of the ailette in front of the bois mortier. october you occupied the enemy trenches at acier and brouze. on the th we reached the railroad of laon le fere; the forest of saint gobain, the principal center of resistance of the hindenburg line was ours. november th the serre was at last crossed and the pursuit became active. major prout's battalion distinguished itself at the val st. pierre, where it captured a german battery. major patton's battalion was first to cross the hirson railroad at the heights of aubenton, where the germans tried to resist. duncan's battalion took logny and, carried away by their ardor, could not be stopped short of gue d' hossus on november th, after the armistice. we have hardly time to appreciate you and already you depart. as lieut. colonel duncan said november , in offering to me your regimental colors as proof of your love for france and as an expression of your loyalty to the th division and our army, you have given us of your best and you have given it out of the fullness of your hearts. the blood of your comrades who fell on the soil of france mixed with the blood of our soldiers, renders indissoluble the bonds of affection that unite us. we have, besides, the pride of having worked together at a magnificent task, and the pride of bearing on our foreheads the ray of a common grandeur. vincendon. [illustration: this is a facsimile reproduction of the original, printed hurriedly near the field of battle and also translated hurriedly without eliminating errors. corrected on page .] to the th belongs the honor of the absolutely last engagement of the war. an objective had been set for the regiment on the morning of november th. general vincendon heard of the hour at which hostilities were to end and sent an order to the regiment to shorten its objective. the order failed to arrive in time and ten minutes after the fighting was over lieut. colonel duncan led the third battalion over the german line and captured a train of fifty wagons. general vincendon said: "colonel duncan is the hardest man to stop fighting i ever saw. he doesn't know when to quit." one of the most daring exploits by a member of the regiment was that performed by sergeant matthew jenkins, a chicago boy and member of company f. on september , at mont des singes, he went ahead of his comrades and captured from the boche a fortified tunnel which by aid of his platoon was held for thirty-six hours without food or ammunition, making use of the enemy machine gun and munitions until relieved. this gained for sergeant jenkins the croix de guerre with palm and the distinguished service cross. a deed of remarkable bravery accompanied by clever strategy was performed by captain chester sanders and twenty men mostly of company f. it won decorations for three and the unbounded admiration of the french. captain sanders and his men offered themselves as sacrifices in an effort to draw the fire of about a dozen german machine guns which had been working havoc among the americans and french. the illinois men ran into the middle of a road knowing they were under german observation. instantly the germans, suspecting a raid on their lines, opened fire on the underbrush by the roadside, figuring the americans would take refuge there. instead they kept right in the center of the road and few were wounded. the ruse had revealed the whereabouts of the german guns, and a short time later they were wiped out by french artillery. another hero of company f was lieutenant harvey j. taylor, who found himself in a nest of machine guns on july in the western part of the argonne forest. he received wounds in both legs, a bullet through one arm, a bullet in his side, had a front tooth knocked out by a bullet and received a ruptured ear drum by another. after all this he was back in the lines october th at soissons. the germans were making a counter attack that day and when the battling colored men needed supplies, lieutenant taylor, who was regimental signal officer, proceeded to get the supplies to them, though he had to pass through a german barrage. he was badly gassed. he received the croix de guerre with a special citation. lieutenant elmer d. maxwell won his cross in the champagne, six miles northwest of laon. he led a platoon of men against a nest of machine guns, taking four guns and eighteen prisoners, not to speak of leaving behind a number of germans who were not in a condition to be taken prisoner. many of the officers of the regiment were wounded. the escape of many from death, considering the continuous fighting and unusual perils through which they passed, was miraculous. the only officer who made the supreme sacrifice was lieutenant george l. giles of calumet avenue, chicago. he was the victim of a direct hit by a shell at grandlut on november while he was heroically getting his men into shelter. lieut. giles was very popular with the men and with his brother officers. he was popular among the members of the race section in which he lived in chicago, and was regarded as a young man of great promise. one of the engagements of the first battalion that received more than honorable mention was on the morning of november th, when the battalion crossed the hindenburg line and after extremely hard fighting captured on st. pierre mont, three guns and two machine guns. captain james h. smith of vernon avenue, chicago, commanded the company, and lieutenant samuel s. gordon of prairie avenue, chicago, the assault forces making the capture. the battalion continued across the serre river and when the armistice was signed was at a small place in belgium. several of the officers passed through practically all of the fighting with hardly a scratch, only to be taken ill at the finish and invalided home. these men would have been greatly disappointed had the war continued after they were put out of action. conspicuous among them was lieutenant robert a. ward of south wabash avenue, chicago, of the trench mortar platoon; lieutenant benjamin a. browning of prairie avenue, chicago, and lieutenant joseph r. wheeler, prairie avenue, chicago. major rufus stokes led the first battalion on the initial raid at vauquois. they fired shells from six trench mortars and scored a notable success. in that raid private william morris of chicago, the only man in the regiment who was captured by the germans, was taken. he was reported missing at the time, but weeks later his picture was found among a group of prisoners portrayed in a german illustrated newspaper found in a captured dugout. three men were killed and a large number of others had a miraculous escape while entering laon a few days prior to november st. a german time mine exploded tearing up a section of railroad track, hurling the heavy rails into the air, where they spun around or flew like so many arrows. first lieutenant william j. warfield, regimental supply officer, a chicago man, won the distinguished service cross for extraordinary heroism in action near ferme de la riviere, september th. sergeant norman henry of the machine gun company, whose home is in chicago, won the distinguished service cross for extraordinary heroism in action near ferme de la riviere, september th. other members of the regiment upon whom the d.s.c. was conferred by general pershing were: captain william b. crawford, home address, denison, texas; for extraordinary heroism in action at ferme de la riviere, september th. sergeant ralph gibson, company h, a chicago man; for extraordinary heroism at beaume, november th. sergeant charles t. monroe, headquarters company; for extraordinary heroism in action at mont de singes, september th. his home is at senrog, va. sergeant emmett thompson, company l, home in quincy, illinois; for extraordinary heroism at mont de singes, september th. supply sergeant lester fossie, company m, home at metropolis, illinois; for extraordinary heroism at ferme de la riviere, october th. private tom powell, deceased, company h; for extraordinary heroism near beaume, november th. private spirley irby, company h, home at blackstone, va.; for extraordinary heroism in action at beaume, november th. private alfred williamson, medical detachment, home at san diego, california; for extraordinary heroism in action near beaume, november th. private william g. hurdle, machine gun company no. , home at drivers, va.; for extraordinary heroism in action at ferme la folie, september th. private harry pearson, machine gun company no. , home at portland, oregon; for extraordinary heroism in action near ferme la folie, september th. private alonzo walton, machine gun company no. , home at normal, illinois; for extraordinary heroism in action at rue lamcher and pont d'amy, november th and th. private leroy davis, company l, home at huntsville, missouri; for extraordinary heroism in action at mont de singes, september th. [illustration: negro warriors administering cold steel. germans unable to stand the attack. surrendering. in the argonne forest france.] about fifty percent of the th met casualties of some sort during their service in france. like the new york regiment heretofore mentioned, they were singularly free from disease. only men and one officer were killed in action and about thirty died from wounds. the total number wounded and missing was . probably , men were gassed and incapacitated at times, as the regiment had three replacements, necessary to make up its losses. the regiment went to france with approximately , men from chicago and illinois, and came back with , . of course, many of the wounded, sick and severely gassed were invalided home or came back as parts of casual companies formed at hospital bases. the replacement troops which went into the regiment were mostly from the southern states. a few of the colored officers assigned to the regiment after its arrival in france, were men from the officers training camps in this country and france. the th boasted of the only race court martial in the army. there were thirteen members, lieutenant colonel duncan presiding. captain louis e. johnson was the judge advocate, and lieutenant washington was his assistant. it is not of record that the findings of the court martial were criticized. at least there was no scandal as there was concerning court martial proceedings in other divisions of the army. the fact is that there was very little occasion for court martialing among the men of the th. the behavior of the men was uniformly good, as is attested by the fact that every town mayor in france where the men passed through or were billeted, complimented the officers on the splendid discipline and good behavior shown. colonel roberts, a veteran cavalryman, was very fond of his men. he has repeatedly paid them the highest compliments, not only for their valor and soldierly qualities, but for their quick intelligence, amenity to discipline, and for the clean living which made them so remarkably free from disease. he has stated that he would not know where to select a better group of men for everything that goes to make up efficient, dependable soldiers. colonel roberts received the croix de guerre, with the following citation: "a commander entirely devoted to duty, he succeeded by dint of working day and night in holding with his regiment a difficult sector, though the officers and men were without experience, under heavy shelling. he personally took charge of a battalion on the front line on october and led it to the objectives assigned by the crossing of the ailette canal." american historians may not give the negro fighters the place to which their records entitle them; that remains to be seen. from the testimony of french commanders, however, it is evident that the pages of french history will not be printed unless they contain the valiant, patriotic, heroic deeds of the illinois and new york regiments with their comrades of the rd and nd divisions. in the various sectors to which they were assigned, they were in virtually every important fight. they met the flower of the kaiser's forces, held them and on more than one occasion made them retreat. the hun had misjudged them and it was fortunate that he had. they endured their share of hardship, marching many weary miles, day after day, without sufficient food. nothing could affect their spirit and dash. when the call came, they went over the top, that the world might be made safe for democracy. among the officers and men of the th were represented about every calling in which the negro of this day engages. there were men of professional pursuits; lawyers, doctors and teachers; students, mechanics, business men, farmers and laborers. the poet of the regiment was lieutenant blaine g. alston. the following little poem, if properly digested and understood, tells volumes within itself: "over there" did you ever hear a bullet whiz, or dodge a hand grenade? have you watched long lines of trenches dug by doughboys with a spade? have you seen the landscape lighted up at midnight by a shell? have you seen a hillside blazing forth like a furnace room in hell? have you stayed all night in a ruined town with a rafter for a bed? with horses stamping underneath in the morning when they are fed? have you heard the crump-crump whistle? do you know the dud shell's grunt? have you played rat in a dugout?-- then you have surely seen the front. --lieut. blaine g. alston, th u. . troops. chapter xvii narrative of an officer special article by captain john h. patton, adjutant of th illinois--summarizes operations of the regiment--from first call to mustering out--an eye witness account--in training camps, at sea, in france--service in argonne forest--many other engagements--a thrilling record--battalion operations in detail--special mention of companies and individuals. captain john h. patton, regimental adjutant of the th, who commanded the second battalion through most of its service, presents a summary of the operations of the regiment from the first call to the mustering out. being in charge of the organization's records, his account is detailed, authentic and highly valuable as supplementing the data of the previous chapter; gleaned from departmental records and other sources. it carries additional interest as being the testimony of an eye-witness, one who participated in the stirring events in a marked and valorous degree. the recital in captain patton's own words, the phrase of a highly trained and efficient military man, follows: pursuant to the call of the president, under date of july , , the th illinois infantry reported at the various rendezvous on july , , as follows: at chicago, illinois regimental headquarters; headquarters company, machine gun company, supply company, detachment medical department, and companies a, b, c, d, e, f, g and h; at springfield, illinois, company i; at peoria, illinois, company k; at danville, illinois, company l; at metropolis, illinois, company m. on the date the regiment responded to the call colonel franklin a. denison commanded the regiment, the other field officers being lieutenant colonel james h. johnson, major rufus m. stokes, major charles l. hunt, major otis b. duncan and captain john h. patton, regimental adjutant. the strength of the regiment a short time before responding to the call was approximately one thousand officers and enlisted men, and orders having been received to recruit to maximum strength, enlisted men, an active recruiting campaign was begun. on july , , the strength was approximately , . soon afterwards orders were received that the regiment would be organized according to minimum strength tables of organization, which gave it an authorized strength of , enlisted men. after reporting that the regiment already had several hundred men in excess of that strength, authority was granted to retain the excess men. from this time until demobilized at camp grant in march, , the regiment had from to , men in excess of its authorized strength, and upon arrival in france in april, , the entire personnel consisted of men who had voluntarily enlisted. intensive training was begun immediately after the regiment reported at the various armories and the public streets in the vicinity were utilized for this purpose until october , , on which date the various organizations entrained for camp logan, houston, texas, arriving a few days later. while stationed at camp logan, the regiment was engaged in intensive training. officers and enlisted men attended the various schools established by the rd division to which the regiment had been attached and acquitted themselves with credit. at the end of october, , on the date of the closing of the second liberty loan campaign, out of a total of , officers and enlisted men belonging to the regiment at that time, , officers and men subscribed $ , . . while at camp logan, approximately percent of the regiment took out $ , . war risk insurance per man. on december , , the official designation of the regiment was changed from the th illinois infantry to the th infantry. on march , , the regiment left camp logan enroute to camp stuart, newport news, va., arriving on march , , and immediately taking up its interrupted intensive training. while at camp stuart, va., lieutenant colonel james h. johnson was discharged from the service, and major otis b. duncan, who had commanded the rd battalion, was promoted to the grade of lieutenant-colonel and captain arthur williams was promoted to the grade of major and placed in command of the rd battalion. on april , , the regiment embarked on the s.s. president grant en route overseas. in attempting to get out to sea, the vessel ran aground in hampton roads and three days later having been refloated, the journey overseas was resumed. on account of this delay the journey was begun without convoy, the warships assigned to this duty having departed as scheduled on or about april , . on april , , the steamer was met by a convoy of torpedo boats which accompanied us to brest, france, at which place the regiment arrived on april , . the following day, april , , the regiment debarked and marched to camp at pontanezen barracks, near brest, and two days later entrained for grandvillers (haut-rhin), arriving on april , , and taking station. the regiment, upon arrival at grandvillers, was attached to the rd division, french army, and orders were given for the reorganization and equipping of the regiment to conform to that of a french regiment. all american arms, ammunition and equipment were salvaged and french rifles, machine guns, ammunition, wheel transportation, packs, helmets and other necessary equipment furnished. except for the uniform the regiment was outfitted exactly as were the french regiments of that division. french rations were issued with the exception of the wine component, for which an extra allowance of sugar was substituted. the division sent officers to take charge of the instruction of the regiment in every phase of the work to be later undertaken and another period of intensive training was begun. even french cooks were present to instruct our cooks in the preparation and conservation of the french rations. after six weeks training at this place, the regiment entrained enroute to the front, arrived at ligny-en-barrios (meuse) on june , , and moved up toward the lines by easy stages. on june , , the regiment began occupying positions in the saint mihiel sector, completing the occupation on june , . this being the first time the regiment had been actually in the lines, the division commander deemed it advisable to intermingle our troops with french troops in order that officers and men might observe and profit by close association with the veteran french troops. thus the units of the st and nd battalions, which had been assigned to the front lines were intermingled with platoons and companies of the th regiment of infantry. many valuable lessons were learned while in this sector, which was exceptionally quiet at the time. except for occasional shelling and some scattered machine gun and rifle fire, nothing of interest occurred while in the sector, and there were no casualties. on the night of june -july , , the regiment, having been relieved in the sector, began withdrawing, and on july , , the withdrawal had been completed without any losses. after resting a few days in the region of lignieres (meuse), the regiment entrained en route to the argonne forest, arriving behind the lines on july , , the st battalion, under command of major stokes, moving up immediately into the reserve positions at brabant (s. groupement courcelles) and later into the front lines in the center of resistance de la foret, sub-sector hermont. the nd battalion under command of major hunt took station at rarecourt, the latter moved up to locheres (plateau of gorgia) at which place the major located his commanding post. from this position companies of the nd battalion were sent into the lines alternately, the companies being relieved after a five days' tour of duty. on july , , colonel franklin a. denison, who had commanded the regiment up to this time and had become incapacitated through illness contracted during the strenuous days incident to the preparation of the regiment for service in the lines, was relieved from command on this account and colonel t.a. roberts, cavalry, assumed command of the regiment. the rd battalion under command of major williams, was held in reserve at vraincourt, and only company m of that battalion was sent into the front lines. this company took up positions in the supporting point at buzemont on august , , and remained until august , . on august , , the stokes mortar platoon under command of lieutenant robert a. ward took position in the lines in the sub-sector vaquois, and on august , , took an active part in a coup-de-main arranged by the french. his mission, filling in the gaps in the french artillery barrage, was so successfully accomplished that his entire platoon was highly commended for their work by the commanding general of the division. although patrols were operating between the lines nightly and the positions occupied were under artillery, machine gun and rifle fire a number of times, the only losses sustained during the six weeks in the argonne forest were killed, captured and wounded. on the night of august - , , the regiment was relieved from its positions in the forest and marched to rampont and entrained for villages in the vicinity of fains (meuse) for a period of rest, arriving on august , . upon arrival at the new stations, instruction was begun again, more attention being paid to open warfare than to work incident to trench warfare. this training proved of great value to the officers and men in the latter days of the war, when the regiment was actively engaged in the pursuit of the enemy to the belgian border. on september , , the regiment left its various stations and proceeded by train to betz, where it detrained and marched to stations in villages in the vicinity of mareuil-sur-ourcq (meuse). on september , , majors hunt and williams having become incapacitated through illness and injury, were relieved from command of the nd and rd battalions, respectively, and lieutenant colonel otis b. duncan and captain john h. patton were assigned to the command of those battalions. the battles of chavigny, leury and the bois de beaumont having reduced the effectives of the th french division, the regiment was placed at the disposition of the division and was assigned as one of the three infantry regiments thereof. upon joining this division the effective strength of the regiment was approximately double that of either of the two french regiments; and in future operations a large share of the work of the division fell to our lot. on september , , the regiment received orders to move again toward the front. from mareuil-sur-ourcq to the region of st. bandry (meuse) the movement was made in motor trucks. on september , , the journey was resumed, the regiment proceeding by marching. upon arrival at tartier, companies f and g were sent to monte couve (aisne) to join the nd regiment of infantry, and companies i and l pushed forward to bagneux (aisne) to join the th regiment. the st battalion proceeded the next day to the caves in the vicinity of les tueries, the rd battalion moved up into the reserve in the region of antioch farm with the remainder of the nd battalion. as soon as companies f, g, i and l had moved up and taken position in the lines opposite mont des signes an attack was ordered. attacks on the enemy positions on the plateau of mont des signes were almost continuous from the date of arrival of these companies until about september , , when they were withdrawn and joined their battalions. these companies acquitted themselves with credit. one platoon under command of sergeant matthew jenkins, company f, took a large section of the enemy works for which the sergeant was awarded both the french croix de guerre and the american distinguished service cross. about the nd of september, the regiment for the first time took over a full regimental sector, the battalion stokes relieving the battalion garnier in the positions outlined by la folie-l'ecluse on the canal l'oise-l'aisne and the farm gulliminet, the battalion patton going into the support positions at mont des tombes and the battalion duncan going into reserve at tincelle farm. colonel roberts located his commanding post at antioch farm. from the date of arrival in these positions until the enemy began to retreat on october , , the entire area occupied by the regiment was almost constantly shelled, gas being used frequently. the front lines were almost constantly under the fire of enemy minnenwurfers and numerous machine guns located in the bois de mortier, a very dense wood north of the canal. on the night of september - , , the battalion patton was ordered to relieve with like units one-half of each of the companies of the battalion stokes in the front lines and soon after the relief was completed an attack along the l'oise-l'aisne canal was ordered. by the extreme of effort the remainder of the battalion patton was brought up and having completed the relief of the battalion stokes, the attack began as ordered. the attack continued until october th, on which date all objectives had been gained and the enemy pushed back across the canal. on september th the battalion duncan was thrown into the fight and two companies of the battalion patton withdrawn to the support. the battalion duncan was ordered to make a frontal attack which necessitated an advance across the open fields. this was successfully accomplished, the battalion being subjected to intense artillery, machine gun and rifle fire continuously. the battalion duncan, having gained its objectives, the farm de la riviere and the railroad south of the canal, held on tenaciously in spite of the intense fire of the enemy and held the positions gained until the pursuit began on october , , when it passed into the reserve of the division. during the occupancy of the sector, from september , , to october , , patrols from the three battalions were out night and day between the lines making necessary reconnaissances. on october , , a volunteer patrol of twenty men under command of captain chester sanders in an effort to discover whether the enemy had abandoned the woods, penetrated the bois de mortier to a point about yards behind the enemy positions and having been discovered were fired on from all sides by numerous machine guns. the patrol returned to our lines intact. for this exploit captain sanders was awarded the french croix de guerre and the patrol received the commendation of the commanding general of the division. on october , , after minutes violent bombardment by our artillery, three raiding parties from company f made a dash for the triangle formed by the railroad, the l'oise-l'aisne canal and the vauxaillon road. one of these parties gained the enemy trenches along the canal, ejecting the enemy after a hand grenade fight. all parties returned to our lines intact though several were wounded. lieutenant william warfield of the battalion duncan single-handed took an enemy machine gun nest which had been harassing his company, and after disposing of the enemy machine gunners returned to our lines with the gun. numerous other acts of gallantry were performed in this sector for which officers and men received both french and american decorations. at : a.m. on october , , the alert was given for a general advance by the entire division and the battalions assembled at the zones of assembly previously designated. the battalion stokes was given the mission of clearing the bois de mortier and the battalion patton was placed at the disposition of lieutenant colonel lugand of the nd infantry, and the rd battalion was placed in the divisional reserve. at about : a.m. the pursuit began, the st battalion clearing the bois de mortier and successfully reaching its first objective, penancourt, the same date, and continuing the pursuit the next day to a point west of molinchart. the battalion patton, having been assigned as the support battalion of the nd regiment of infantry, took up the pursuit via anizy le chateau, cessieres and the bois de oiry, bivouacing the night of october th in the vicinity of the bois. these battalions were commended by the commanding general. the battalion stokes for its passage of the exceedingly strong position in the bois de mortier and the nd for its well conducted march in pursuit via anizy le chateau. on account of the straightening out of the lines due to the retreat of the enemy, the th division was withdrawn on october th and sent back for rest, the regiment being sent into the st. gobain forest and vicinity for this purpose. ten of the twelve days in this locality were spent in hard work on the roads and the last two were given over to the re-equipping of the regiment. on october , , major rufus m. stokes was relieved from command of the st battalion and assigned to duty as administrative officer of the regimental combat and supply trains. captain john t. prout was assigned to the command of the st battalion. on october th, , the regiment was again ordered into the lines and at midnight on that date the nd battalion moved up into support positions in the vicinity of grandlup. the st battalion on october , , moved up into support positions in the vicinity of the same village. during this time the rd battalion was located at manneaux farm in reserve. the battalions remained in various positions in the vicinity of grandlup until november , , on which date the enemy again began to retreat, and while thus occupied were subjected to severe shelling and those units occupying front line positions to much machine gun and rifle fire; casualties were few except in company a stationed in the vicinity of chantrud farm, where an enemy shell fell in the midst of the company at mess, killing thirty-five men and wounding fifty, thus causing the company to be withdrawn from the lines. on the morning of november th, a general advance was ordered and the enemy retreated before it. the retreat of the enemy was so rapid that our troops did not catch up with them until about november th, on which date a general attack by the division was ordered. the nd battalion on the left of the division was given the task of clearing out the enemy from positions along the hirshon railroad and the heights of aubenton. after an all day fight the battalion reached its objective about nightfall. the french division on the left did not advance as anticipated, owing to enemy resistance on their front, and the nd battalion having advanced about two kilometers to the front suffered severely on account of the exposed flank, three men being killed and two officers and thirty-three enlisted men being wounded. on the morning of the th the enemy again retreated and the nd battalion continued the pursuit to goncelin, resting there for the night and on the morning of the both was ordered to cantonment at pont d'any, where it was located at the taking effect of the armistice. on november th the st battalion took up the pursuit in support of the battalion michel of the th regiment of infantry, advancing via brazicourt and rapeire to hill near st. pierremont. company c having passed on into the front lines at the brazicourt farm, upon arrival near st. pierremont were ordered on the morning of november , , to attack and occupy st. pierremont, cross the serre river and take up a position along the railroad track. the mission of the company was successfully accomplished in spite of the strong resistance of the enemy, st. pierremont being occupied, the river crossed and three pieces of enemy artillery as well as several machine guns taken. for this operation company c was cited and awarded the french croix de guerre with a palm, the highest french citation received in the regiment. the battalion continued the pursuit until arrival at mont plaisir, when it was ordered back to fligny, where it was in cantonment at the taking effect of the armistice. the rd battalion took up the pursuit on november th, resting in the open fields the nights of the th and th. the battalion in moving up advanced via bosmont and mont plaisir and passed on into the front lines at the rue larcher on november , . in the afternoon of the th orders were received to deliver a cover fire for french units which were to make an attack on the village of logny, which was strongly held by the enemy. company m, having been assigned for this work, moved out from hurtebise and advanced to a position where the cover fire could be effectively delivered, and opened fire. about this time word was received from the french commander that his troops could not advance on account of the severe shell and machine gun fire, and company m having arrived at a position where it was safer to go ahead than to retreat, attacked the town and drove the enemy therefrom. for this action lieutenant osceola a. browning, commanding company m, and several others received the french croix de guerre and sergeant lester fossie both the croix de guerre and the american distinguished service cross. on november , , the advance and pursuit was continued. at etignieres the battalion was temporarily stopped by intense shell fire. on november , , the pursuit was again taken up with resinowez as the principal objective. later the objective was changed to gue d'hossus, belgium, which objective was reached a few minutes before the taking effect of the armistice, an enemy combat train of about vehicles being captured about this time. a few days after the armistice, the regiment began to move southward, taking station in villages in the vicinity of verneuil-sur-serre. [illustration: some war cross winners of th illinois ( th infantry). front row left to right: capt. g.m. allen. lieut. o.a. browning. capt. d.j. warner. lieut. roy b. tisdell. standing left to right: lieut. robt. p. hurd, lieut-col. otis b duncan. major j.r. white. capt. w.b. crawford, lieut. wm. warfield. capt. matthew jackson.] on december , , the regiment formally passed from the french command and to brest via soissons and le mans, arriving at the latter place on january , . on february , , the regiment embarked on the s.s. la france iv, en route to the u.s., arriving on february , , and taking station at camp upton, long island, n.y. on february , , the regiment left camp upton for camp grant, illinois, via chicago, where it was accorded a wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten reception by the citizens of chicago. after arrival at camp grant, work incident to the demobilization of the regiment was commenced. the majority of officers and enlisted men were discharged from the service during the latter part of february, and finally on march , , orders were issued declaring that the regiment had ceased to exist. the health of the regiment while in the service was exceptional. the medical detachment, under command of major james r. white, worked incessantly to protect the health of the command. before departure for france a number of cases of pneumonia of a very severe type developed, but only two deaths resulted. the medical detachment was divided among the various units, captain spencer c. dickerson having charge of the detachment attached to the st battalion, lieutenant james f. lawson that of the nd battalion, and lieutenant claudius ballard that of the rd battalion. the work of these detachments was at all times of a high order of excellence, and during engagements both officers and men in numerous instances went out into the open and rendered first aid to the wounded after terrific fire. each man wounded, however slightly, was given an injection of anti-tetanic serum and as a result no cases of tetanus were reported, nor were any cases of gas baccilus infection reported. during the severe fighting around the guilliminet and de la riviere farms, more help was needed and lieutenant park tancil, dental surgeon, volunteered to take charge of one of the first aid stations which was daily receiving showers of shells from the enemy batteries. lieutenant claudius ballard, though wounded during the fighting, refused to be evacuated and continued his duties administering to the wounded. major james r. white made daily rounds of the first aid stations in the lines, disregarding the intense fire of the enemy and personally dressing numbers of wounded. for their heroic conduct in administering to the wounded under fire, major white and lieutenants tancil and ballard as well as several enlisted men of the medical detachment, were awarded the french croix de guerre, and private alfred williamson of the detachment was awarded both the french croix de guerre and the american distinguished service cross. * * * * * roster of officers old th illinois ( th infantry) (all negroes unless otherwise designated.) field and staff--f.a. denison, commanding until july , , invalided home; col. t.a. roberts (white), commanding after july , ; major james r. white, surgeon; major w.h. roberts (white), operation officer; capt. charles w. fillmore, personnel officer; capt. john h. patton, commanding nd battalion; capt. james e. dunjil, assistant to adjutant; st lieut. george murphy, assistant to adjutant; st lieut. louis c. washington, administrative officer; nd lieut. noble sissle, assistant to administrative officer; st lieut. park tancil, dentist; st lieut. john t. clemons, chaplain. first battalion--major rufus m. stokes, commanding; nd lieut. m.f. stapleton (white), battalion adjutant; capt. spencer c. dickerson, medical officer; st lieut. harry w. jones, battalion supply officer. company a--capt. stewart a. betts, st lieut. john l. mcdonald, st lieut. robert l. chavis, nd. lieut. wycham tyler, nd lieut. howard f. bell, nd lieut. willis stearles. company b--capt. stuart alexander, st lieut. robert p. hurd, st lieut. franklin mcfarland, st lieut. samuel ransom, nd lieut. fred k. johnson, nd lieut. samuel block. company c--capt. james h. smith, st lieut. samuel s. gordon, st lieut. harry n. shelton, st lieut. arthur jones, nd lieut. elmer j. myers, nd lieut. roy b. tisdell. machine gun company--captain devere j. warner, st lieut. george c. lacey, nd lieut. thomas a. painter, nd lieut. bernard mcgwin, nd lieut. homer c. kelly, nd lieut. julian d. rainey. second battalion--capt. john h. patton, commanding; st lieut. samuel a. mcgowan, battalion adjutant; st lieut. james f. lawson, medical officer; st lieut. rufus h. bacote, medical officer; st lieut. william nichols, battalion supply officer. company f--capt. rufus reed, st lieut. carter w. wesley, nd lieut. edward douglas, nd lieut. robert a.d. birchett. company g--capt. george m. allen, st lieut. durand harding, st lieut. gerald c. bunn, st lieut. harvey e. johnson, nd lieut. clarence h. bouchane. company h--capt. james c. hall, st lieut harry l. allen, st lieut. george l. amos, st lieut binga dismond, nd lieut lawrence willette, nd lieut. john a. hall. machine gun company no. --capt. lilburn jackson, nd lieut. frank t. logan, nd lieut. junius walthall, nd lieut. william a. barnett. third battalion--lieut. col. otis b. duncan, commanding; nd lieut. stanley b. norvell, battalion adjutant; st lieut. claudius ballard, medical officer; st lieut. william j. warfield, battalion supply officer. company i--capt lorin o. sanford, st lieut. howard r. brown, nd lieut. d. lincoln reid, nd lieut. edmond g. white, nd lieut. oswald des verney, nd lieut. harry j. douglas. company l--capt. william b. crawford, st lieut. frank robinson, provost officer; st. lieut frank w. bates, nd lieut. james h. peyton, nd lieut luther j. harris. company m--capt. edward w. spearman, st lieut osceola a. browning, st lieut. jerome l. hubert, nd lieut. lawson price, nd lieut. irving t. howe, nd lieut. larkland f. hewitt. machine gun company no. --capt. matthew jackson, st lieut. william c.p. phillips, nd lieut. charles c. jackson, nd lieut clyde w. donaldson, nd lieut george f. proctor. special units headquarters company--capt. lewis e. johnson, st lieut robert a.j. shaw, st lieut. benote h. lee, nd lieut elias f.e. williams, pioneer officer; nd lieut. rufus b. jackson, stokes mortar; nd lieut. reginald w. harang, signal officer. supply company--capt. lloyd g. wheeler, st lieut. harry wheeler, st lieut. james a. riggs, st lieut. dan m. moore, medical officer; nd lieut augustus m. fisher, veterinary surgeon. depot company k--capt wm. h. lewis, commanding; nd lieut. alvin m. jordan, adjutant; st lieut. norman garrett, st lieut. napoleon b. roe, dentist; st lieut. george w. antoine, medical officer; nd lieut avon h. williams; nd lieut. edward l. goodlett, nd lieut frank corbin, nd lieut frederick l. slade, nd lieut. walter h. aiken, nd lieut. rufus a. atkins, nd lieut james t. baker, nd lieut. john s. banks, nd lieut. marcus a. bernard, nd lieut. charles e. bryant, nd lieut henry h. carr, nd lieut. horace e. colley, nd lieut. ira r. collins, nd lieut. charles h. conley, nd lieut. bernie b. cowan, nd lieut. flenoid cunningham, nd lieut. frank p. dawson, nd lieut. samuel a. dillard, nd lieut. john w. harris. roll of honor heroes of old th illinois negro national guardsmen known in france as the th infantry, who were decorated with the croix de guerre. the exploits of some of these men and also of some of those in the appended list decorated with the distinguished service cross, are mentioned in the chapters devoted to the regiment. col. t.a. roberts (white) lieut. col. otis b. duncan major james r. white capt. john h. patton capt. chester sanders capt. john t. prout capt. samuel r. gwynne capt. devere j. warner capt. wm. b. crawford capt. george m. allen capt. james c. hall capt. stuart alexander capt. mathew jackson capt. james h. smith lieut. park tancil lieut. osceola a. browning lieut. george c. lacey lieut. frank robinson lieut. claudius ballard lieut. charles c. jackson lieut. william j. warfield lieut. samuel s. gordon lieut. robert p. hurd lieut. henry n. shelton lieut. henry p. cheatham lieut. stanley b. norvell lieut. roy b. tisdell lieut. thomas a. painter lieut. lawson price lieut. lincoln d. reid lieut. elmer j. myers sergt. norman henry sergt. clarence t. gibson sergt. matthew jenkins sergt. cecil nelson sergt. howard templeton sergt. chas. t. monroe sergt. derry brown corp. james r. brown corp. lewis warner corp. joseph henderson corp. maceo a. tervalon corp. william stevenson corp. emil laurent corp. charles t. brock pvt. nathaniel c. white (deceased) pvt. robert pride pvt. george b. white pvt. howard sheffield pvt. cornelius robinson pvt. ulysses sayles pvt. william cuff (deceased) pvt. hugh givens pvt. arthur johnson pvt. rufus pitts pvt. olbert dorsey pvt. william hurdle pvt. bee mckissic pvt. jonas paxton pvt. harry pearson pvt. paul turlington pvt. reed j. brown pvt. paul johnson pvt. reedy jones pvt. alonzo keller pvt. leroy lindsay pvt. lavern massey pvt. josiah nevees pvt. ira taylor pvt. jesse ferguson pvt. william m. robinson awarded distinguished service crosses by general pershing: capt. william b. crawford lieut. william j. warfield sergt. norman henry sergt. ralph gibson sergt. robert barnes sergt. charles t. monroe sergt. emmett thompson sergt. lester fossie sergt. matthew jenkins pvt. tom powell (deceased) pvt. andrew mccall pvt. wm. cuff (deceased) pvt. spirley irby pvt. alfred williamson pvt. william g. hurdle pvt. harry pearson pvt. alonzo walton pvt. leroy davis pvt. james fuquay pvt. nathaniel c. white (deceased) pvt. arthur johnson chapter xviii. blood of the black and white in one rivulet of departing life lincoln's prophetic words--negroes alongside best soldiers in the world--hold their own--the nd regiment--brigaded with veterans of the marne--famous "red hand" division--occupy hill at verdun--nine days battle in "bloody argonne"--admiration of the french--conspicuous components of nd--chronology of service. they will probably help in some trying time to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom.--abraham lincoln. prophetic words uttered by the great emancipator concerning the negroes of america. the negroes helped. they would have helped in much greater measure had they been given the opportunity. fighting for the first time on the soil of the world's most famous battleground--europe--and for the first time brought into direct comparison with the best soldiers of the world, they proved themselves able to hold their own where tests of courage, endurance and aggressiveness were most severe. they fought valiantly in the vicinity of chateau thierry, on the vesle, on the aillette, in the argonne, and various other sectors; and in the final drive at metz. they vanquished the germans who opposed them; the heaviest fire of the enemy failing to stop their advance. no part of the rd division made a more gallant record than the nd regiment. throughout its service in france it was a part of the famous french th division known as the "red hand" division, under the command of general goybet. it was this division which first opposed the huns at the marne in . to brigade the negro soldiers with such famous veterans was a rare mark of distinction and placed the black men on their mettle at all times. the nd arrived in france on april and went into training with the french eleven days later. on may the regiment took over a sector in the argonne and on june was sent to the trenches just west of verdun, occupying the famous battle-swept hill , and sections at four de paris and vauquois. on hill thousands of french and germans had fallen as the battle line swung back and forward. that this hill was given to the negroes to hold demonstrated that as soldiers they had already won the confidence of the french. the regiment's first engagement was in the champagne sector with monthois as an objective. here came the real test. the negroes were eager to get into the fight. they cheered and sang when the announcement came that their opportunity had arrived--but the question was; back of their enthusiasm had they the staying qualities drilled into european troops through centuries of training in the science of warfare. the answer was that some of the heaviest and most effective fighting of the day was done by the negro regiment. from june th to september th, the nd was stationed in the bloody argonne forest or in the vicinity of verdun. on the night of september th they were summoned to take part in the argonne offensive and were in that terrific drive, one of the decisive engagements of the war, from september th to october th. in the nine days' battle the negroes not only proved their fighting qualities in an ordeal such as men rarely have been called upon to face, but these qualities in deadly striking power and stubborn resistance in crises, stood out with such distinction that the coveted croix de guerre was bestowed upon the regiment. the casualty list of the nd in this and previous fighting carried names of men killed, wounded and gassed. for their achievements they were at once cited for bravery and efficiency in general orders from the corps commander transmitted through their french divisional chief. it was dated october th and read as follows: in transmitting you with legitimate pride the thanks and congratulations of general garnier duplessis, allow me, my dear friends of all ranks, american and french, to address you from the bottom of the heart of a chief and soldier, the expression of gratitude for the glory you have lent to our good th division. during these nine days of hard fighting you have progressed eight kilometers ( . miles) through powerfully organized defenses, taken prisoners, captured heavy guns, minenwerfers and nearly machine guns, secured an enormous amount of engineering material and important supplies of artillery ammunition, and brought down by your fire three enemy aeroplanes. the "red hand" sign of the division, has, thanks to you, become a bloody hand which took the boche by the throat and made him cry for mercy. you have well avenged our glorious dead. goybet. in a communication delivered to the colonel of the regiment on october st, general goybet said: your troops have been admirable in their attack. you must be proud of the courage of your officers and men, and i consider it an honor to have them under my command. the bravery and dash of your regiment won the admiration of the moroccan division, who are themselves versed in warfare. thanks to you, during these hard days, the division was at all times in advance of all other divisions of the army corps. i am sending you all my thanks and beg you to transmit them to your subordinates. i call on your wounded. their morale is higher than any praise. the high honor of having its flag decorated with the croix de guerre was bestowed upon the regiment in the city of brest just a few days before it embarked for the return to america. vice admiral moreau, the french commander of the port of brest, officially represented his government in, the ceremony. it was intended as france's appreciation of the services of these negro fighters. the decoration took place at one of the most prominent points in the city and was witnessed by thousands of french soldiers and civilians, as well as by sailors and soldiers of several nations. one of the conspicuous components of the nd was the battalion, formed from what formerly was known as the st separate battalion of the district of columbia national guard. this famous old washington organization has a long, proud history. many of the members were veterans of the spanish-american war. at the close of the european war, the organization numbered men from the city of washington, twenty of whom had been decorated one or more times for individual bravery under fire. the battalion was first assembled at potomac park on the speedway in washington, shortly after the declaration of war. the men spent almost half a year at the camp, during which time they had the important assignment of guarding railway and highway bridges and adjacent points around the national capitol. they also had the proud distinction of guarding the secret archives and departments at washington, a duty which required unquestioned loyalty and for which the negroes were well selected. it seemed at the time an inconspicuous bit of war time soldiering, and they were long trying days to the men. but it was a service which required intelligence and nerve, as the likelihood was great that the enemy's agents in this country would strike in the vicinity of the seat of government. that such responsible duty was delegated to the negroes was a high compliment from the military authorities. the manner in which they discharged the duty is shown in the fact that no enemy depredations of any consequence occurred in the vicinity of washington. after a period of training at camp stewart, newport news, va., the battalion was sent to france. its colored commander was dead. other colored officers were soon superseded, leaving the chaplain, lieutenant arrington helm, the only colored officer attached to the organization. arriving at st. nazaire, france, april , , the battalion was soon sent to conde en barrois, where it underwent a period of intensive training with special preparation for sector warfare. the instructors were french. lessons were hard and severe, but the instructors afterwards had much cause for pride in their pupils. from the training camp the battalion and regiment proceeded to the argonne front, at first settling in the vicinity of la chalade. it was there the soldiers received their first taste of warfare, and it was there their first casualties occurred. september th the outfit withdrew and retired to the rear for a special training prior to participation in the general attack from verdun to the sea. on the morning of september th the district of columbia battalion was sent to the front to relieve a regiment of famous moroccan shock troops. it was at this time that the champagne offensive took such a decided turn and the washington men from that time on were taking a most active and important part in the general fighting. they distinguished themselves at ripont just north of st. menehold. they suffered greatly during their valiant support of an advanced position in that sector. despite its losses the battalion fought courageously ahead. prior to that it had occupied hill at verdun. it had the distinction of being the first american outfit to take over that sector. the battalion fought doggedly and bravely at ripont and succeeded in gaining much valuable territory, as well as enemy machine guns and supplies and ninety hun prisoners. later the battalion held a front line position at monthois, and it finally formed a salient in the line of the th french army corps. it was subjected to a long period of gruelling fire from the boches' famous austrian s and machine guns, and an incessant barrage from german weapons of high caliber. the regiment moved south to the vosges, where the battalion took up a position in sub-sector b, in front of st. marie aux mines, where it was situated when word of the armistice came. the record of the negro warriors from the district of columbia is very succinctly contained in a diary kept by chaplain lieutenant arrington helm. it relates the activities of the unit from the time they sailed from newport news, march , , until the end of the war. it is also a condensed account of the major operations of the nd regiment. the diary follows: march --embarked from newport news, va., for overseas duty on the u.s.s. susquehanna. april --disembarked at st. nazaire and marched to rest camp. april --left rest camp. base section no. and entrained for vaubecourt. april --arrived at vaubecourt at p.m. left vaubecourt at : p.m. and hiked in a heavy rainstorm to conde en barrois. april --assigned to school under french officers. may --left conde en barrois at a.m. in french motor trucks for les senades. may --our regiment today took over the sector designated as argonne west. may --in front line trenches. june --changed sectors, being assigned to the vauquois sector, a sub-sector of the verdun front. the th division is stationed in reserve. the enemy is expected to attack. july --left for hill on the verdun sector. colonel young has been relieved from command and colonel herschell tupes has assumed command. july --left sivry la perche to take over hill . arrived at hill at p.m. august --heavily shelled by regiment of austrians opposing us. two americans and one frenchman in the regiment killed. august --lieutenant james sanford, company a, captured by the germans. august --fight by french and german planes over our lines. very exciting. september --left hill . relieved by th infantry of the rd division. hiked in rain and mud for brocourt. september --arrived at juvigny at noon. september --left juvigny for brienne la chateau at p.m. passed through brienne la chateau and reached vitray la francois this afternoon. the city is near the marne. september --hiked to jessecourt. all colored officers left the regiment today. september --arrived at hans. the regiment was in action in the vicinity of ripont. the third battalion took up a battle position near ripont. september --the third battalion went over the top. the germans are in retreat. our positions are being bombarded. the machine gun fire is terrific and millimeter shells are falling as thick and fast as hailstones. we are unable to keep up with the enemy. this afternoon it is raining. this makes it bad for the wounded of whom there are many. september --the first battalion is now on our right and advancing fast despite the rain and mud. the machine gun opposition is strenuous. our casualties are small. we have captured a large number of prisoners. october --our advance is meeting with increased opposition. the enemy has fortified himself on a hill just ahead. the ground prevents active support by the french artillery. still we are giving the germans no rest. they are now retreating across the valley to one of their supply bases. the enemy is burning his supplies. we have taken the village at ardeuil. our losses have been heavy but the germans have lost more in killed, wounded and taken prisoner than have our forces. on our right the first battalion has entered the village of sechault, after some hard fighting by company a. october --the second battalion is going in this morning. we are resting at vieux three kilometers from monthois, one of the enemy's railroad centers and base hospitals. the enemy is destroying supplies and moving wounded. we can see trains moving out of monthois. our artillery is bombarding all roads and railroads in the vicinity. the enemy's fire is intense. we expect a counterattack. october --the enemy's artillery has opened up. we are on the alert. they have attacked and a good stiff hand to hand combat ensued. the germans were driven back with heavy losses. we have taken many prisoners from about twelve different german regiments. we continued our advance and now are on the outskirts of monthois. october --the enemy is throwing a stiff barrage on the lines to our left where the rd french infantry is attacking. we can see the huns on the run. the liaison work of the th division is wonderful; not the slightest gap has been left open. our patrols entered monthois early this morning and were driven out by machine gun fire, but returned with a machine gun and its crew. we will be relieved by the th infantry regiment at p.m. we hiked over the ground we had fought so hard to take to minnecourt, where the regiment proceeded to reorganize. october --left valmy today and continued to vignemont. october --arrived at vignemont. hiked fifteen kilometers to st. leonard. october --left st. leonard for van de laveline in the vosges. we arrived at van de laveline at : p.m. and took over a sector. november --a patrol of company a took several prisoners from a german patrol. received word of the signing of the armistice at a.m. today. martial music was played. the colors of the regiment are displayed in front of the post command. it is related that the washington fighters, as well as the other members of the nd regiment, received the news of the armistice with more of disappointment than joy, for they had made all preparations to advance with the french through lorraine. chapter xix comrades on the march. brothers in the sleep of death. policy of substituting white officers---injustice to capable negroes--disappointment but no open resentment--showed themselves soldiers--intenser fighting spirit aroused--race forgotten in perils of war--both whites and blacks generous--affection between officers and men--negroes preferred death to captivity--outstanding heroes of st and nd--winners of crosses changing from negro to white officers was in accordance with the military policy of the american government; the generic inspiration and root being found in national prejudice, incident to the institution of slavery and the spirit of racial caste and narrowness, that still disgraces it. doubt was pretended to be entertained of the ability of the colored man to command, and although there were not lacking champions for the policy of placing capable negroes in command of negro units, the weight of opinion; superinduced and fostered by racial prejudice, inclined to the opposite course. in the light of the fine record made by such negro officers as were given responsible commands, let us hope for the future honor of the nation; preening herself as being in the vanguard of the progressive commonwealths of the age, that a policy so unjust, narrow and unworthy will; as quickly as feasible be abandoned. in favor of negro commanders is the additional testimony of high french generals, who knew no color distinction and could see no reason why a negro should not command his own race troops if he had intelligence, courage and military skill. indeed there are not wanting in the annals of french warfare brilliant examples where men of african blood commanded not only mulattoes and blacks, but heroic whites as well. it is not of record that those white frenchmen showed any reluctance to follow such leaders or viewed them with less affection than they did their white officers. one should not say that the negro troops would have fought any better under the men of their own race. they achieved all possible glory as it was. they simply did their duty whether their officers were white or black. but that they did not fight any the less valiantly or efficiently under men of their own race is abundantly proven by the record of the th, or the th illinois as the soldiers and their people still prefer to call it; and other units which had negroes in responsible positions. that there was disappointment, chagrin and anger in the rank and file of the negro soldiers when their own officers were taken from them and white men substituted was natural and quite to be expected. however, there was little open murmuring. while the negro regarded the removal of the officers who had trained him and were, in a sense, his comrades, unfair and uncalled for, his fighting spirit, seemed to burn with an intenser heat; a determination to do his best to show and shame the spirit that robbed him of his own race leaders, and at the same time convince his white commanders of the stuff he was made of. there was much disappointment in the ranks of the district of columbia battalion, when the place of its old leader was taken by major clark l. dickson, twenty-seven years of age, one of the youngest--if not the youngest--of battalion commanders in the american army. but their disappointment was soon allayed, for major dickson made an enviable record. he received the croix de guerre with this citation: "most efficient officer, valorous and intrepid, acting in dual capacity as regimental adjutant and operation officer. displayed the utmost energy in issuing operation orders during the period between september th and october th, , and especially distinguished himself in crossing a roadway under violent artillery fire to give assistance to a wounded brother officer. his clear view of the situation at all times and the accuracy with which he issued the necessary orders required of him, contributed largely to the success of the regiment." many of his men have stated that the citation only hinted at the real accomplishments of major dickson. in the rigors of war and the perils of battle, men serving side by side, forget race. they simply realize that they are sharing hardships in common; are beset by a common foe and are the subjects of common dangers. under such circumstances they become comrades. they learn to admire each other and willingly give to each other a full measure of praise and appreciation. the negro soldiers generally, have expressed unstintedly, approbation and praise of their white officers; and the officers have been equally generous. here is an appreciation by one of the officers of the nd regiment, lieutenant jerome meyer of washington, concerning the men of that organization: "casualties were heavy because the colored lads fought to the last, cheerfully accepting death in preference to captivity. their adeptness in mastering the throwing of hand grenades and in operating the machine guns quickly won them the esteem of the french. remember, that the colored lads were quite new to warfare. but in the champagne they fought with a persistence and courage that enabled them to hold permanently the ground they gained and won for many of them their decorations. not a few of the prisoners taken by the regiment declared that the germans were in positive fear of the negroes, who, they complained, would never quit even under terrible fire." one of the outstanding heroes of the nd regiment was sergeant ira payne, of fifteenth street, washington, d.c. he won the croix de guerre and the distinguished service cross, and according to his comrades, "was not afraid of the devil himself." his story as related by himself on his return home, follows: "during the fighting at sechault the germans were picking off the men of my platoon from behind a bush. they had several machine guns and kept up a deadly fire in spite of our rifle fire directed at the bush. we did our best to stop those machine guns, but the german aim became so accurate that they were picking off five of my men every minute. we couldn't stand for that. "well, i decided that i would get that little machine gun nest myself, and i went after it. i left our company, detoured, and, by a piece of luck got behind the bush. i got my rifle into action and 'knocked off' two of those german machine gunners. that ended it. the other germans couldn't stand so much excitement. the boches surrendered and i took them into our trenches as prisoners." not a long story for such an able and courageous exploit, yet it contains the germ for an epic recital on bravery. first sergeant john a. johnson a colored member of company b, was decorated with the croix de guerre with palm for exceptional bravery during a charge over the top, and for capturing single-handed, two hun soldiers who later proved valuable as sources of information. sergeant johnson's home was at new jersey avenue, washington, d.c. he was equally reticent about boasting of his deeds. "near sechault during the time the district men were making a big effort to capture the town," said johnson, "i was put in the front lines not fifty feet away from the enemy. a greater part of the time i was exposed to machine gun fire. i suppose i got my medal because i stuck to my men in the trenches and going over the top. quite a few of the boys were bumped off at that point." another hero was benjamin butler, a private. the citation with his croix de guerre read: "for displaying gallantry and bravery and distinguishing himself in carrying out orders during the attack on sechault, september , , under heavy bombardment and machine gun fire." "i did very little," butler said. "during this fight with several others, i carried dispatches to the front line trenches from headquarters. they decorated me, i suppose, because i was the only one lucky enough to escape being knocked off." private charles e. cross of twenty-first street, washington, d.c. was awarded the croix de guerre, his citation reading: "for his speed and reliability in carrying orders to platoons in the first line under the enemy's bombardment on september , ." in some cases he had to creep across no man's land and a greater part of the time was directly exposed to the enemy's fire. private william h. braxton, a member of the machine gun company of the regiment, whose residence was at ward place, washington d.c., received the croix de guorre for "displaying zealous bravery." "an enemy party," reads his citation, "having filtered through his platoon and attacked same in the rear. private braxton displayed marked gallantry in opening fire on the enemy and killing one and wounding several others, finally dispersing the entire party." "the men who stuck by me when death stared them in their faces," said braxton, "deserve just as much credit as i do. i was only the temporary leader of the men." corporal depew pryor, of detroit, michigan, was awarded the medal militaire, one of the most coveted honors within the gift of the french army, as well as the american distinguished service cross. pryor saw germans capture a frenchman. grabbing an armful of grenades, he dashed upon the germans killing, wounding or routing a party of ten and liberating the frenchman. sergeant bruce meddows, erskine street, detroit, michigan, brought home the croix de guerre with silver star, which he won for bringing down an aeroplane with an automatic rifle. to have forty-six horses which he drove in carting ammunition up to the front lines, killed in five months was the experience of arthur b. hayes, pacific avenue, detroit, michigan. he returned home sick, with practically no wounds after risking his life daily for months. sergeant george h. jordan of company l, whose home was in boston, mass., won the croix de guerre and palm for taking charge of an ammunition train at verdun, when the commanding officer had been killed by a shell. he saved and brought through eight of the seventeen wagons. lieutenant james e. sanford of washington, d.c., one of the early negro officers of the nd, was captured in avocourt woods near verdun, august , . he was endeavoring to gain a strategic position with his men when he was met by an overpowering force concealed behind camouflaged outposts, he was taken to karlsruhe and transferred to three other german prison camps, in all of which he suffered from bad and insufficient food and the brutality of the german guards. [illustration: u.s. flag and th regiment flag, decorated with croix de guerre at ungersheim, alsace, france.] [illustration: the th infantry in rest billets at maffrecourt, france. henry johnson. one of foremost heroes of the war. with his famous smile. in right foreground.] [illustration: the joke seems to be on the lad at the left.] [illustration: a few of the many guns captured from the germans.] [illustration: americans in prison camp. prisoners are amused listeners while jovial negro fighter relates an episode of war life to a german officer.] [illustration: arthur johnson, a doughboy of the th illinois ( th infantry), winner of croix de guerre and the distinguished service cross.] [illustration: game probably is strip poker as two men have already discarded their shirts. one has a large safety pin for instant use. but then, note the horseshoe on his shoe.] [illustration: kitchen police on board the celtic. there is always some duty for uncle sam's men on land or sea.] [illustration: minstrels on board the "saxonia." typical group organized on the transports to entertain wounded boys returning from france.] [illustration: men who handled the cannons. part of squadron a, st field artillery. on transport louisville.] [illustration: lieut. maxom and his band, who saw distinguished service in france.] [illustration: group on edge of pier waiting to entrain for demobilization camp. part of the st artillery unit specially mentioned by general pershing.] [illustration: salvation army lassies handing out chocolate to two soldiers of st artillery.] [illustration: heroes of st artillery greeting friends after debarking from the transport louisville.] major johnson led his battalion of the nd in an attack in the champagne which resulted in the capture of a german trench, prisoners, an ammunition dump, thirty machine guns and two howitzers. he received the croix de guerre and the legion of honor decoration from the french, as well as the distinguished service cross from general pershing. company b of the nd, took at sechault in a raid, seventy-five prisoners and four machine guns. one of the distinguished units of the nd, was the old and famous company l of the massachusetts national guard. this unit was assembled at camp devens and left soon after the declaration of war for the south. it was stationed for a time at newport news, and was then incorporated with the nd, went to france with that organization and saw its share of service throughout the campaign. other distinguished units were the well known ninth ohio battalion national guard, and national guard companies from connecticut, maryland and tennessee. brigaded with the nd in the french "red hand" division, was another negro regiment, the st, made up principally of selectives from south carolina. it was commanded by colonel p.l. miles. among the officers were major thomas moffatt and captain william r. richey from charleston. the regiment saw practically the same service as the nd under general goybet, was mentioned in divisional and special orders, was decorated by vice admiral moreau, maritime prefect of brest, at the same time the honor was conferred on the nd. the two regiments were together for seven months. the men of the st especially distinguished themselves at crete des observatories, ardeuil and in the plains of monthois. seventy-one individual members received the croix de guerre and some the distinguished service cross. among the latter were the following: sergeant lee r. mcclelland, medical detachment, home address, boston, mass., for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . corporal sandy e. jones, company c, home address sumter, s.c.; for extraordinary heroism in action in the champagne, september and , . private bruce stoney, medical detachment, home address, allendale, s.c.; for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . private charlie butler, machine gun company, home address, mccomb, miss.; for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . private willie boston, machine gun company, home address, roopville, ga.; for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . private tillman webster, machine gun company, home address, alexandria, la.; for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . private ellison moses, company c, home address, mayesville, s.c.; for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . private hunius diggs, company g, home address, lilesville, n.c.; for extraordinary heroism in action near ardeuil, september , . the two regiments, besides the regimental croix de guerre, awarded for gallantry in the champagne, won individual decorations amounting in the aggregate to croix de guerre, distinguished service crosses, four medal militaire and two crosses of the legion of honor. an incident of the service of the st and particularly emphasizing the honesty and faithfulness of the negro y.m.c.a. and the regiment's medical detachment, was the case of prof. h.o. cook, a teacher in the lincoln high school at kansas city, mo. professor cook, a y.m.c.a. man attached to the sector which the st was holding during the great offensive in september, went with the men to the front line trenches and rendered valuable aid among the wounded until he was gassed. owing to the fact that there were no facilities at that particular time, for the safe keeping of money and valuables, he carried on his person more than , francs (in normal times $ , ) which boys in the regiment had given him to keep when they went over the top. after being gassed he was walked over for an hour before being discovered. the money was found and sent by sergeant major white also colored, to general headquarters at chaumont. when prof. cook was discharged from the hospital and made inquiry about the money, it was returned to him. not a cent was missing. colonel miles recommended that general pershing award prof. cook a distinguished service cross. the men of the rd division and other negro divisions and organizations will never forget their french comrades and friends. it was a lad of the st regiment who wrote the following to his mother. the censor allowed the original to proceed but copied the extract as a document of human interest; in that it was a boyish and unconscious arraignment of his own country--for which he with many thousands of others, were risking their lives. "mammy, these french people don't bother with no color line business. they treat us so good that the only time i ever know i'm colored is when i look in the glass." the st regiment had men killed in action and about wounded or gassed. the casualties of the nd consisted of killed in action and between and wounded or gassed. like the other negro regiments of the rd division, there was comparatively little sickness among the men, outside of that induced by hard service conditions. heroes of the st and nd. the names listed below are cross and medal winners. the exploits of some are told in detail in the chapters devoted to their regiments. there are many known to have received decorations whose names are not yet on the records. cross of the legion of honor nd regiment. major johnson medal militaire nd regiment. corp. depew pryor corp. clifton morrison pvt. clarence van allen distinguished service cross st regiment. sergt lee r. mcclelland corp. sandy e. jones pvt. bruce stoney pvt. charlie butler pvt. willie boston pvt. tillman webster pvt. ellison moses pvt. hunius diggs nd regiment major johnson sergt. ira m. payne corp. depew pryor croix de guerre nd regiment. col. herschell tupes major johnson major clark l. dickson lieut. jerome meyer sergt. major samuel b. webster sergt. john a. johnson sergt. ira m. payne sergt james a. marshall sergt. norman jones pvt. warwick alexander pvt. george h. budd pvt. thomas a. frederick pvt. john s. parks pvt. charles h. murphy pvt. william n. mathew pvt. ernest payne sergt. homer crabtree sergt. norman winsmore sergt. william a. carter sergt. george h. jordan sergt. bruce meddows sergt. harry gibson corp. john r. white corp. benjamin butler corp. march graham pvt. joseph mckamey pvt. william dickerson pvt. william johnson pvt. walter dennis pvt. charles e. cross pvt. william h. braxton pvt. nunley matthews chapter xx mid shot and shell in trench and valley--the open plain--on mountain top--in no man's land--two classes of negro soldiers considered--trained guardsmen and selectives--gallant nd division--race can be proud of it--had six hundred negro officers--sets at rest all doubts--operations of the division--at pont a mousson--great battle of metz--some reflections--casualties considered history, as made in france by the negro soldier, falls naturally into two divisions; that which was made by the bodies of troops which had an organization prior to the war, and whether trained or not, could lay claim to an understanding of the first principles of military science; and that made by the raw selectives--the draft soldiers--to whom the art of war was a closed book, something never considered as likely to affect their scheme of life and never given more than a passing thought. we have followed the first phase of it in the wonderful combat-records of the colored national guard, its volunteers and recruits. we have seen them like a stone wall bearing the brunt of attack from the finest shock troops of the kaiser's army. we have seen them undaunted by shot and shell, advancing through the most terrific artillery fire up to that time ever concentrated; rout those same troops, hold their ground and even advance under the most powerful counter attack which the enemy could deliver. we have followed them from trench to plain, to valley and into the mountains and read the story of their battles under all those varying conditions. we have pitied them in their trials, sympathized with their wounded and ill, been saddened by their lists of dead and finally have seen the survivors come home; have seen them cheered and feted as no men of their race ever were cheered and feted before. much of the nation's pride in them was due to the fact that it knew them as fighting men; at least as men who were organized for fighting purposes before the war. when they marched away and sailed we had confidence in them; were proud of their appearance, their spirit, their willingness to serve. the country felt they would not fail to clothe with luster their race and maintain the expectations of them. that they fulfilled every expectation and more; had come back loaded with honors; finer, manlier men than ever, increased the nation's pride in them. now we come to a contemplation of the other class; the men who knew nothing of military life or military matters; who, most of them, wished to serve but never dreamed of getting the opportunity. many of them employed in the cotton fields or residing in the remote corners of the country, hardly knew there was a war in progress. some of them realized that events out of the ordinary were transpiring through the suddenly increased demand for their labor and the higher wages offered them. but that uncle sam would ever call them to serve in his army and even to go far across seas to a shadowy--to them, far off land, among a strange people; speaking a strange language, had never occurred to most of them even in dreams. then all of a sudden came the draft summons. the call soon penetrated to the farthest nooks of our great land; surprised, bewildered but happy, the black legions began to form. it already has been noted that with the exception of the st regiment, which went to the rd division, the selectives who saw service in the fighting areas, were all in the nd division. this was a complete american division, brigaded with its own army, commanded through the greater part of its service by major general ballou and towards the end by major general martin. while the nd division as a whole, did not get into the heavy fighting until the last two weeks of the war, individual units had a taste of it earlier. service which the division as a whole did see, was some of the most severe of the war. the negroes of the country may well be proud of the organization, for its record was good all the way through and in the heavy fighting was characterized by great gallantry and efficiency. one of the outstanding features of the division was the fact that it had about six hundred negro commissioned officers. its rank and file of course, was composed exclusively of negro soldiers. the fine record of the division must forever set at rest any doubts concerning the ability of negro officers, and any questions about negro soldiers following and fighting under them. it was a splendid record all the way through, and negro officers rendered excellent service at all times and under the most trying circumstances. many of these officers, be it understood, were entirely new to military life. some had seen service in the national guard and some had come up from the ranks of the regular army, but the majority of them were men taken from civilian life and trained and graduated from the officer's training camps at fort des moines, camp taylor, camp hancock and camp pike. a few received commissions from the officers' training schools in france. the nd division was composed of the rd infantry brigade, consisting of the th and th infantry regiments and the th machine gun battalion; the th infantry brigade, composed of the th and th infantry regiments and the st machine gun battalion; the th artillery brigade consisting of the th, th and st artillery regiments; and the th machine gun battalion, the th trench mortar battalion, the th engineers' regiment, the th engineers' train, the th ammunition train, the th supply train, the th train headquarters, the nd military police company; and the sanitary train, comprising the th, th th and th field hospital and ambulance companies. briefly summarized, the operations of the nd division may be stated as follows: arrived in france the summer of . after the usual period of intensive training in the back areas it was divided into several groups for training alongside the french in front line trenches. in august they took over a sector in the st. die region near the lorraine border. september nd they repulsed an enemy raid at lafontenelle. on september th the division was a reserve of the first army corps in the first phase of the meuse-argonne offensive. on october th they moved to the marbache sector in the vicinity of pont a mousson. november th they advanced, reaching bois frehaut and bois cheminot, capturing prisoners. these positions were being consolidated on november th when the armistice put an end to the fighting. of course there was fighting by some units of the division from the time early in the summer when they went into the trenches. when the marbache sector was taken over by the nd division, "no man's land" was owned by the germans and they were aggressively on the offensive. they held belie farm, bois de tete d'or, bois frehaut, voivrotte farm, voivrotte woods, bois cheminot and moulin brook. raids and the aggressiveness of the patrols of the nd division changed the complexion of things speedily. they inflicted many casualties on the germans and took many prisoners. each of the places named above was raided by the doughty black men as was also epley, while their patrols penetrated north nearly to the east and west line through pagny. the germans were driven north beyond frehaut and voivrotte to cheminot bridge. in their desperation they tried to check the americans by an attempt to destroy the bridge over the seille river. they succeeded in flooding a portion of the adjacent country; these tactics demonstrating that they could not withstand the negro soldiers. west of the seille river excellent results followed the energetic offensive, the germans losing heavily in killed, wounded and prisoners. in nearly every instance the raids were conducted by negro line officers. up to this time the division as a whole, had never been in a major battle. the only regiment in it that had seen a big engagement was the th infantry, which took part in the action in the argonne forest in september. the division's chance came in the great drive on metz, just before the end of the war. they were notified at o'clock sunday morning, november th. the motto "see it through" of the th infantry, known as the "buffaloes," echoed through the whole division. they began their advance at o'clock from pont a mousson. before them was a valley commanded by the heavy guns of metz and by innumerable nests of german machine guns. the negroes seemed to realize that here for the first time was the opportunity to show their mettle--that for the first time they were going to battle as a division. a sense of race pride seemed to stir and actuate every man. here was a chance to show what this great body, composed of cotton-field negroes, of stevedores, mechanics, general laborers, trades, professional men and those from all walks of civilian life who but recently had taken up the profession of arms, could do. an opportunity to enact a mighty role was upon them, and they played it well. not only were the black infantry and machine gun units up at the front; in the thickest of it, but the artillery--the th brigade--was on the line behaving like veterans. they laid down a barrage for the infantry that was wonderfully effective. they established a reputation which has been made by but few, among french, british or americans, of laying down a barrage that did not entrap; and fatally so, their own comrades. it was a glorious day for the division. the casualty roll was heavy for the sector was strongly fortified and the enemy made a most determined resistance. metz is considered by experts to be the strongest fortified inland city in the world. indeed it is almost as strong, if not quite so, as gibraltar or the dardanelles. but from the way the americans hammered at it, military authorities say that only the signing of the armistice prevented the taking of it by assault. as it was, the close of fighting saw negro troops on german soil. the fortitude and valor of the negroes, especially in the action against metz, won them high praise from their commanding officers. entire units were decorated by the french with the croix de guerre. fourteen negro officers and forty-three enlisted men were cited for bravery in action and awarded the distinguished service cross by general pershing. this is a splendid showing considering that up to november th, , the greater portion of the division had to content itself with making daily and nightly raids on the german front line trenches to harass the foe and capture prisoners. this, however, required daring and courage and, in some ways, was more trying and dangerous than being in a big engagement. a total of citations by the american military authorities, besides honors bestowed by the french, is a splendid showing for a division which won most of its honors during its first great baptism of fire. the casualties of the nd division amounted to an aggregate of , of all kinds. six officers were killed in action and one died from wounds. among the non-commissioned officers and privates were killed in action, died from wounds, were missing in action and five were taken prisoner. forty enlisted men died from disease. sixteen officers and enlisted men were wounded; thirty-nine officers and enlisted men were gassed. the number of gassed was unusually large, a reason being, perhaps, that the men in the front line trenches were exceptionally daring in making raids into the enemy's territory. one of the main reliances of the germans against these raids was poison gas, a plentiful supply of which they kept on hand at all times, and which they could utilize quickly and with great facility. the small number in this division who were taken prisoner by the enemy verifies the assertion made before that the negro would sacrifice his life or submit to deadly wounds rather than be captured. when only five out of a total of about , fell into the germans' hands alive, it gives some idea of the desperate resistance they put up. perhaps the stories they had heard about the wanton slaughter of prisoners by the hun or the brutalities practiced on those who were permitted to live, had something to do with the attitude of the negroes against being captured; but a more likely solution is that their very spirit to advance and win and to accept death in preference to being conquered, caused the small number in the prisoner list, and the large number in the lists of other casualties. considering the desperate advance made by the nd division from pont a mousson the morning of november th, through a valley swept by the tremendous guns of metz and thousands of machine guns, the casualty list really is slight. advancing over such dangerous ground to gain their objective, it appears miraculous that the division was not wiped out, or at least did not suffer more heavily than it did. an explanation of this seeming miracle has been offered in the rapidity of the advance. no two battles are ever fought alike. offensives and defensives will be planned along certain lines. then will suddenly obtrude the element of surprise or something that could not be foreseen or guarded against, which will overturn the most carefully prepared plans. no soldiers in the world were ever trained to a higher degree of efficiency than the germans. mathematical precision ruled everywhere; the ultimate detail had been considered; and all students of military matters were forced to admit that they had reduced warfare seemingly, to an exact science. but it was a mistake. the germans were the victims of surprise times innumerable. some of the greatest events of the war, notably the first defeat at the marne in its strategic features, was a complete surprise to them. everything about war, can, it seems, be reduced to a science except strategy. certain rules can be laid down governing strategy, but they do not always work. generally speaking, it is psychology; something which exists in the other man's mind. to read the other man's mind or make a good guess at it, defeats the most scientifically conceived strategy. napoleon outwitted the best military brains and was himself the greatest strategist of his time, because he invariably departed from fixed military customs and kept his opponent entirely at sea regarding what he was doing or intended to do. very seldom did he do the thing which his enemy thought he would do; which seemed most likely and proper according to military science. he thought and acted quickly in crises, relied constantly on the element of surprise and invented new strategy on the spur of the moment. it was the big new strategy, the big new surprises, with which the germans found themselves unable to cope. the strategy of foch which developed in the offensive shortly after the battle of chateau thierry in july and was well under way in the early part of august, was a surprise to the germans. pershing surprised them in his st. mihiel and following operations, especially the battles of argonne forest, and had a greater surprise in store for them in the lorraine campaign had the war continued. perhaps the germans figured at metz, that owing to the extreme difficulty of the ground to be covered, their strong fortifications and great gun power, any advance, especially of negro troops, would be slow. they accordingly timed their artillery action and their defensive measures for a slow assault. but they were surprised again. officers could not hold back the negro fighters and german guns and soldiers could not stop them. they plunged on to preny and pagny, and they rushed into the bois frehaut, and held for thirty-six hours, this place from which picked moroccan and senegalese troops were forced to retreat in ten minutes after they had entered it. the bois frehaut was an inferno under the murderous fire of the germans. holding it for thirty-six hours and remaining there until hostilities ceased, it is surprising that the casualty list of the nd division did not amount to many times , . it is not intended to convey the impression that the negroes were entirely responsible for the victory before metz. many thousands of white troops participated and fought just as valiantly. but this history concerns itself with the operations of negro soldiers and with bringing out as many of the details of those operations as the records at this time will supply. chapter xxi the long, long trail operations of th infantry--negroes from pennsylvania, maryland and south--in argonne hell--defeat iron cross veterans--valiant personal exploits--lieutenant robert campbell--private john baker--operations of th infantry--"moss's buffaloes"-- th and th regiments--the great divide--their souls are marching on--praised by pershing--some citations when the history of the nd division is written in detail, much prominence will necessarily be given to the operations of the th infantry. this unit was composed of negroes mostly from pennsylvania, maryland and the southern states. they went abroad happy, light-hearted boys to whom any enterprise outside of their regular routine was an adventure. they received adventure a plenty; enough to last most of them for their natural lives. they returned matured, grim-visaged men who had formed a companionship and a comradeship with death. for months they were accustomed to look daily down the long, long trail leading to the great divide. they left behind many who traveled the trail and went over the divide. peril was their constant attendant, danger so familiar that they greeted it with a smile. it has been noted that this unit of the division saw real service prior to the campaign leading from pont mousson to metz. their first action was in august in the vosges sector. this was largely day and night raiding from front line trenches. a month later they were in that bit of hell known as the argonne forest, where on september th, they covered themselves with glory. they were excellent soldiers with a large number of negro officers, principally men who had been promoted from the ranks of non-commissioned officers in the regular army. their commander during the last six weeks of the war, the time when they saw most of their hard service, was lieutenant colonel t.a. rothwell, a regular army officer. he went abroad as commander of a machine gun battalion in the th division, later was transferred to the th infantry and finally to the th. many of the officers of the latter organization had served under colonel rothwell as non-commissioned officers of the regular army. he paid them a high tribute in stating that they proved themselves excellent disciplinarians and leaders. he was also very proud of the enlisted men of the regiment. "the negroes proved themselves especially good soldiers during gas attacks," said colonel rothwell, "which were numerous and of a very treacherous nature. during the wet weather the gas would remain close to the ground and settle, where it was comparatively harmless, but with the breaking out of the sun it would rise in clouds suddenly and play havoc with the troops." green troops as they were, it is related that there was a little confusion on the occasion of their first battle, when the regiment encountered barbed wire entanglements for the first time at a place in the woods where the germans had brought their crack gunners to keep the line. but there was no cowardice and the confusion soon subsided. they quickly got used to the wire, cut their way through and cleaned out the gunners in record time. every one of the enemy picked up in that section of the woods was wearing an iron cross; the equivalent of the french croix de guerre or the american distinguished service cross. it showed that they belonged to the flower of the kaiser's forces. but they were no match for the "black devils," a favorite name of the germans for all negro troops, and applied by them with particular emphasis to these troops and others of the nd division. on october th, the regiment went to metz and took part in all the operations leading up to that campaign and the close of the war. in the argonne, before metz and elsewhere, they were subjected constantly to gas warfare. they behaved remarkably well under those attacks. major benjamin p. morris, who commanded the third battalion, has stated that in the drive which started september th, he lost nearly per cent of his men through wounding or gassing. the battalion won eight distinguished service crosses in that attack and the major was recommended for one of the coveted decorations. the regiment lost forty-four men killed in action, thirteen died from wounds and eight were missing in action. the list of wounded and gassed ran over three hundred. individual exploits were quite numerous and were valiant in the extreme. here is an instance: it became necessary to send a runner with a message to the left flank of the american firing line. the way was across an open field offering no covering or protection of any kind, and swept by heavy enemy machine gun fire. volunteers were called for. a volunteer under such circumstances must be absolutely fearless. the slightest streak of timidity or cowardice would keep a man from offering his services. private edward saunders of company i, responded for the duty. before he had gone far a shell cut him down. as he fell he cried to his comrades: "someone come and get this message. i am wounded." lieutenant robert l. campbell, a negro officer of the same company sprang to the rescue. he dashed across the shell-swept space, picked up the wounded private, and, with the germans fairly hailing bullets around him, carried his man back to the lines. there was the case of an officer who considered it more important to save the life of a heroic, valuable soldier than to speed a message. besides the wounded man could proceed no farther and there were other ways of getting the message through and it was sent. [illustration: wounded negro soldiers convalescing in base hospital. in the picture are two colored women ambulance drivers.] [illustration: sample of identity card carried by soldiers of the american expeditionary forces. each identification was printed in english and french and included a photograph of the owner. the number on the card corresponding with a metal tag on the man's arm.] [illustration: negro officers of th infantry who achieved distinction in france. left to right. lieut c.l. abbott, capt. jos. l. lowe, lieut. a.r. fisher, capt. e. white.] [illustration: distinguished officers of the th illinois ( th infantry). first row, left to right, capt. d.j. warner, a.h. jones. lieut. e.g. white, lieut. j.d. rainey, lieut. bernard mcgwin. second row--lieut. luther j. harris, lieut. alvin m. jordan, lieut. e.l. goodlett, lieut. j.t. baker. third row, lieut. f.j. johnson, lieut. jerome l. hubert.] [illustration: distinguished officers of th illinois ( th infantry). left to right, lieut. lawson price, lieut. o.a. browning, lieut. w. stearles, capt. lewis e. johnson, lieut. edmond g. white, lieut. f.w. bates, lieut. e.f.e. williams, lieut. binga dismond.] [illustration: colonel charles young, ranking negro officer of the regular army. one of three who have been commissioned from the united states military academy at west point. a veteran officer of the spanish-american war and western campaigns. detailed to active service, camp grant, rockford, illinois. during the world war.] [illustration: two noted partisans of the allies in the great world war: mrs. j.h.h. sengstacke, and her famous son, robert sengstacke abbott, editor and publisher of the chicago defender. it was mrs. sengstacke who, when the defender had reached the one hundred thousand mark of its circulation, started the press that ran off the edition, flaming with cheer an inspiration for "our boys" in the trenches "over there."] [illustration: reunited and happy. lieut. colonel otis b. duncan of th illinois ( th infantry), who came out of the war the ranking negro in the american expeditionary forces; his father and mother.] [illustration: miss vivian harsh, member chicago chapter of canteen workers, passing out smokes to returned soldiers of th illinois ( th infantry).] [illustration: officers of th illinois ( th infantry). decorated by french for gallantry in action. left to right. lieut. thomas a. painter, capt. stewart alexander, lieut. frank robinson.] for the valor shown both were cited for the distinguished service cross. lieutenant campbell's superiors also took the view that in that particular instance the life of a brave soldier was of more importance than the dispatch of a message, for as a result, he was recommended for a captaincy. another single detail taken from the same company i: john baker, having volunteered, was taking a message through heavy shell fire to another part of the line. a shell struck his hand, tearing away part of it, but the negro unfalteringly went through with the message. he was asked why he did not seek aid for his wounds before completing the journey. his reply was: "i thought that the message might contain information that would save lives." has anything more heroic and unselfish than that ever been recorded? nature may have, in the opinions of some, been unkind to that man when she gave him a dark skin, but he bore within it a soul, than which there are none whiter; reflecting the spirit of his creator, that should prove a beacon light to all men on earth, and which will shine forever as a "gem of purest ray serene" in the unmeasurable and great beyond. under the same lieut. robert campbell, a few colored soldiers armed only with their rifles, trench knives, and hand grenades, picked up from shell holes along the way, were moving over a road in the chateau thierry sector. suddenly their course was crossed by the firing of a german machine gun. they tried to locate it by the sound and direction of the bullets, but could not. to their right a little ahead, lay a space covered with thick underbrush; just back of it was an open field. lieutenant campbell who knew by the direction of the bullets that his party had not been seen by the germans, ordered one of his men with a rope which they happened to have, to crawl to the thick underbrush and tie the rope to several stems of the brush; then to withdraw as fast as possible and pull the rope making the brush shake as though men were crawling through it. the purpose was to draw direct fire from the machine gun, and by watching, locate its position. the ruse worked. lieutenant campbell then ordered three of his men to steal out and flank the machine gun on one side, while he and two others moved up and flanked it on the other side. the brush was shaken more violently by the concealed rope. the germans, their eyes focused on the brush, poured a hail of bullets into it. lieutenant campbell gave the signal and the flanking party dashed up; with their hand grenades they killed four of the boches and captured the remaining three--also the machine gun. there was an officer who could think and plan in an emergency, and evolve strategy like a napoleon. first lieutenant edward jones, of the medical corps of the regiment, was cited for heroism at binarville. on september th lieutenant jones went into an open area subjected to direct machine gun fire to care for a wounded soldier who was being carried by another officer. while dressing the wounded man, a machine gun bullet passed between his arms and body and a man was killed within a few yards of him. in a general order issued by the commander of the division, general martin, second lieutenant nathan o. goodloe, one of the negro officers of the regimental machine gun company, was commended for excellent work and meritorious conduct. during the operations in the argonne forest, lieutenant goodloe was attached to the third battalion. in the course of action it became necessary to reorganize the battalion and withdraw part of it to a secondary position. he carried out the movement under a continual machine gun fire from the enemy. general martin said: "lieutenant goodloe's calm courage set an example that inspired confidence in his men." general martin also cited for meritorious conduct near vienne le chateau, tom brown, a wagoner, who as driver of an ammunition wagon, displayed remarkable courage, coolness and devotion to duty under fire. brown's horses had been hurled into a ditch by shells and he was injured. in spite of his painful wounds he worked until he had extricated his horses from the ditch, refusing to quit until he had completed the work even though covered with blood from his hurts. private joseph james of the th, received the distinguished service cross for extraordinary heroism in action, september th, in the argonne forest. a regiment of the nd division which gained distinction, received its share of decorations and was mentioned several times in general orders from the high officers, was the th infantry, "moss's buffaloes." this title was attached to them while they were undergoing training at yaphank, n.y., under colonel james a. moss of the regular army. it stuck to the outfit all through the war and became a proud title, a synonym of courage and fighting strength. the th went to france in june and spent two months training back of the lines. it was sent to supporting trenches august th and finally to the front line at st. die, near lorraine border. it remained there until september st and was then transferred to the st. mihiel salient where pershing delivered his famous blow, the one that is said to have broken the german heart. it was at any rate, a blow that demonstrated the effectiveness of the american fighting forces. in a few days the overseas commander of the yankee troops conquered a salient which the enemy had held for three years and which was one of the most menacing positions of the entire line. on october th, the regiment was sent to the left bank of the moselle, where it remained until the signing of the armistice. colonel moss was taken from combatant duty early in october to become an instructor at the training school at gondrecourt, the regiment passing under the command of colonel w.j. doane. composed of selectives mostly from the state of new york, the regiment was trained with a view to developing good assault and shock troops, which they were. casualties of all descriptions in the th, amounted to about ten per cent of the regimental strength. a number of decorations for personal bravery were bestowed, and the regiment as a whole was cited and praised by general pershing in his review of the nd division at le mans. the entire first battalion of the th, was cited for bravery and awarded the croix de guerre by the french. the citation was made by the french commission because of the splendid service and bravery shown by the regiment in the last engagement of the war, sunday and monday, november th and th in the drive to metz. the men went into action through the bloody valley commanded by the heavy guns of metz, and held the germans at bay until the th regiment could retreat, but not until it had suffered a heavy loss. the first battalion was commanded by major charles l. appleton of new york, with company commanders and lieutenants, negroes. another distinguished component of the nd division was the th infantry made up of selectives principally from chicago and other parts of illinois. this regiment saw about the same service as the th, perhaps a little more severe, as the casualties were greater. in the action at bois frehaut in the drive on metz, the th lost forty-three men killed in action and dead from wounds. in addition there were thirty-two missing in action, most of whom were killed or succumbed to wounds. about were wounded or gassed. in general orders, issued by the commander of the division, a number of negro officers, non-commissioned officers and privates of the th were commended for meritorious conduct in the actions of november th and th. those named were; captain john h. allen, first lieutenants leon f. stewart, frank l. drye, walter lyons, david w. harris, and benjamin f. ford; second lieutenants george l. games and russell c. atkins; sergeants richard w. white john simpson, robert townsend, solomon d. colson, ransom elliott and charles jackson; corporals thomas b. coleman, albert taylor, charles reed and james conley, and privates earl swanson, jesse cole, james hill, charles white and george chaney. captain allen of the machine gun company of the th, died in france of pneumonia. only a short time before his death he had been awarded the distinguished service cross by general pershing, for exceptional gallantry before metz. private robert m. breckenridge of company b, th regiment, also gave his life in france, but had received the distinguished service cross for extraordinary heroism in action at ferme de belwir, october th, . corporal russell pollard of company h received his distinguished service cross shortly before his return home. he was cited for extraordinary heroism in action in the first days battle at metz. the remaining infantry regiment of the division not heretofore specially mentioned, was the th, a highly efficient organization of selectives assembled from the mobilization and training camps of various sections of the country. like the other regiments of the division, the greater number of these men were assembled in the autumn of , trained continuously in this country until the early part of the summer of , sent to france and given at least two months' intensive training there. during the training periods their instructors were mostly officers from the regular army or the military instruction schools of this country and france. some english officers also assisted in the training. that they possessed the requisite intelligence for absorbing the instruction they received is evidenced by the high type of soldier into which they developed, their records in battle, and the unstinted praise which they received from their superior officers, the french commanders and others who witnessed or were familiar with their service. the th went through the campaign in the marbache sector and suffered all its rigors and perils. in the final two days of fighting they were right at the front and achieved distinction to the extent that in the review at le mans they also were singled out by general pershing for special commendation. during the campaign the regiment had a loss of forty-three men killed in action or died of wounds. seven men were missing in action. the wounded and gassed were upwards of . in general orders issued by the commander of the division, first lieutenant john q. lindsey was cited for bravery displayed at lesseux; sergeant isaac hill for bravery displayed at frapelle and sergeant walter l. gross for distinguished service near hominville. these men were all colored and all of the th regiment. wherever men were cited in general orders or otherwise, it generally followed that they received the distinguished service cross or some other coveted honor. chapter xxii glory that wont come off th first negro artillery brigade--"like veterans" said pershing--first artillery to be motorized--record by dates--selected for lorraine campaign--best educated negroes in american forces--always stood by their guns--chaplain's estimate--left splendid impression--testimony of french mayors--christian behavior--soldierly qualities. to the nd division belonged the distinction of having the first artillery brigade composed entirely of negroes, with the exception of a few commissioned officers, ever organized in this country. in fact, the regiments composing the brigade, the th, the th and st were the first complete artillery regiments of negroes and the only important negro organizations in the artillery branch of the service, ever formed in this country. their record was remarkable considering the brief time in which they had to distinguish themselves, and had the war continued, they would surely have gained added glory; general pershing in the review at le mans complimenting them particularly, stating that when the armistice came he was planning important work for them. following are the general's words which brought much pride to the organization: "permit me to extend to the officers and men of the th field artillery brigade, especially the st regiment, my congratulations for the excellent manner in which they conducted themselves during the twelve days they were on the front. the work of the unit was so meritorious that after the accomplishments of the brigade were brought to my attention i was preparing to assign the unit to very important work in the second offensive. you men acted like veterans, never failing to reach your objective, once orders had been given you. i wish to thank you for your work." the unit was organized largely from men of western pennsylvania, the district of columbia, maryland and virginia. camp meade, near washington, d.c., was their principal training point from the fall of until june, , when they went abroad. to the brigade belongs the additional distinction of being the first in the service to be motorized. tractors hauled the big guns along the front at a rate of twelve miles an hour, much better than could have been done with horses or mules. brigadier general w.e. cole commanded the unit until about the middle of september, , when he was elevated to a major generalship and the command of the th passed to brigadier general john h. sherburne. in a general order issued by the latter shortly before he left the unit, he said: "i will ever cherish the words of the commander in chief, the compliment he paid, in all sincerity to this brigade, when he watched it pass in review. i wish the brigade to understand that those words of appreciation were evoked only because each man had worked conscientiously and unflaggingly to make the organization a success. the men went into the line in a manner to win the praise of all." the history of the brigade from the time it left camp meade until the end of the war may be summarized as follows: june --disembarked from ship at brest, france. july --started for the training area, reaching there july . july --began a period of six weeks training at lathus in the montmorillion section. august --went to la courtine and remained until september th, practicing at target range. its gun squads excelled in target work and the brigade, especially the st regiment, won distinction there. october --finished training at la courtine and moved into a sector directly in front of metz, where about three weeks were spent in obtaining the tractors and motor vehicles necessary for a completely motorized artillery outfit. october --preparing for action. the enemy had noted the great movement of troops in the vicinity and german planes constantly hovered over the unit dropping missiles of death upon it. the brigade supported the infantry of the division in its attacks on eply, cheminot, bouxieres, bois frehaut, bois la cote, champey, vandieres, pagny and moulin farm. attacks of more than mediocre importance were: pagny, november and ; cheminot, november , epley, november ; bois frehaut, november ; bois la cote and champey, november . in addition to those attacks certain machine gun nests of the enemy were destroyed and strategic points were bombarded. during the entire advance the batteries of the brigade were in front positions and very active. the attack on bois la cote and champey began at : in the morning and ended just fifteen minutes before the beginning of the armistice. during the engagement the batteries kept up such a constant fire that the guns were almost white with heat. private carl e. southall of elba street, pittsburgh, pa., claims to have fired the brigade's last shot. he was a member of battery d, st regiment. when the watch showed the last minute of the war, he jumped forward, got to the gun ahead of his comrades and fired. had the war continued the artillery brigade would have taken part in the offensive which was to have begun after november with twenty french and six american divisions investing metz and pushing east through lorraine. the history of one regiment in the artillery outfit is practically the same as another, with the exception that the st seems to have had the most conspicuous service. this unit of the brigade was commanded by colonel wade h. carpenter, a west pointer. owing to the technical requirements, a thorough knowledge of mathematics especially being necessary before one can become a good non-commissioned or commissioned officer of artillery, this branch of the service appeals to men of schooling. it has been claimed that the st regiment contained the best educated group of negroes in the american forces; most of them being college or high school men. they were praised highly by their officers, especially by colonel carpenter: "when the regiment trained at camp meade," he said, "the men showed the best desire, to make good soldiers. in france they outdid their own expectations and shed glory for all. "we didn't get into action until october th, but after that we kept at the germans until the last day. "the men of the st were so anxious to get into service that before they were ordered to the front they found it difficult to restrain their impatience at being held back. however, their long training in france did them a lot of good, the experience of being taught by veteran americans and frenchmen proving of great value when it came to actual battle. "they never flinched under fire, always stood by their guns and made the famous millimeter french guns, with which we were equipped, fairly smoke. "i have been a regular army man for many years, and have always been in command of white troops. let me say to you that never have i commanded a more capable, courageous and intelligent regiment than this. it would give me the greatest pleasure to continue my army career in command of this regiment of negroes. "not only was their morale splendid but they were especially ready to accept discipline. they idolized their officers and would have followed them through hell if necessary. "fortunately, though many were wounded by shrapnel and a number made ill by gas fumes, we suffered no casualties in the slain column. about twenty-five died of sickness and accidents, but we lost none in action. "when the armistice came our hits were making such tremendous scores against the enemy that prisoners taken by the americans declared the destruction wrought by the guns was terrific. on the last day and in the last hour of the war our guns fairly beat a rat-a-tat on the enemy positions. we let them have it while we could." lieutenant e.a. wolfolk, of washington, d.c., chaplain of the regiment, said: "the morale and morals of the men were splendid. disease of the serious type was unknown. the men were careful to keep within bounds. they gave their officers no trouble, and each man strove to keep up the high standard expected of him. from the time we reached france in june, , until the time we quit that country we worked hard to maintain a clean record and we certainly succeeded." at the moselle river, pont a mousson and madieres, the regiment first saw action. the first and second battalions went into action immediately in the vicinity of st. genevieve and alton. the third battalion crossed the river and went into action in the vicinity of pont a mousson. that was on october st. the balance of the regiment's service corresponds to that of the brigade, already mentioned. as already gleaned from the reports of generals, regimental officers and the testimony of the chaplain of the st, the artillery boys created a good impression and left behind them a clean record everywhere. it has remained for the officers of the th regiment to preserve this in additional documentary form in the shape of regimental orders and letters from the mayors of french towns in which the regiment stopped or was billeted. the following are some of the bulletins and letters: headquarters th field artillery, american expeditionary forces, france, a.p.o. , september , . the following letter having been received, is published for the information of the regiment, and will be read at retreat saturday, september , . by order of colonel moore. joseph h. mcnally, captain and adjutant. french republic town hall of montmorillion (vienne) montmorillion, august , . dear colonel: at the occasion of your departure permit me to express to you my regrets and those of the whole population. from the very day of its arrival your regiment, by its behavior and its military appearance, it excited the admiration of all of us. of the sojourn of yourself and your colored soldiers among us we will keep the best memory and remember your regiment as a picked one. from the beginning a real brotherhood was established between your soldiers and our people, who were glad to welcome the gallant allies of france. having learned to know them, the whole population holds them in great esteem, and we all join in saying the best of them. i hope that the white troops replacing your regiment will give us equal satisfaction; but whatever their attitude may be, they cannot surpass your th field artillery. please accept the assurance of my best and most distinguished feelings. g. de font-reaulx, assistant mayor. headquarters th field artillery, american expeditionary forces, france, a.p.o. , january , . the following letter having been received is published for the information of the regiment. by order of colonel o'neil. george b. compton, captain and adjutant. mairie de domfront (orne) domfront, january , . the mayor of the town of domfront has the very great pleasure to state and declare that the th regiment of the th field artillery brigade, has been billeted at domfront from the th of december, , to the nd of january, , and that during this period the officers as well as the men have won the esteem and sympathy of all the population. the black officers as well as the white officers have made here many friends, and go away leaving behind them the best remembrances. as to the private soldiers, their behavior during the whole time has been above all praise. it is the duty of the mayor of domfront to bid the general, officers and men a last farewell, and to express to all his thanks and gratitude for their friendly intercourse with the civilian population. f. berlin, mayor. after such testimony who can doubt the christianlike behavior and soldierly qualities of the black man? it has been noted that the artillerymen were in education considerably above the average of the negro force abroad, but no severe criticism has been heard concerning the conduct of any of the negro troops in any part of france. the attitude of the french people had much to do with this. the unfailing courtesy and consideration with which they treated the negroes awoke an answering sentiment in the natures of the latter. to be treated as men, in the highest sense of the term, argued that they must return that treatment, and it is not of record that they failed to give adequate return. indeed the record tends to show that they added a little for good measure, although it is hard to outdo a frenchman in courtesy and the common amenities of life. this showing of negro conduct in france takes on increased merit when it is considered that the bulk of their forces over there were selectives; men of all kinds and conditions; many of them from an environment not likely to breed gentleness, self restraint or any of the finer virtues. but the leaders and the best element seem to have had no difficulty in impressing upon the others that the occasion was a sort of a trial of their race; that they were up for view and being scrutinized very carefully. they made remarkably few false steps. chapter xxiii nor storied urn, nor mounting shaft glory not all spectacular--brave forces behind the lines-- th field signal battalion--composed of young negroes--see real fighting--suffer casualties--an exciting incident--colored signal battalion a success--ralph tyler's stories--burial of negro soldier at sea--more incidents of negro valor--a word from charles m. schwab. out of the glamor and spectacular settings of combat comes most of the glory of war. the raids, the forays, the charges; the pitting of cold steel against cold steel, the hand to hand encounters in trenches, the steadfast manning of machine guns and field pieces against deadly assault, these and kindred phases of battle are what find themselves into print. because they lend themselves so readily to the word painter or to the artist's brush, these lurid features are played to the almost complete exclusion of others, only slightly less important. there are brave forces behind the lines, sometimes in front of the lines, about which little is written or pictured. of these the most efficient and indispensable is the signal corps. while this branch of the service was not obliged to occupy front line trenches; make raids for prisoners, or march in battle formation into big engagements, it must not be supposed that it did not have a very dangerous duty to perform. one of the colored units that made good most decisively was the th field signal battalion of the nd division. the men of this battalion had to string the wires for telegraphic and telephonic connections at times when the enemy guns were trained upon them. therefore, in many respects, their duty took them into situations fully as dangerous as those of the combatant units. this battalion was composed entirely of young negroes excepting the lieutenant colonel, major and two or three white line officers. with few exceptions, they were all college or high school boys, quite a number of them experts in radio or electric engineering. those who were not experts when the battalion was formed, became so through the training which they received. major spencer, who was responsible for the formation of the battalion, the only negro signal unit in the american army, was firm in the belief that negroes could make good, and he remained with it long enough to see his belief become a realization. after arriving at brest, june , , the battalion proceeded to vitrey, and from that town began a four-day hike to bourbonne les baines. from that point it proceeded after a few days to visey, where the boys got their first taste of what was to be, later, their daily duties. here the radio (wireless telegraphy) company received its quota of the latest type of french instruments, a battery plant was established and a full supply of wire and other equipment issued to companies b and c. here, too, the infantry signal platoons of the battalion joined the outfit and shared in the training. a courage test and their first introduction into real fighting in addition to stringing wires and sending and receiving radio messages, came on the afternoon of september th. a party including the colonel, lieutenant herbert, the latter a negro, and some french liaison officers, advanced beyond the battalion post and soon found themselves outside the lines and directly in front of a german machine gun nest. the colonel divided his men into small groups and advanced on the enemy's position. the sortie resulted in the signal boys capturing eight prisoners and two machine guns, but it cost the loss of corporal charles e. boykin, who did not return. two days later during a general advance, sergeant henry e. moody was mortally wounded while at his post. boykin was killed outright, while sergeant moody died in the hospital, these being the first two of the signal battalion to make the supreme sacrifice. on the th of october the nd division, having taken over the marbache sector and relieved the th french division, the th field signal battalion took over all existing lines of communication. in the days following they installed new lines and made connections between the various units of the division. this was no small duty, when it is remembered that an army sector extends over a wide area of many square miles, including in it from to cities and towns. the marbache sector was an active front and time and time again the boys went ahead repairing lines and establishing new communications under shell fire, with no heed to personal danger--inspired only by that ideal of the signal corps man--get communication through at any cost, but get it through. on the morning of november th, when the second army launched its attack on the famous hindenburg line before metz, the nd division held the line of vandieres--st. michel, xon and norry. the engagement lasted for twenty-eight hours continuously, during which time the signal corps functioned splendidly and as one man, keeping up communications, installing new lines and repairing those shelled out. one of the most exciting incidents was that participated in by the first platoon of the signal battalion on the first day of the metz battle. shortly after the lighter artillery barrage was lifted, the big guns of the enemy began shelling pont a mousson. the first shells hit on the edge of the city and then they began peppering the signal battalion's station. sergeant rufus b. atwood of the first platoon was seated in the cellar near the switchboard; private edgar white was operating the switchboard, and private clark the buzzerphone. several officers and men were standing in the "dugout" cellar. suddenly a shell struck the top, passed through the ceiling and wall and exploded, making havoc of the cellar. [illustration: officers of the th new york ( th infantry), marching in parade prior to the war. left to right--col. wm. hayward, bert williams. famous comedian and dr. g. mcsweeney.] [illustration: after the war. one of the number of automobiles bearing wounded officers and soldiers of the th new york ( th infantry). major david l. 'esperance (with helmet) and major lorrilard spencer.] [illustration: a representative group of negro officers of "moss's buffaloes" ( th infantry). the little lady with the bouquet is one of their french acquaintances.] [illustration: captain john h. patton, regimental adjutant, th illinois infantry. from june , , to september , . commanding nd battalion, th infantry, from september . , to december . . saint mihiel sector from june , , to july , . argonne forest from july , , to august , . battles for mont des signes, from september to , . oise-allsne offensive, from september . to november , . awarded the french croix de guerre for meritorious service covering period from september to november ii, .] [illustration: emil laurent, negro corporal of th illinois ( th infantry), a croix de guerre winner, engaged in field telephone service in a french wood.] [illustration: group of "hell fighters" ( th infantry) with their jewelry (croix de guerre). front row, left to right, "eagle eye" edward williams, "lamp light" herb taylor, leon trainor, "kid hawk" ralph hawkins, back row, left to right, sergt. m.d. primus, sergt. daniel storms, "kid woney" joe williams, "kid buck" alfred hanly and corp. t.w. taylor.] [illustration: dr. joseph h. ward on transport france. the only negro attaining the rank of major in the medical corps of the american expeditionary forces.] [illustration: captain napoleon b. marshall, famous harvard athlete, who helped organize th new york and was one of its original negro officers. he was seriously wounded at metz.] [illustration: brave negroes homeward bound from war. first call for dinner.] [illustration: "moss's buffaloes" ( th infantry), reviewed by governor whitman after flag presentation in front of union league club, new york.] [illustration: the "buffaloes" ( th infantry), returning to new york after valiant service in france. their colors still flying.] [illustration: soldiers who distinguished themselves at the fortress of metz. group belonging to th infantry arriving at chicago station.] [illustration: homeward bound in a pullman car. no "jim crowing there." the negro bears on his shoulder the citation cord and emblem denoting valorous service.] lieutenant walker, who arrived just at this time, took hold of matters with admirable coolness and presence of mind. sergeant atwood tried out the switchboard and found all lines broken. he also found on trying it the buzzerphone out. lieutenant walker gave orders to private white to stay on the switchboard and corporal adolphus johnson to stay on the buzzerphone. the twelve-cord monocord board was nailed up by white and then began the connecting up of the lines from outside to the monocord board. all this time the shelling by the germans was fierce and deadly. shells struck all around the boys and one struck a nearby ammunition dump, causing the explosion of thousands of rounds of ammunition, which created a terrific shock and extinguished all the lights. but still the men worked on and would not leave the dangerous post, a veritable target for the enemy's big guns, until the lieutenant of the military police arrived and ordered them out. the th field signal battalion was a great success. what the boys did not learn about radio, telephonic and telegraphic work would be of little advantage to anyone. it will be of great advantage to many of them in the way of making a living in times of peace. by the time the armistice stopped the fighting the different units of the nd division had taken many prisoners and gained many objectives. they finally retired to the vicinity of pont a mousson, where time was spent salvaging material and cleaning equipment, while the men, knowing there was to be no more fighting, anxiously awaited the time until they were ordered to an embarkation point and thence home. the trip home in february, , was about as perilous to some of them as the war had been. it was a period of unusually rough weather. the north atlantic, never very smooth during the winter months, put on some extra touches for the returning negro soldiers. an experience common to many on several different transports has been described by mechanic charles e. bryan of battery b, st artillery upon his return to his home, frankstown avenue, pittsburgh, pa. asked about his impressions of the war, he said that which impressed him the most was the storm at sea on the way home. "that storm beat the war all hollow," he said. "me and my buddies were messing when the ship turned about eighteen somersaults, and we all pitched on the floor, spilling soup and beans and things all over the ship. "the lights went out and somehow the automatic bell which means 'abandon ship' was rung by accident. we didn't know it was an accident, and from the way the ship pitched we thought she was on her way down to look up one mr. davy jones. so we made a break for the decks, and believe me, some of those lads who had come through battles and all sorts of dangers were about to take a dive over the side if our officers had not started explaining in time." stories of varying degrees of interest, some thrilling, some humorous and some pathetic to the last degree, have been brought back. ralph tyler, the negro newspaper man, who was sent to france as the official representative of the afro-american press by the committee on public information, has written many of the incidents, and told others from the rostrum. he has told how the small insignificant, crowded freight cars in which the soldiers traveled looked like pullman parlor coaches to the negro soldiers. "to many of our people back in the 'states,'" wrote mr. tyler from france, "who saw our boys embark on fine american railroad coaches and pullman sleepers to cover the first lap of their hoped-for pilgrimage to berlin, the coaches they must ride in over here would arouse a mild protest. i stood at vierzon, one of france's many quaint old towns recently, and saw a long train of freight cars roll in, en route to some point further distant. in these cars with but a limited number of boxes to sit upon, and just the floors to stand upon, were crowded some , of our own colored soldiers from the states. but a jollier crowd never rode through american cities in pullman sleepers and diners than those , colored troopers. they accepted passage on these rude box freight cars cheerfully, for they knew they were now in war, and palace cars, downy coaches and the usual american railroad conveniences were neither available nor desirable. "the point i wish to convey to the people back home is that did they but know how cheerfully, even eagerly our boys over here accept war time conveniences, they would not worry quite so much about how the boys are faring. they are being wholesomely and plenteously fed; they are warmly clothed, they are cheerful and uncomplaining as they know this is war and for that reason know exactly what they must expect. to the soldier who must at times sleep with but the canopy of heaven as a covering, and the earth as a mattress, a box freight car that shields him from the rain and wind is a real luxury, and he accepts it as such. "there need not be any worry back home as to the maintenance of our colored soldiers over here. they receive the same substantial fare the white soldier receives, and the white soldier travels from point to point in the same box freight cars as afford means of passage for colored soldiers. in short, when it comes to maintenance and equipment, and consideration for the comfort of the american soldier, to use a trite saying, 'the folks are as good as the people.' there is absolutely no discrimination, and the cheerfulness of those , boys whose freight cars became, in imagination, pullman palace cars, was the proof to me that the colored boys in the ranks are getting a fifty-fifty break." "two more stories have come to me," continues mr. tyler, "to prove that our colored soldiers preserve and radiate their humor even where shells and shrapnel fly thickest. a colored soldier slightly wounded in the argonne fighting--and let me assure you there was 'some' fighting there--sat down beside the road to wait for a chance to ride to the field hospital. a comrade hastening forward to his place in the line, and anxious for the latest news of the progressing battle, asked the wounded brother if he had been in the fight; did he know all about it, and how were things going at the front. 'i sure does know all about it,' the wounded man replied. 'well, what's happened to them?' quickly asked the trooper on his way to the front. 'well, it was this way,' replied the wounded one, 'i was climbin' over some barbed wire tryin' to get to those d--n boches, and they shot me; that's what i know about it.' "a company water cart was following the advancing troops when a german shell burst in the ditch almost beside the cart. the horse on the shell side was killed, and the driver was wounded in the head. while the blood from his wound ran freely down his face, the driver took one look at the wreckage, then started stumbling back along the road. a white lieutenant who had seen it all stopped the driver of the cart and said: "the dressing station is--" "before he could finish his sentence, the wounded driver, with the blood flowing in rivulets down his face, said: 'dressing station hell; i'm looking for another horse to hitch to that cart and take the place of the one the shell put out of commission.' "that was a bit of nerve, grim humor and evidence of fidelity to duty. a mere wound in the head could not stop that driver from keeping up with the troops with a needed supply of water." dr. thomas jesse jones, who went to france under the auspices of the y.m.c.a., sent back the following account of the burial of a negro soldier at sea: "a colored soldier was buried at sea today. the flags on all the ships of the fleet have been at half-mast all day. it mattered not that the soldier came from a lowly cabin. it mattered not that his skin was black. he was a soldier in the army of the united states, and was on his way to fight for democracy and civilization. "the announcement of his death was signalled to every commander and every ship prepared to do honor to the colored soldier. as the sun was setting the guard of honor, including all the officers from commander down, came to attention. the body of the negro trooper wrapped in the american flag, was tenderly carried to the stern of the ship. the chaplain read the solemn burial service. the engines of the fleet were checked. the troop ship was stopped for the only time in the long trip from america to europe. the bugle sounded taps and the body of the american soldier was committed to the great ocean and to god. "the comradeship of the solemn occasion was the comradeship of real democracy. there was neither black nor white, north nor south, rich nor poor. all united in rendering honor to the negro soldier who died in the service of humanity." first lieutenant george s. robb of the th infantry was cited for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty" in action with the enemy near sechault, september and , . while leading his platoon in the assault at sechault, lieutenant robb was severely wounded by machine gun fire, but rather than go to the rear for proper treatment, he remained with his platoon until ordered to the dressing station by his commanding officer. returning within forty-five minutes, he remained on duty throughout the entire night, inspecting his lines and establishing outposts. early the next morning he was again wounded, once again displaying remarkable devotion to duty by remaining in command of his platoon. later the same day a bursting shell added two more wounds, the same shell killing the captain and two other officers of his company. he then assumed command of the company and organized its position in the trenches. displaying wonderful courage and tenacity at the critical times, he was the only officer of his battalion who advanced beyond the town and, by clearing machine gun and sniping posts, contributed largely to the aid of his battalion in holding its objective. his example of bravery and fortitude and his eagerness to continue with his mission despite the several wounds, set before the enlisted men of his command a most wonderful standard of morale and self-sacrifice. lieutenant robb lived at s. th street, salina, kansas. second lieutenant harry c. sessions, company i, nd infantry, was cited for extraordinary heroism in action near bussy farm, september , . although he was on duty in the rear, lieutenant sessions joined his battalion and was directed by his battalion commander to locate openings through the enemy's wire and attack positions. he hastened to the front and cut a large opening through the wire in the face of terrific machine gun fire. just as his task was completed, he was so severely wounded that he had to be carried from the field. his gallant act cleared the way for the rush that captured enemy positions. in august, , back in the champagne, a german raiding party captured a lieutenant and four privates belonging to the th infantry, and was carrying them off when a lone negro, sergeant william butler, a former elevator operator, made his presence known from a shell hole. he communicated with the lieutenant without the knowledge of the germans and motioned to him to flee. the lieutenant signalled to the four privates to make a run from the germans. as they started butler yelled, "look out, you bush germans! here we come," and he let go with his pistol. he killed one boche officer and four privates, and his own men made good their escape. later the german officer who had been in charge of this raiding party was captured and his written report was obtained. in it he said that he had been obliged to let his prisoners go because he was attacked by an "overwhelming number of "blutlustige schwartzemaenner." the overwhelming number consisted of elevator operator bill butler alone. september th the rd battalion, of the th infantry, composed of down-state illinois boys from springfield, peoria, danville and metropolis, achieved a notable victory at ferme de la riviere. this battalion, under the brilliant leadership of lieutenant colonel otis b. duncan, made an advance of one kilometer against enemy machine gun nests and succeeded in silencing them, thereby allowing the line to advance. this battalion of the illinois down-state boys succeeded in doing what, after three similar attempts by their french comrades in arms, had proven futile. during this engagement many were killed and wounded and many officers and men were cited and given decorations. company c, of the th, under the command of captain james h. smith, a chicago letter-carrier, signally distinguished itself by storming and taking the town of baume and capturing three pieces of field artillery. for this the whole company was cited and the captain was decorated with the croix de guerre and palm. lieutenant colonel duncan, who has been attached to the office of state superintendent of public instruction of illinois for over twenty years, is one of the greatest heroes the negroes of america have produced. he returned as the ranking colored officer in the american expeditionary forces. instead of being merely an assistant colonel, he was actively in command of one of the hardest fighting battalions in the regiment. he has been pronounced a man of native ability, an able tactician and of natural military genius. sergt. norman henry, dearborn st., chicago, attached to the d machine gun company, th infantry, won the croix de guerre and distinguished service cross. it was in the soissons sector september in the first rush on the hindenburg line. all of the officers and men fell under a heavy machine gun barrage except two squads of which sergeant henry was left in command. they took two german dugouts and were cut off from their own line without food. they held the germans off with one machine gun for three days. often the gun became jammed, but they would take it apart and fix it before the enemy could get to them. lieut. samuel s. gordon, indiana avenue, chicago, of the th infantry, exposed himself to open machine gun fire for six hours and effected the rescue of two platoons which had been cut off by the barrage. company h had been badly cut up in a sudden burst of machine gun fire. lieutenant gordon with some men were rushed up to relieve what was left of the company, and while reconnoitering were cut off by the same fire. a stream of water four feet deep lay between them and their trenches. by standing in the stream, lieutenant gordon let the men crawl to the edge of the bank, where he lifted them across without their having to stand up and become targets. corporal emile laurent, so. dearborn street, chicago, a member of the th infantry, had a busy time dodging machine gun bullets one night near soissons. volunteering as a wire cutter, he crawled out with his lieutenant's automatic in one hand and the wire clippers in the other. half a dozen machine guns were opened upon him as he sneaked along the terrain. "never touched me," he would yell every time a chunk of steel parted his hair. he was out for three hours and cut a broad line through the charged wire. then he crawled back without a mark on him. private leroy davis of the same regiment, won a decoration at the aillette canal for bringing a comrade back under machine gun fire. when he got back to his own lines he would not trust him with the ambulance outfit, but carried him three miles to the emergency dressing station and then he ran back to the canal to get even. this little stunt saved his comrade's life. praise for the american soldier comes from charles m. schwab, the eminent steel manufacturer, who was chosen by president wilson to head the emergency fleet cororation, and rendered such conspicuous service in that position. returning in february, , from a trip to europe, mr. schwab said in an interview: "i have come back with ten times the good opinion i had of our soldiers for the work they did. everywhere i went i found that the american soldiers had left a good impression behind and there was nothing but the greatest praise for them. "during the present voyage i have been among the colored troops on board and talked with them and learned what american soldiering has done for them. they are better men than they were when they went away." chapter xxiv those who never will return a study of war--its compensations and benefits--its ravages and debasements--burdens fall upon the weak--toll of disease--negroes singularly healthy--negroes killed in battle--deaths from wounds and other causes--remarkable physical stamina of race--housekeeping in khaki--healthiest war in history--increased regard for mothers--an ideal for child minds--morale and propaganda. it has been said that war has its compensations no less than peace. this saying must have had reference largely to the material benefits accruing to the victors--the wealth gained from sacked cities, the territorial acquisitions and the increased prestige and prosperity of the winners. there is also an indirect compensation which can hardly be measured, but which is known to exist, in the increased courage inculcated, the banishment of fear, the strengthened sense of devotion, heroism and self-sacrifice, and all those principles of manliness and unselfishness which are inspired through war and react so beneficially on the morals of a race. there are some, however, who contend that these compensations do not overbalance the pain, the heart-rending, the horrors, brutalities and debasements which come from war. viewed in the most favorable light, with all its glories, benefits and compensations, war is still far removed from an agreeable enterprise. like so many of the other material compensations of life, its benefits accrue to the strong while its burdens fall upon the weak. a contemplation of the maimed, the crippled and those stricken with disease, fails to engender anything but somber reflections. owing to the advancement of science, the triumph of knowledge over darkness, the late war through the unusual attention given to the physical fitness of the soldiers, probably conferred a boon in sending back a greater percentage of men physically improved than the toll of destroyed or deteriorated would show. yet with all the improvement in medical and sanitary science, the fact remains that disease claimed more lives than bullets, bayonets, shrapnel or gas. negro soldiers in the war were singularly free from disease. deaths from this cause were surprisingly few, the mortality being much lower than it would have been among the same men had there been no war. this was due to the general good behavior of the troops as testified to by so many commanding officers and others. the men observed discipline, kept within bounds and listened to the advice of those competent to give it. out of a total of between , and , negro soldiers who went into battle or were exposed to the enemy's attack at some time, about were killed in action. between and died of wounds. deaths from disease did not exceed and from accident not over fifty. those who were wounded and gassed amounted to about , . it speaks very highly for the medical and sanitary science of the army as well as for the physical stamina of a race, when less than died out of a total of , wounded and gassed. the bulk of the battle casualties were in the rd division. the figures as given do not seem very large, yet it is a fact that the battle casualties of the american negro forces engaged in the late war were not very far short of the entire battle casualties of the spanish-american war. in that conflict the united states lost less than , men in battle. while battle havoc and ravages from disease were terrible enough, and brought sadness to many firesides, and while thousands of survivors are doomed to go through life maimed, suffering or weakened, there is a brighter side to the picture. evidences are plentiful that "housekeeping in khaki" was not unsuccessful. according to a statement issued by the war department early in , the entire overseas army was coming back , tons heavier and huskier than when it went abroad. many of the returning soldiers found that they literally burst through the clothing which they had left at home. compared with the records taken at time of enlistment or induction into the draft forces, it is shown that the average increase in weight was twelve pounds to a man. improvement of course was due to the healthful physical development aided by the seemingly ceaseless flow of wholesome food directed into the training camps and to france. secretary baker was very proud of the result and stated that the late war had been the healthiest in history. the test he applied was in the number of deaths from disease. the best previous record, per , per year was attained by the germans in the franco-prussian war. our record in the late war was only eight per , per year. the medical corps did heroic service in keeping germs away, but cooks, clothing designers and other agencies contributed largely in the making of bodies too healthy to permit germ lodgments. the hell of war brought countless soldiers to the realization that no matter how much they believed they had loved their mothers, they had never fully appreciated how much she meant to them. "i know, mother," cried one youth broken on the field, whose mother found him in a hospital, "that i began to see over there how thoughtless, indeed, almost brutal, i had always been. somehow, in spite of my loving you, i just couldn't talk to you. why, when i think how i used to close up like a clam every time you asked me anything about myself----" he broke off and with fervent humility kissed the hand in his own. "please forget it all, mother," he whispered. "it's never going to be that way again. i found out over there--i knew what it was not to have anyone to tell things to--and now, why you've got to listen to me all the rest of your life, mother." angelo patri, the new york schoolmaster who has been so successful in instilling ideals into the child mind has addressed himself to the children of today, they who will be the parents of tomorrow. his words are: "man has labored through the ages that you might be born free. man has fought that you might live in peace. he has studied that you might have learning. he has left you the heritage of the ages that you might carry on. "ahead are the children of the next generation. it's on, on, you must be going. you, too, are torch-bearers of liberty. you, too, must take your place in the search for freedom, the quest for the holy grail. 'twas for this you, the children of america were born, were educated. fulfill your destiny." morale and propaganda received more attention in the late war than they ever did in any previous conflict. before the end of the struggle the subject of morale was taken up and set apart as one of the highly specialized branches of the service. the specialists were designated as morale officers. they had many problems to meet and much smoothing over to do. in the army, an americanism very soon attached to them and they became known as "fixers." with respect to the negro, the section of the war department presided over by emmett j. scott was organized and conducted largely for purposes of morale and propaganda. much of the work was connected with good american propaganda to counteract dangerous german propaganda. it is now a known fact that the foe tried to lure the negro from his allegiance by lies and false promises even after he had gone into the trenches. this has been attested to publicly by dr. robert r. moton, the head of tuskegee institute, who went abroad at the invitation of president wilson and secretary baker to ascertain the spirit of the negro soldiers there. dr. moton was told of the german propaganda and the brazen attempts made on members of the nd division near metz. he gave the following as a sample: "to the colored soldiers of the united states army. "hello, boys, what are you doing over there? fighting the germans? why? have they ever done you any harm? "do you enjoy the same rights as the white people do in america, the land of freedom and democracy, or are you not rather treated over there as second class citizens? and how about the law? are lynchings and the most horrible crimes connected therewith a lawful proceeding in a democratic country? "now, all this is entirely different in germany, where they do like colored people; where they treat them as gentlemen and not as second class citizens. they enjoy exactly the same privileges as white men, and quite a number of colored people have fine positions in business in berlin and other german cities. "why then fight the germans? only for the benefit of the wall street robbers and to protect the millions they have loaned the english, french and italians? "you have never seen germany, so you are fools if you allow yourselves to hate us. come over and see for yourselves. to carry a gun in this service is not an honor but a shame. throw it away and come over to the german lines. you will find friends who will help you along." negro officers of the division told dr. moton this propaganda had no effect. he said the negroes, especially those from the south, were anxious to return home, most of them imbued with the ambition to become useful, law-abiding citizens. some, however, were apprehensive that they might not be received in a spirit of co-operation and racial good will. this anxiety arose mainly from accounts of increased lynchings and persistent rumors that the ku klux clan was being revived in order, so the rumor ran, "to keep the negro soldier in his place." after voicing his disbelief in these rumors, dr. moton said: "the result of this working together in these war activities brought the whites and negroes into a more helpful relationship. it is the earnest desire of all negroes that these helpful cooperating relationships shall continue." in conversation with a morale officer the writer was told that the principal problem with the negroes, especially after the selective draft, was in classifying them fairly and properly. some were in every way healthy but unfit for soldiers. others were of splendid intelligence and manifestly it was unjust to condemn them to the ranks when so many had excellent qualities for non-commissioned and commissioned grades. the service of supply solved the problem so far as the ignorant were concerned; all could serve in that branch. the officer stated that the trouble with the war department and with too many other people, is the tendency to treat negroes as a homogeneous whole, which cannot be done. some are densely ignorant and some are highly intelligent and well educated. in this officer's opinion, there is as much difference between different types of negroes as there is between the educated white people and the uneducated mountaineers and poor whites of the south; or between the best whites of this and other countries and the totally ignorant peasants from the most oppressed nations of europe. in the early stages of the war, there was a great scarcity of non-commissioned officers--sergeants and corporals, those generals in embryo, upon whom so much depends in waging successful war. it was a great mistake in the opinion of this informant, and he stated that the view was shared by many other officers, to take men from white units to act as non-commissioned officers in negro regiments, when there were available so many intelligent, capable negroes serving in the ranks, who understood their people and would have delighted in filling the non-commissioned grades. he also thought the same criticism applied to selections for commissioned grades. it is agreeable to note that such views rapidly gained ground. the excellent service of the old th illinois demonstrated that colored officers are capable and trustworthy. an action and expression that will go far in furthering the view is that of colonel william hayward of the old th new york, who resigned command of the regiment which he organized and led to victory, soon after his return from the war. like the great magnanimous, fair-minded man which he is and which helped to make him such a successful officer, he said that he could not remain at the head of the organization when there were so many capable negroes who could and were entitled to fill its personnel of officers from colonel down. colonel hayward has been laboring to have the organization made a permanent one composed entirely of men of the negro race. a portion of his expression on the subject follows: "i earnestly hope that the state and city will not allow this splendid organization to pass entirely out of existence, but will rebuild around the nucleus of these men and their flags from which hang the croix de guerre, a th new york to which their children and grandchildren will belong; an organization with a home of its own in a big, modern armory. this should be a social center for the colored citizens of new york, and the regiment should be an inspiration to them. it should be officered throughout by colored men, though i and every other white officer who fought with the old th will be glad and proud to act in an honorary or advisory capacity. let the old th 'carry on' as our british comrades phrase it." it is to be hoped that we never have another war. nevertheless these negro military organizations should be kept up for their effect upon the spirit of the race. if they are ever needed again, let us hope that by that time, the confidence of the military authorities in negro ability, will have so gained that they will coincide with colonel hayward's view regarding negro officers for negro units. chapter xxv. quiet heroes of the brawny arm negro stevedore, pioneer and labor units--swung the axe and turned the wheel--they were indispensable--everywhere in france--hewers of wood, drawers of water--numbers and designations of units--acquired splendid reputation--contests and awards--pride in their service--measured up to military standards--lester waltons appreciation--ella wheeler wilcox's poetic tribute. some went forth to fight, to win deathless fame or the heroes' crown of death in battle. there were some who remained to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. which performed the greater service? for the direct uplift and advancement of his race; for the improved standing gained for it in the eyes of other races, the heroism, and steadfastness and the splendid soldierly qualities exhibited by the negro fighting man, were of immeasurable benefit. those were the things which the world heard about, the exemplifications of the great modern forces and factors of publicity and advertising. in the doing of their "bit" so faithfully and capably, the negro combatant forces won just title to all the praise and renown which they have received. their contribution to the cause of liberty and democracy, cannot be discounted; will shine through the ages, and through the ages grow brighter. but their contribution as fighting men to the cause of justice and humanity was no greater, in a sense than that of their brethren: "unwept, unhonored and unsung," who toiled back of the lines that those at the front might have subsistence and the sinews of conflict. the most indispensable cog in the great machine which existed behind the lines, was the stevedore regiments, the butcher companies, the engineer, labor and pioneer battalions, nearly all incorporated in that department of the army technically designated as the s.o.s. (service of supply). in the main these were blacks. every negro who served in the combatant forces could have been dispensed with. they would have been missed, truly; but there were enough white men to take their places if necessary. but how seriously handicapped would the expeditionary forces have been without the great army of negroes, numbering over , in france, with thousands more in this country designed for the same service; who unloaded the ships, felled the trees, built the railroad grades and laid the tracks; erected the warehouses, fed the fires which turned the wheels; cared for the horses and mules and did the million and one things, which negro brawn and negro willingness does so acceptably. theirs not to seek "the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth," that great composed, uncomplaining body of men; content simply to wear the uniform and to know that their toil was contributing to a result just as important as the work of anyone in the army. did they wish to fight? they did; just as ardently as any man who carried a rifle, served a machine gun or a field piece. but some must cut wood and eat of humble bread, and there came in those great qualities of patience and resignation which makes of the negro so dependable an asset in all such emergencies. how shall we describe their chronology or write their log? they were everywhere in france where they were needed. as one officer expressed it, at one time it looked as though they would chop down all the trees in that country. their units and designations were changed. they were shifted from place to place so often and given such a variety of duties it would take a most active historian to follow them. in the maze of data in the war department at washington, it would take months to separate and give an adequate account of their operations. [illustration: back with the heroic th ( th infantry). lieut. james reese europe's famous band parading up lenox avenue, harlem, new york city. lieut. europe specially enlarged in left foreground.] [illustration: sergeant henry johnson (standing with flowers), negro hero of th infantry. in new york parade. he was the first soldier of any race in the american army to receive the croix de guerre with palm. needham roberts, his fighting companion, in inset.] [illustration: returning from the war. musicians of th infantry leading parade of the regiment in michigan boulevard. chicago.] [illustration: soldiers of th infantry marching down michigan boulevard. chicago. this regiment was part of the celebrated nd division of selective draft men.] [illustration: the seven ages of men. curbstone groups in new york lined up to give the heroes welcome. the scenes were typical of many in cities and towns all over the country.] [illustration: colonel franklin a. denison, former commander of th illinois ( th infantry), invalided home from france july , .] [illustration: first commander of the th illinois infantry, colonel john r. marshall, who increased the organization from a battalion to a regiment, every officer and man a negro. under col. marshall the regiment saw distinguished service in the spanish-american war.] [illustration: former officers of th infantry (old th). left, colonel franklin a. denison, commander until july, ; center, colonel t.a. roberts (white). succeeding commander; right, lieut. colonel otis b. duncan. appointed colonel to succeed colonel t.a. roberts.] [illustration: crowd on the lake front in chicago almost smothers returning soldiers of "fighting th" ( th infantry).] it is known that a contingent of them accompanied the very first forces that went abroad from this country. in fact, it may be said, that the feet of american negroes were among the first in our forces to touch the soil of france. it is known that they numbered at least different companies, battalions and regiments in france. if there were more, the records at washington had not sufficiently catalogued them up to the early part of to say who they were. in the desire to get soldiers abroad in , the policy of the administration and the department seems to have been to make details and bookkeeping a secondary consideration. the names of all, their organizations and officers were faithfully kept, but distinctions between whites and blacks were very obscure. until the complete historical records of the government are compiled, it will be impossible to separate them with accuracy. negro non-combatant forces in france at the end of the war included the st, nd and rd stevedore regiments and the st and nd stevedor battalions; the nd and rd butchery companies; engineer service battalions numbered from to , inclusive; labor battalions numbered from to , inclusive, also labor battalion ; labor companies numbered from to , inclusive; pioneer infantry regiments numbered , , , , and , inclusive. these organizations known as pioneers, had some of the functions of infantry, some of those of engineers and some of those of labor units. they were prepared to exercise all three, but in france they were called upon to act principally as modified engineering and labor outfits. they also furnished replacement troops for some of the combatant units. service was of the dull routine void of the spectacular, and has never been sufficiently appreciated. in our enthusiasm over their fighting brothers we should not overlook nor underestimate these. there were many thousands of white engineers and service of supply men in general, but their operations were mostly removed from the base ports. necessity for the work was imperative. owing to the requirements of the british army, the americans could not use the english channel ports. they were obliged to land on the west and south coasts of france, where dock facilities were pitifully inadequate. railway facilities from the ports to the interior were also inadequate. the american expeditionary forces not only enlarged every dock and increased the facilities of every harbor, but they built railways and equipped them with american locomotives and cars and manned them with american crews. great warehouses were built as well as barracks, cantonments and hospitals. without these facilities the army would have been utterly useless. negroes did the bulk of the work. they were an indispensable wheel in the machinery, without which all would have been chaos or inaction. headquarters of the service of supply was at tours. it was the great assembling and distributing point. at that point and at the base ports of brest, bordeaux, st. nazaire and la pallice most of the negro service of supply organizations were located. the french railroads and the specially constructed american lines ran from the base ports and centered at tours. this great industrial army was under strict military regulations. every man was a soldier, wore the uniform and was under commissioned and non-commissioned officers the same as any combatant branch of the service. the negro service of supply men acquired a great reputation in the various activities to which they were assigned, especially for efficiency and celerity in unloading ships and handling the vast cargoes of materials and supplies of every sort at the base ports. they were a marvel to the french and astonished not a few of the officers of our own army. they sang and joked at their work. the military authorities had bands to entertain them and stimulate them to greater efforts when some particularly urgent task was to be done. contests and friendly rivalries were also introduced to speed up the work. the contests were grouped under the general heading of "a race to berlin" and were conducted principally among the stevedores. prizes, decorations and banners were offered as an incentive to effort in the contests. the name, however, was more productive of results than anything else. the men felt that it really was a race to berlin and that they were the runners up of the boys at the front. ceremonies accompanying the awards were quite elaborate and impressive. the victors were feasted and serenaded. many a stevedore is wearing a medal won in one of these conquests of which he is as proud, and justly so, as though it were a croix de guerre or a distinguished service cross. many a unit is as proud of its banner as though it were won in battle. thousands of service of supply men remained with the american army of occupation after the war; that is, they occupied the same relative position as during hostilities--behind the lines. the army of occupation required food and supplies, and the duty of getting them into germany devolved largely upon the american negro. large numbers of them were stationed at toul, verdun, epernay, st. mihiel, fismes and the argonne, where millions of dollars worth of stores of all kinds were salvaged and guarded by them. so many were left behind and so important was their work, that the negro y.m.c.a. sent fifteen additional canteen workers to france weeks after the signing of the armistice, as the stay of the service of supply men was to be indefinitely prolonged. the rev. d.l. ferguson, of louisville, ky., who for more than a year was stationed at st. nazaire as a y.m.c.a. worker, and became a great favorite with the men, says that during the war they took great pride in their companies, their camps, and all that belonged to the army; that because their work was always emphasized by the officers as being essential to the boys in the trenches, the term "stevedore" became one of dignity as representing part of a great american army. how splendidly the stevedores and others measured up to military standards and the great affection with which their officers regarded them, rev. dr. ferguson makes apparent by quoting colonel c.e. goodwin, who for over a year was in charge of the largest camp of negro service of supply men in france. in a letter to rev. dr. ferguson he said: "it is with many keen thrusts of sorrow that i am obliged to leave this camp and the men who have made up this organization. the men for whose uplift you are working have not only gained, but have truly earned a large place in my heart, and i will always cherish a loving memory of the men of this wonderful organization which i have had the honor and privilege to command." lester a. walton, who went abroad as a correspondent for the new york age, thus commented on the stevedores and others of the same service: "i had the pleasure and honor to shake hands with hundreds of colored stevedores and engineers while in france. the majority were from the south, where there is a friendly, warm sun many months of the year. when i talked with them no sun of any kind had greeted them for weeks. it was the rainy season when a clear sky is a rarity and a downpour of rain is a daily occurrence. yet, there was not one word of complaint heard, for they were 'doing their bit' as expected of real soldiers. naturally they expressed a desire to get home soon, but this was a wish i often heard made by a doughboy. "members of the 's.o.s.' will not came back to america wearing the distinguished service cross or the croix de guerre for exceptional gallantry under fire, but the history of the great world war would be incomplete and lacking in authenticity if writers failed to tell of the bloodless deeds of heroism performed by non-combatant members of the american expeditionary forces." during the summer of , ella wheeler wilcox, the poetess, went to france to write and also to help entertain the soldiers with talks and recitations. while at one of the large camps in southern france, the important work of the colored stevedore came to her notice and she was moved to write a poem which follows: the stevedores we are the army stevedores, lusty and virile and strong. we are given the hardest work of the war, and the hours are long. we handle the heavy boxes and shovel the dirty coal; while soldiers and sailors work in the light, we burrow below like a mole. but somebody has to do this work or the soldiers could not fight! and whatever work is given a man is good if he does it right. we are the army stevedores, and we are volunteers. we did not wait for the draft to come, and put aside our fears. we flung them away to the winds of fate at the very first call of our land. and each of us offered a willing heart, and the strength of a brawny hand. we are the army stevedores, and work we must and may, the cross of honor will never be ours to proudly wear and sway. but the men at the front could not be there, and the battles could not be won. if the stevedores stopped in their dull routine and left their work undone. somebody has to do this work; be glad that it isn't you. we are the army stevedores--give us our due. chapter xxvi. unselfish workers in the vineyard mitigated the horrors of war--at the front, behind the lines, at home--circle for negro war relief--addressed and praised by roosevelt--a notable gathering--colored y.m.c.a. work--unsullied record of achievement--how the "y" conducted business--secretaries all specialists--negro women in "y" work--valor of a non-combatant. negroes in america are justly proud of their contributions to war relief agencies and to the financial and moral side of the war. the millions of dollars worth of liberty bonds and war savings stamps which they purchased were not only a great aid to the government in prosecuting the war, but have been of distinct benefit to the race in the establishing of savings funds among many who never were thrifty before. thousands have been started on the road to prosperity by the business ideas inculcated in that manner. their donations to the red cross, the y.m.c.a. and kindred groups were exceptionally generous. an organization which did an immense amount of good and which was conducted almost entirely by negro patriots, although they had a number of white people as officers and advisers, was the "circle for negro war relief," which had its headquarters in new york city. at a great meeting at carnegie hall, november , , the circle was addressed by the late theodore roosevelt. on the platform also as speakers were emmett j. scott, irvin cobb, marcel knecht, french high commissioner to the united states; dr. george e. haynes, director of negro economics, department of labor; mrs. adah b. thorns, superintendent of nurses at lincoln hospital, and dr. w.e.b. du bois, who presided. mr. roosevelt reminded his hearers that when he divided the nobel peace prize money among the war charities he had awarded to the circle for negro war relief a sum equal to those assigned to the y.m.c.a., the knights of columbus, and like organizations. "i wish to congratulate you," mr. roosevelt said, "upon the dignity and self-restraint with which the circle has stated its case in its circulars. it is put better than i could express it when your officers say: 'they, (the negroes) like the boys at the front and in the camps to know that there is a distinctly colored organization working for them. they also like the people at home to know that such an organization, although started and maintained with a friendly cooperation from white friends, is intended to prove to the world that colored people themselves can manage war relief in an efficient, honest and dignified way, and so bring honor to their race. "the greatest work the colored man can do to help his race upward," continued mr. roosevelt, "is through his or her own person to show the true dignity of service. i see in the list of your vice-presidents and also of your directors the name of colonel charles young, and that reminds me that if i had been permitted to raise a brigade of troops and go to the other side, i should have raised for that brigade two colored regiments, one of which would have had all colored officers. and the colonel of that regiment was to have been colonel charles young. "one of the officers of the other regiment was to have been 'ham' fish. he is now an officer of the th, the regiment of negroes which mr. cobb so justly has praised, and when 'ham' fish was offered a chance for promotion with a transfer to another command, i am glad to say he declined with thanks, remarking that he 'guessed he's stay with the sunburned yankees.'" a guest of honor at the meeting was needham roberts, who won his croix de guerre in conjunction with henry johnson. the cheering of the audience stopped proceedings for a long time when mr. roosevelt arrived and shook hands with roberts. "many nice things were said at the meeting," commented the new york age, "but the nicest of all was the statement that after the war the negro over here will get more than a sip from the cup of democracy." one of the splendid activities of the circle was in the providing of an emergency relief fund for men who were discharged or sent back, as in the case of needham roberts, on account of sickness or injuries. many a soldier who was destitute on account of his back pay having been held up was temporarily relieved, provided with work or sent to his home through the agency of the circle. while the war was in progress the circle attended to a variety of legal questions for the soldiers, distributed literature, candy and smokes to the men going to the war and those at the front; visited and ministered to those in hospitals, looked after their correspondence and did the myriad helpful things which other agencies were doing for white soldiers, including relief in the way of garments, food, medicine and money for the families and dependents of soldiers. the organization had over three score units in different parts of the country. they engaged in the same activities which white women were following in aid to their race. here is a sample clipped from one of the bulletins of the circle: "on the semi-tropical island of st. helena, s.c., the native islanders have, in times past, been content to busy themselves in their beautiful cotton fields or in their own little palmetto-shaded houses, but the war has brought to them as to the rest of the world broader vision, and now, despite their very limited resources, of them have formed unit no. of the circle. they not only do war work, but they give whatever service is needed in the community. the members knit for the soldiers and write letters to st. helena boys for their relatives. during the influenza epidemic the unit formed itself into a health committee in cooperation with the red cross and did most effective work in preventing the spread of the disease." similar and enlarged activities were characteristic of the units all over the nation. they made manifest to the world the negro's generosity and his willingness in so far as lies in his power, to bear his part of the burden of helping his own race. after the war the units of the circle did not grow weary. their inspiration to concentrate was for the relief of physical suffering and need; to assist existing organizations in all sorts of welfare work. as they had helped soldiers and soldiers' families, they proposed to extend a helping hand to working girls, children, invalids and all negroes deserving aid. to the lasting glory of the race and the efficient self-sacrificing spirit of the men engaged, was the wonderful work of the negro young men's christian association among the soldiers of this country and overseas. some day a book will be written dealing adequately with this phase of war activity. the best writers of the race will find in it a theme well worthy of their finest talents. the subject can be touched upon only briefly here. to the untiring efforts and great ability of dr. j.e. moorland, senior secretary of the negro men's department of the international committee, with his corps of capable assistants at washington, belongs the great credit of having organized and directed the work throughout the war. not a serious complaint has come from any quarter about the work of the y.m.c.a. workers; not a penny of money was wrongfully diverted and literally not a thing has occurred to mar the record of the organization. nothing but praise has come to it for the noble spirit of duty, good will and aid which at all times characterized its operations. the workers sacrificed their pursuits and pleasures, their personal affairs and frequently their remuneration; times innumerable they risked their lives to minister to the comfort and well being of the soldiers. some deeds of heroism stand forth that rank along with those of the combatants. the splendid record achieved is all the more remarkable and gratifying when the extensive and varied personnel of the service is taken into consideration. no less than fifty-five y.m.c.a. centers were conducted in cantonments in america, presided over by negro secretaries. fourteen additional secretaries served with student army training corps units in our colleges. sixty secretaries served overseas, making a grand total of y.m.c.a. secretaries doing war work. excellent buildings were erected in the cantonments here and the camps overseas, which served as centers for uplifting influences, meeting the deepest needs of the soldier's life. in the battle zones were the temporary huts where the workers resided, placed as near the front lines as the military authorities could permit. many times the workers went into the most advanced trenches with the soldiers, serving them tobacco, coffee, chocolate, etc., and doing their utmost to keep up spirits and fighting morale. much of the uniform good discipline and behavior attributed to the negro troops undoubtedly was due to the beneficial influence of the "y" men and women. as an example of the way the work was conducted it is well to describe a staff organization in one of the buildings. it was composed of a building secretary, who was the executive; a religious work secretary, who had charge of the religious activities, including personal work among the soldiers, bible class and religious meetings; an educational secretary, who promoted lectures, educational classes and used whatever means he had at hand to encourage intellectual development, and a physical secretary, who had charge of athletics and various activities for the physical welfare of the soldiers. he worked in closest relationship with the military officers and often was made responsible for all the sports and physical activities of the camp. then there was a social secretary, who promoted all the social diversions, including entertainments, stunts and motion pictures, and a business secretary, who looked after the sales of stamps, post cards and such supplies as were handled, and who was made responsible for the proper accounting of finances. the secretaries were either specialists in their lines or were trained until they became such. some idea of their tasks and problems, and of the tact and ability they had to use in meeting them, may be gained by a contemplation of the classes with which they had to deal. the selective draft assembled the most remarkable army the world has ever seen. men of all grades from the most illiterate to the highly trained university graduate messed together and drilled side by side daily. there were men who had grown up under the best of influences and others whose environment had been th or vicious, all thrown together in a common cause, wearing the same uniform and obeying the same orders. the social diversions brought out some splendid talent. a great feature was the singing. it was essential that the secretary should be a leader in this and possessed of a good voice. these were not difficult to find, as the race is naturally musical and most of them sing well. noted singers were sent to sing for the boys, but it is said that frequently the plan of the entertainment was reversed, as they requested the privilege of listening to the boys sing. a wonderful work was done by "y" secretaries among the illiterates. its fruits are already apparent and will continue to multiply. they found men who hardly knew their right hand from their left. others who could not write their names are said to have wept with joy when taught to master the simple accomplishment. many a poor illiterate was given the rudiments of an education and started on the way to higher attainments. headquarters of the overseas work was at paris, france, and was in charge of e.c. carter, formerly senior student secretary in america, and when war was declared, held the position of national secretary of india. much of the credit for the splendid performance of the "y" workers abroad belonged to him and to his able aid, dr. john hope, president of morehouse college, atlanta, ga. the latter went over in august, , as a special overseer of the negro y.m.c.a. three distinguished negro women were sent over as "y" hostesses, with a secretarial rating, during the war. their work was so successful that twenty additional women to serve in the same capacities were sent over after the close of hostilities. they were to serve as hostesses, social secretaries and general welfare workers among the thousands of negro soldiers who had been retained there with the army of occupation and the service of supply. the first negro woman to go abroad in the y.m.c.a. service was mrs. helen curtis of th street, new york, in may, . for a number of years she had been a member of the committee of management of the colored women's branch of the y.m.c.a., and had assisted at the camp upton hostess house. her late husband, james l. curtis, was minister resident and consul general for the united states to liberia. mrs. curtis lived in monrovia, liberia, until her husband's death there. she had also lived in france, where she studied domestic art for two years. being a fluent speaker of the french language, her appointment was highly appropriate. so successful was the appointment of mrs. curtis that another negro secretary in the person of mrs. addie hunton of greene avenue, brooklyn, n.y., followed the next month. her husband was for many years senior secretary of the international committee of the y.m.c.a. negro men's department, and her own work had always been with the organization. a short time later miss catherine johnson of greenville, ohio, followed in the wake of mrs. curtis and mrs. hunton. she is a sister of dr. johnson of columbus, ohio, appointed early in minister to liberia. no less successful at home than abroad was the work of the y.m.c.a. among the negroes in cantonments and training camps. it is known that the services rendered by the association to the officers' training camp at fort des moines had much to do with making that institution such a remarkable success. from that time on comment was frequent that the best work being done by the association in many of the camps was done by negro secretaries. the heroic exploit of professor cook, the "y" secretary, which secured him a recommendation for the distinguished service cross, is mentioned elsewhere. it was only equalled by the valiant performance of a.t. banks of dayton, ohio, a negro "y" secretary who went over the top with the th infantry. secretary banks, during the action, tarried to give aid to a wounded soldier. the two were forced to remain all night in a shell hole. during the hours before darkness and early the following morning they were targets for a german sniper. the secretary succeeded in getting the wounded man back to the lines, where he then proceeded to organize a party to go after the sniper. they not only silenced him, but rendered him unfit for any further action on earth. mr. banks returned to america with the sniper's rifle as a souvenir. his work was additionally courageous when it is considered that he was a non-combatant and not supposed to engage in hostilities. had he been taken by the germans he would not have been accorded the treatment of a prisoner of war, but undoubtedly would have been put to death. were the records sufficiently complete at the present time to divulge them, scores of examples of valorous conduct on the part of the "y" workers, red cross and other non-combatants who ministered to negro soldiers could be recounted. the work of all was of a noble character. it was accompanied by a heroic spirit and in many cases by great personal bravery and sacrifice. chapter xxvii. negro in army personnel his mechanical ability required--skilled at special trades--victory depends upon technical workers--vast range of occupations--negro makes good showing--percentages of white and black--figures for general service. in and our cause demanded speed. every day that could be saved from the period of training meant a day gained in putting troops at the front. half of the men in the army must be skilled at special trades in order to perform their military duties. to form the units quickly and at the same time supply them with the technical ability required, the army had to avail itself of the trade knowledge and experience which the recruit brought with him from civil life. to discover this talent and assign it to those organizations where it was needed was the task of the army personnel organization. the army could hardly have turned the tide of victory if it had been forced to train from the beginning any large proportion of the technical workers it needed. every combat division required mechanical draughtsmen, electricians, linemen, cable splicers, radio operators, switchboard operators, telegraphers, telephone repairmen, leather and canvas workers, surveyors, transitmen, topographers, auto mechanics, machinists, utility mechanics, blacksmiths, carpenters, chauffeurs (auto and truck), tractor operators and truckmasters. besides these specialists each division required among its enlisted men those familiar with other trades. among the latter were dock builders, structural steel workers, bricklayers, teamsters, hostlers, wagoners, axemen, cooks, bakers, musicians, saddlers, crane operators, welders, rigging and cordage workers, stevedores and longshoremen. add to these the specialists required in the technical units of engineers, ordnance, air service, signal corps, tanks, motor corps and all the services of supply, and the impossibility of increasing an army of , in march , to an army of , , in november, , becomes apparent unless every skilled man was used where skill was demanded. to furnish tables showing the number of negroes which the selective draft produced for the various occupations mentioned was at the compilement of this work not practicable. in many cases the figures for white and black had not been separated. the army personnel organization did not get into the full swing of its work until well along in . a good general idea of the percentages of white and black can be gained from the late drafts of that year. figures for white drafts were not available with the exception of that of september rd. but a very fair comparison may be made from the following table showing some occupations to which both whites and blacks were called. take any of the three general service drafts made upon negro selectives and it makes a splendid showing alongside the whites. out of , men used as a basis for computation, it shows that among the negro selectives an average of slightly over percent were available for technical requirements, compared with slightly over percent among the whites. it reveals a high number of mechanics and craftsmen among a race which in the minds of many has been regarded as made up almost entirely of unskilled laborers: supply per , in late negro drafts for general service, compared with supply of white men in same occupations for the september rd draft: misc. figures sept. sept. sept upon draft occupation-- draft draft , men white mechanical engineer blacksmith dock builder ... ... ... carpenter , stockkeeper structural steel worker chauffeur , , , , chauffeur, heavy truck , , , bricklayer hostler , , , , teamster or wagoner , , , , transit and levelman ... axeman logger , , , , clerical worker , baker and cook , , , , musician alto horn baritone bass horn clarinet cornet flute ... saxaphone trap drum trombone bugler saddler ... crane operator, hoistman crane operator, pile driver ... crane operator, shovel ... oxy-acetylene welder ... rigger and cordage worker stevedore, cargo handler longshoreman ---- ---- ---- ---- , , , , figures are for general service drafts and do not include the enlarged list of occupations for which both whites and negroes were selected. [illustration: five sea tugs pushing transport "france" into dock. ship laden with members of new york's "fighting th" ( th infantry) and chicago's "fighting th" ( th infantry) negro heroes from battlefields of europe.] chapter xxviii the knockout blow woodrow wilson, an estimate--his place in history--last of great trio--washington, lincoln, wilson--upholds decency, humanity, liberty--recapitulation of year --closing incidents of war. when sufficient years have elapsed for the forming of a correct perspective, when the dissolving elements of time have swept away misunderstandings and the influences engendered by party belief and politically former opinions, woodrow wilson is destined to occupy a place in the temple of fame that all americans may well be proud of. let us analyze this and let us be fair about it, whatever may be our beliefs or affiliations. washington gave us our freedom as a nation and started the first great wave of democracy. probably, had some of us lived in washington's time, we would have been opposed to him politically. today he is our national hero and is reverenced by all free people of the earth, even by the nation which he defeated at arms. lincoln preserved and cemented, albeit he was compelled to do it in blood, the democracy which washington founded. he did infinitely more; he struck the shackles from four million human beings and gave the negro of america his first opportunity to take a legitimate place in the world. lincoln's service in abolishing slavery was not alone to the negro. he elevated the souls of all men, for he ended the most degrading institution that satan ever devised--more degrading to the master who followed it, than to the poor subject he practiced it upon. unitedly, we revere lincoln, yet there were those who were opposed to him and in every way hampered and sneered at his sublime consecration to the service of his country. it takes time to obtain the proper estimate of men. enough light has already been cast on president wilson and his life work to indicate his character and what the finished portrait of him will be. we see him at the beginning of the european conflict, before any of us could separate the tangled threads of rumor, of propaganda, of misrepresentation, to determine what it was all about; before even he could comprehend it, a solitary and monitory figure, calling upon us to be neutral, to form no hasty judgments. we see him later in the role of peacemaker, upholding the principles of decency and honor. eventually as the record of atrocities and crimes against innocents enlarges, we see him pleading with the guilty to return to the instincts of humanity. finally as the ultimate aim of the hun is revealed as an assault upon the freedom of the world; after the most painstaking and patient efforts to avoid conflict, during which he was subjected to humiliation and insult, we see him grasp the sword, calling a united nation to arms in clarion tones, like some crusader of old; his shibboleth: decency, humanity, liberty. what followed? his action swept autocracy from its last great stronghold and made permanent the work which washington began and upon which lincoln builded so nobly. this of woodrow wilson; an estimate--there can be no other thought, that will endure throughout history. in the earlier chapters are sketched the main events of the great war up to the end of the year , when the history of the negro in the conflict became the theme. it remains to give an outline review of battles and happenings from the beginning of until the end of hostilities; culminating in the most remarkable armistice on record; a complete capitulation of the teutonic forces and their allies, and a complete surrender by them of all implements and agencies for waging war. the terms of the armistice, drastic in the extreme, were largely the work of marshal ferdinand foch, commander-in-chief of the allied armies. early in it became evident that england, france and italy were rapidly approaching the limit of their man power. it became necessary for america to hasten to the rescue. training of men and officers in the various cantonments of america was intensified and as rapidly as they could be brought into condition they were shipped to france. the troop movement was a wonderful one and before the final closing of hostilities in november there were more than , , american troops in europe. the navy was largely augmented, especially in the matter of destroyers, submarine chasers and lighter craft. our troops saw little actual warfare during the first three months of the year. americans took over a comparatively quiet sector of the french front near toul, january . engagements of slight importance took place on january and february , the latter on a lorraine sector which americans were holding. on march , they repulsed a heavy german raid in the toul sector, killing many. on march , the americans were holding an eight mile front alone. on march the great german offensive between the oise and the scarpe, a distance of fifty miles, began. general haig's british forces were driven back about twenty miles. the french also lost much ground including a number of important towns. the germans drove towards amiens in an effort to separate the british and french armies. they had some successes in flanders and on the french front, but were finally stopped. their greatest advance measured thirty-five miles and resulted in the retaking of most of the territory lost in the hindenburg retreat of the previous year. the allies lost heavily in killed, wounded and prisoners, but the germans being the aggressors, lost more. while the great battle was at its height, march , the allies reached an agreement to place all their forces from the arctic ocean to the mediterranean, under one supreme command, the man chosen for the position being general foch of the french. on march , general pershing placed all the american forces at the disposal of general foch. the germans began a new offensive against the british front april and won a number of victories in the la basse canal region and elsewhere. the battle of seicheprey, april , was the americans' first serious engagement with the germans. the germans captured the place but the americans by a counter attack recovered it. another great offensive was started by the germans, may , resulting in the taking of the chemin des dames from the french and crossing the river aisne. on the following day they crossed the vesle river at fismes. here the americans won their first notable victory by capturing the village of cantigny and taking prisoners. they held this position against many subsequent counter-attacks. by the st the germans had reached chateau thierry and other points on the marne, where they were halted by the french. they made a few gains during the first days of june. on june , american marines made a gallant attack, gaining two miles on a front two and one-half miles long near veuilly la poterie. on the following day they assisted the french in important victories. in the second battle northwest of chateau thierry, the americans advanced nearly two and one-half miles on a six mile front, taking prisoners. it was in these engagements that the americans established themselves as fighters equal to any. on june , the germans began their fourth offensive, attacking between montdidier and the river oise. they advanced about four miles, taking several villages. in the operations of the following day which gained them several villages, they claimed to have captured , french. this day the american marines took the greater portion of belleau wood and completed the capture of it june . the french at the same time defeated the germans between robescourt and st. maur. there were other battles on the th and th, but on the th it became evident that the german offensive was a costly failure. the fighting from this time until the end of june was of a less serious nature, although the americans in the belleau and vaux regions gave the germans no rest, attacking them continually and taking prisoners. the americans at this time were also engaged in an offensive in italy. july , president wilson announced there were , , american soldiers in france. the fourth of july was celebrated in england, france and italy as well as in the united states. on that day americans assisted the australians in taking the town of hamel and many prisoners. on the th and th the french advanced in the region of longpont and northwest of compiegne. on the th they took castel and other strong points near the west bank of the avre river. july , the french national holiday was observed in america, and by the american soldiers in france. the fifth and last phase of the great offensive which the germans had started in march, began july , in an attack from chateau thierry to massignes, along a sixty-five mile front and crossing the marne at several places. at chateau thierry the americans put up a strong resistance but the enemy by persistent efforts finally succeeded in getting a footing on the south bank. the battle continued east and west of rheims with the allies holding strongly and the germans meeting heavy losses. while the germans were trying to force their way regardless of cost, in the direction of chalons and epernay, general foch was preparing a surprise in the villers-cotterets forest on the german right flank. in the large force collected for the surprise were some of the best french regiments together with the famed foreign legion, the moroccan regiment and other crack troops including americans. on the morning of july , a heavy blow was launched at the germans all along the line from chateau thierry on the marne to the aisne northwest of soissons. the foe was taken completely by surprise and town after town fell with very little resistance. later the resistance stiffened but the allies continued to advance. cavalrymen assisted the infantry and tanks in large numbers, helped to clean out the machine gun nests. the americans who fought side by side with the french won the unbounded admiration of their comrades. thousands of prisoners were taken with large numbers of heavy cannon, great quantities of ammunition and thousands of machine guns. by the th soissons was threatened. the germans finding themselves caught in a dangerous salient and attacked fiercely on both flanks, retreated hurriedly to the north bank of the marne and still farther. meanwhile things were going badly for the austrians. after its retreat in to the line of the piave river, the italian army had been reorganized and strengthened under general diaz, who had succeeded general cadorna in command. french and british regiments had been sent to assist in holding the line, and later some american forces. the austrians began an offensive june along a -mile front, crossing the piave in several places. for three days they made violent attacks on the montello plateau, and along the piave from st. andrea to san dona and at capo sile, twenty miles from venice. then the italians, british, french and americans counter-attacked and within three days had turned the great austrian offensive into a rout, killing thousands, taking thousands of prisoners, and capturing an immense amount of war material including the austrian's heavy caliber guns. the whole austrian scheme to advance into the fertile italian plains where they hoped to find food for their hungry soldiers, failed completely. it was practically the end of austria and the beginning of the end for germany. bulgaria gave up september , due to heavy operations by the french, italians and serbians during july, august and september, in albania, macedonia and along the vardar river to the boundaries of bulgaria. they signed an armistice september and the king of bulgaria abdicated october . turkey being in a hopeless position through the surrender of bulgaria, and the success of the british forces under general allenby, kept up a feeble resistance until the end of october when she too surrendered. the collapse of austria-hungary followed closely on that of turkey. they kept up a show of resistance and suffered a number of disastrous defeats until the end of october when they raised the white flag. an armistice was signed by the austrian representatives and general diaz for the italians, november . on the anniversary of britain's entry into the war, august , field marshall haig, commander-in-chief of the british forces issued a special order of the day, the opening paragraph of which was: "the conclusion of the fourth year of the war marks the passing of the period of crisis. we can now with added confidence, look forward to the future." on august , general pershing reported: "the full fruits of victory in the counter offensive begun so gloriously by franco-american troops on july , were reaped today, when the enemy who met his second great defeat on the marne, was driven in confusion beyond the line of the vesle. the enemy, in spite of suffering the severest losses, has proved incapable of stemming the onslaught of our troops, fighting for liberty side by side with french, british and italian veterans. in the course of the operations, , prisoners and guns have been captured by our men alone. our troops have taken fismes by assault and hold the south bank of the vesle in this section." on august , the british and french launched an offensive in picardy, pressed forward about seven miles on a front of miles, astride the river somme and captured several towns and , prisoners. it was in this engagement that the hard fighting at chipilly ridge occurred, in which the americans so ably assisted, notably former national guardsmen from chicago and vicinity. montdidier was taken by the french august . the british also continued to advance and by the th the allies had captured , prisoners and more than guns. a french attack august - on the oise-aisne front, netted , prisoners and liberated many towns. on the st lassigny was taken by the french. this was the cornerstone of the german position south of the avre river. on august the americans won the important battle of guvigny. by september the germans were retreating on a front of miles, from ypres south to noyon. by the th the germans had been driven back to the original hindenburg line, where their resistance began to strengthen. on september the american army, led by general pershing, won a great battle in the attack on and wiping out of the famous st. mihiel salient. this victory forced the enemy back upon the wotan-hindenburg line, with the french paralleling him from verdun to the moselle. pershing's forces continued fighting steadily, wearing out the germans by steady pressure. on september the americans began another offensive along a front of miles from the meuse river westward through the argonne forest. this developed into one of the bloodiest battles of the war for the americans. on september american and british troops smashed through the hindenburg line at its strongest point between cambrai and st. quentin. british troops entered the suburbs of cambrai and outflanked st. quentin. twenty-two thousand prisoners and more than guns were captured. meanwhile the belgians tore a great hole in the german line, ten miles from the north sea, running from dixmude southward. on october the french launched three drives, one north of st. quentin, another north of rheims, and a third to the east in champagne. all were successful, resulting in the freeing of much territory and the capture of many prisoners. on october the americans resumed the attack west of the meuse. in the face of heavy artillery and machine gun fire, troops from illinois, wisconsin, pennsylvania, virginia, and west virginia, forced the germans back to the so-called kriemhilde line. in the champagne, american and french troops were moving successfully. on the th the americans captured st. etienne; on the th they reached the southern outskirts of xivry and entered chaune wood. on the same day the armies of field marshall haig made a clean break through the hindenburg system on the west. through a twenty-mile gap, they advanced from nine to twelve miles, penetrating almost to the le selle and sambre rivers. on october the british general rawlinson, with whom an american division had been operating, sent a telegram of congratulation to the commander of the division, which comprised troops from tennessee, in which he highly praised the gallantry of all the american troops. french troops on october captured the fortress of la fere, the strongest point on the south end of the old hindenburg line. they also entered laon and occupied the forest of st. gobain. on october the americans took and passed st. juvin after desperate fighting. on october they occupied the town of grandpre, a place of great strategic importance, being the junction of railways feeding a large part of the german armies. the germans now began a retreat on an enormous scale in belgium. so fast did they move that the british, french and belgians could not keep in touch with them. the north sea ports of belgium were speedily evacuated. northwest of grandpre the americans captured talma farm october , after a stiff machine gun resistance. victories continued to be announced from day to day from all portions of the front. on november the americans participated in a heavy battle, taking champaigneulle and landres et st. george, which enabled them to threaten the enemy's most important line of communication. on november the americans reached stenay and on the th they crossed the meuse. by the th they had entered sedan, the place made famous by the downfall of napoleon iii in the war of . on other parts of the american front the enemy retreated so fast that the infantry had to resort to motor cars to keep in touch with him. it was the same on other fronts. the germans put up a resistance at the strong fortress of metz, which the americans were attacking november and . armistice negotiations had been started as early as october, , and were concluded november th. this date saw the complete collapse of the german military machine and will be one of the most momentous days in history, as it marked the passing of an old order and the inauguration of a new era for the world. in the armistice terms every point which the americans and allies stipulated was agreed to by the germans. the last shot in the war is thus described in an associated press dispatch of november : "thousands of american heavy guns fired the parting shot to the germans at exactly o'clock this morning. the line reached by the american forces was staked out this afternoon. the germans hurled a few shells into verdun just before o'clock. "on the entire american front from the moselle to the region of sedan, there was artillery activity in the morning, all the batteries preparing for the final salvos. "at many batteries the artillerists joined hands, forming a long line as the lanyard of the final shot. there were a few seconds of silence as the shells shot through the heavy mist. then the gunners cheered. american flags were raised by the soldiers over their dugouts and guns and at the various headquarters. soon afterward the boys were preparing for luncheon. all were hungry as they had breakfasted early in anticipation of what they considered the greatest day in american history." the celebration, which occurred november , upon announcement of the news, has never been equalled in america. it spontaneously became a holiday and business suspended voluntarily. self-restraint was thrown to the winds for nearly twenty-four hours in every city, town and hamlet in the country. there was more enthusiasm, noise and processions than ever marked any occasion in this country and probably eclipsed anything in the history of the world. [illustration: return of the th new york, th infantry. shown swinging up lenox avenue. new york city where they received a royal welcome.] chapter xxix. homecoming heroes new york greets her own--ecstatic day for old th--whites and blacks do honors--a monster demonstration--many dignitaries review troops--parade of martial pomp--cheers, music, flowers and feasting--"hayward's scrapping babies"--officers share glory--then came henry johnson--similar scenes elsewhere. no band of heroes returning from war ever were accorded such a welcome as that tendered to the homecoming th by the residents of new york, manhattan island and vicinity, irrespective of race. being one of the picturesque incidents of the war, the like of which probably will not be repeated for many generations, if ever, it well deserves commemoration within the pages of this book. inasmuch as no more graphic, detailed and colorful account of the day's doings has been printed anywhere, we cannot do better than quote in its entirety the story which appeared in the great newspaper, the world of new york, on february , . the parade and reception, during which the negro troops practically owned the city, occurred the preceeding day. the world account follows: "the town that's always ready to take off its hat and give a whoop for a man who's done something--'no matter who or what he was before,' as the old tommy atkins song has it--turned itself loose yesterday in welcoming home a regiment of its own fighting sons that not only did something, but did a whole lot in winning democracy's war. "in official records, and in the histories that youngsters will study in generations to come, this regiment will probably always be known as the th infantry, u.s.a. "but in the hearts of a quarter million or more who lined the streets yesterday to greet it, it was no such thing. it was the old th new york. and so it will be in this city's memory, archives and in the folk lore of the descendants of the men who made up its straight, smartly stepping ranks. "new york is not race-proud nor race-prejudiced. that this th regiment, with the exception of its eighty-nine white officers, was composed entirely of negroes, made no difference in the shouts and flagwaving and handshakes that were bestowed upon it. new york gave its old th the fullest welcome of its heart. "through scores of thousands of cheering white citizens, and then through a greater multitude of its own color, the regiment, the first actual fighting unit to parade as a unit here, marched in midday up fifth avenue and through harlem, there to be almost assailed by the colored folks left behind when it went away to glory. "later it was feasted and entertained, and this time very nearly smothered with hugs and kisses by kin and friends, at the st regiment armory. still later, perfectly behaved and perfectly ecstatic over its reception, the regiment returned to camp upton to await its mustering out. "you knew these dark lads a year and a half ago, maybe, as persons to be slipped a dime as a tip and scarcely glanced it. they were your elevator boys, your waiters, the pullman porters who made up your berths (though of course you'd never dare to slip a pullman porter a dime). but, if you were like many a prosperous white citizen yesterday you were mighty proud to grasp jim or henry or sam by the hand and then boast among your friends that you possessed his acquaintance. "when a regiment has the medal honors of france upon its flags and it has put the fear of god into germany time after time, and its members wear two gold stripes, signifying a year's fighting service, on one arm, and other stripes, signifying wounds, on the other, it's a whole lot different outfit from what it was when it went away. and that's the old th n.y. and the men are different--and that's jim and henry and sam. "col. william hayward, the distinguished white lawyer and one time public service commissioner, who is proud to head these fighters, was watching them line up for their departure shortly after o'clock last evening, when someone asked him what he thought of the day. "'it has been wonderful!' he said, and he gazed with unconcealed tenderness at his men. 'it's been far beyond my expectations. but these boys deserve it. there's only one thing missing. i wish some of gen. gouraud's french boys, whom we fought beside, could be here to see it.' "the colonel slapped his hand affectionately upon the shoulder of his dark-skinned orderly. "'how about that, hamilton, old boy?' he inquired. "'that's right, colonel, sir; gen. gonraud's boys sure would have enjoyed this day!' the orderly responded as he looked proudly at the colonel. "there's that sort of paternal feeling of the white officers toward their men, and that filial devotion of the men to their officers, such as exists in the french army. "much as the white population of the town demonstrated their welcome to the regiment, it was, after all, those of their own color to whom the occasion belonged. and they did themselves proud in making it an occasion to recall for years in harlem, san juan hill and brooklyn, where most of the fighters were recruited. "at the official reviewing stand at th street, the kinsfolk and admirers of the regimental lads began to arrive as beforehandedly as o'clock. they had tickets, and their seats were reserved for them. the official committee had seen to that--and nine-tenths of the yellow wooden benches were properly held for those good americans of new york whom birth by chance had made dark-skinned instead of fair. but this was their day of days, and they had determined (using their own accentuation) to be there and to be there early. "the first-comers plodded across th street from the san juan hill district, and it was fine to see them. there seemed to be a little military swank even to the youngsters, as platoons of them stepped along with faces that had been scrubbed until they shone. had a woman a bit of fur, she wore it. had a man a top hat--origin or vintage-date immaterial--he displayed that. all heads were up, high; eyes alight. beaming smiles everywhere. no not quite everywhere. occasionally there was to be seen on a left sleeve a black band with a gold star, which told the world that one of the old th would never see the region west of columbus circle, because he had closed his eyes in france. and the faces of the wearers of these were unlaughing, but they held themselves just as proudly as the rest. "few of the welcomers went flagless. no matter whether a man or woman wore a jewel or a pair of patent leather boots as a sign of "class," or tramped afoot to the stand or arrived in a limousine, nearly every dark hand held the nation's emblem. "nearly every one wore white badges bearing the letters: "welcome, fighting th," or had pennants upon which stood out the regimental insignia--a coiled rattlesnake of white on a black field. "those colored folk who could afford it journeyed to the stand in closed automobiles. gorgeously gowned women alighted with great dignity beneath the admiring gaze of their humbler brethren. taxies brought up those whose fortunes, perhaps, were not of such amplitude. hansoms and hacks conveyed still others, and one party came in a plumber's wagon, its women members all bundled up in shawls and blankets against the cold, but grinning delightedly as the whole stand applauded. "children by the thousands lined the east side of the avenue--boy scouts and uniformed kids and little girls with their school books under their arms, and they sang to the great delight of the crowd. "just why it was that when governor smith and former governor whitman and acting mayor moran and the other reviewers appeared behind a cavalcade of mounted policemen, the youngsters struck up that army classic, "oh, how i hate to get up in the morning," no one could tell, but it gave the reviewers and the crowd a laugh. "with the state and city officials were the members of the board of aldermen, the board of estimate, major gen. thomas j. barry, vice admiral albert gleaves, secretary of state, francis hugo; rodman wannamaker and--in a green hat and big fur coat--william randolph hearst. secretary baker of the war department was unable to attend, but he did the next best thing and sent his colored assistant, emmett j. scott. "the reviewers arrived at : and had a good long wait, for at that time the paraders had not yet left rd street. but what with the singing, and the general atmosphere of joyousness about the stand, there was enough to occupy everyone's time. "there was one feature which took the eye pleasingly--the number of babies which proud mothers held aloft, fat pickaninnies, mostly in white, and surrounded by adoring relatives. these were to see (and be seen by) their daddies for the first time. laughingly, the other day, col. bill hayward spoke of 'our boys' posthumous children,' and said he thought there were quite a few of them. "'some of our boys had to go away pretty quickly,' he reminisced. 'some of them were only married about twenty minutes or so.' "'o colonel!' said the modest major little on that occasion. "'well, maybe it was a trifle longer than twenty minutes,' admitted bill. but anyhow, there was the regiment's posthumous children in the stand. "it was : when the old th stepped away from rd street and fifth avenue. they looked the part of the fighting men they were. at an exact angle over their right shoulders were their long-bayonetted rifles. around their waists were belts of cartridges. on their heads were their 'tin hats,' the steel helmets that saved many a life, as was attested by the dents and scars in some of them. their eyes were straight forward and their chins, held high naturally, seemed higher than ever because of the leather straps that circled them. the fighters wore spiral puttees and their heavy hobbed hiking shoes, which caused a metallic clash as they scraped over the asphalt. "at the head of the line rode four platoons of mounted police, twelve abreast, and then, afoot and alone, col. hayward, who organized the th, drilled them when they had nothing but broomsticks to drill with, fathered them and loved them, and turned them into the fightingest military organization any man's army could want. "the french called them 'hell fighters.' the germans after a few mix-ups named them 'blutlustige schwartzmanner' (blood-thirsty black men.) but col. bill, when he speaks of them uses the words 'those scrapping babies of mine,' and they like that best of all. incidentally (when out of his hearing) they refer tenderly to him as 'old bill, that fightin' white man.' so it's fifty-fifty. "the colonel had broken a leg in the war, so there were those who looked for him to limp as he strode out to face the hedge of spectators that must have numbered a quarter of a million. but nary a limp. with his full six feet drawn up erectly and his strong face smiling under his tin hat, he looked every bit the fighting man as he marched up the centre of the avenue, hailed every few feet by enthusiasts who knew him socially or in the law courts or in the business of the public service commission. "'didn't your leg hurt you, bill?' his friends asked him later. "'sure it hurt me; he said, 'but i wasn't going to peg along on the proudest day of my life!' which this day was. "behind the colonel marched his staff, lieut. col. w.a. pickering, capt. adjutant robert ferguson, major e.a. whittemore, regimental sergt. majors c.a. connick and b.w. cheeseman, regimental sergts. l.s. payne, h.w. dickerson and w.w. chisum, and sergts. r.c. craig, d.e. norman and kenneth bellups. "the police band was at the front of the line of march, but it was a more famous band that provided the music to which the black buddies stepped northward and under the arch of victory--the wonderful jazz organization of lieut. jimmie europe, the one colored commissioned officer of the regiment. but it wasn't jazz that started them off. it was the historic marche du regiment de sambre et meuse, which has been france's most popular parade piece since napoleon's day. as rendered now it had all the crash of bugle fanfares which is its dominant feature, but an additional undercurrent of saxaphones and basses that put a new and more peppery tang into it. "one hundred strong, and the proudest band of blowers and pounders that ever reeled off marching melody--lieut. jimmie's boys lived fully up to their reputation. their music was as sparkling as the sun that tempered the chill day. "four of their drums were instruments which they had captured from the enemy in alsace, and ma-an, what a beating was imposed upon those sheepskins! 'i'd very much admire to have them bush germans a-watchin' me today!' said the drummer before the march started. the old th doesn't say 'boche' when it refers to the foe it beat. 'bush' is the word it uses, and it throws in 'german' for good measure. "twenty abreast the heroes marched through a din that never ceased. they were as soldierly a lot as this town, now used to soldierly outfits, has ever seen. they had that peculiar sort of half careless, yet wholly perfect, step that the french display. their lines were straight, their rifles at an even angle, and they moved along with the jaunty ease and lack of stiffness which comes only to men who have hiked far and frequently. "the colored folks on the official stand cut loose with a wild, swelling shriek of joy as the police band fell out at th street and remained there to play the lads along when necessary and when--now entirely itself--the khaki-clad regiment filling the street from curb to curb, stepped by. "colonel hayward, with his hand at salute, turned and smiled happily as he saw his best friend, former governor whitman, standing with his other good friend, governor al smith, with their silk tiles raised high over their heads. it was the governor's first review in new york and the first time he and mr. whitman had got together since inauguration day. they were of different parties, but they were united in greeting colonel bill and his babies. "from the stand, from the knickerbocker club across the street, from the nearby residences and from the curbing sounded shouts of individual greetings for the commander and his staff. but these were quickly drowned as a roar went up for lieutenant europe's band, with its commander at the head--not swinging a baton like a common ordinary drum-major, but walking along with the uniform and side-arms of an officer. "'the salute to the th,' which they learned from their comrade regiment of the french army of general gouraud, was what they were playing, a stirring thing full of bugle calls and drum rolls, which europe says is the best march he ever heard. "so swiftly did the platoons sweep by that it took a quick eye to recognize a brother or a son or a lover or a husband; but the eyes in the stand were quick, and there were shouts of 'oh, bill!' 'hey, boy, here's your mammy!' 'oliver, look at your baby!' (it wasn't learned whether this referred to a feminine person or one of those posthumous children colonel hayward spoke about.) 'hallelujah, sam! there you are, back home again!' "half way down the ranks of the , paraders appeared the colors, and all hats came off with double reverence, for the stars and stripes and the blue regimental standard that two husky ebony lads held proudly aloft had been carried from here to france, from france to germany and back again, and each bore the bronze token with its green and red ribbon that is called the croix de guerre. keen eyes could see these little medals swinging from the silk of the flags, high toward the top of the poles. "at the end of the lines which filled the avenue came a single automobile, first, with a round-faced smiling white officer sitting in it and gazing happily from side to side. this was major lorillard spencer, who was so badly wounded that he came back in advance of the outfit some weeks ago. there was a special racket of cheers for him, and then another for major david l. 'esperance, also wounded and riding. "then a far different figure, but one of the most famous of the whole war. henry johnson! that henry, once a mild-mannered chauffeur, who to protect his comrade, needham roberts, waded into a whole patrol of 'bush germans' with a lot of hand grenades, his rifle and his trusty 'steel' in the shape of a bolo knife, and waded into them so energetically that when the casualties were counted there were four dead foemen in front of him, thirty-four others done up so badly they couldn't even crawl away, and heaven knows how many more had been put to flight. "and now henry, in commemoration of this exploit, was riding alone in an open machine. in his left hand he held his tin hat. in his right he held high over his head a bunch of red and white lilies which some admirer had pressed upon him. and from side to side henry--about as black as any man in the outfit if not a trifle blacker--bowed from the waist down with all the grace of a french dancing master. yes, he bowed, and he grinned from ear to ear and he waved his lilies, and he didn't overlook a bet in the way of taking (and liking) all the tributes that were offered to him. "a fleet of motor ambulances, back of henry, carried the wounded men who were unable to walk, nearly of them. but though they couldn't walk, they could laugh and wave and shout thanks for the cheers, all of which they did. "almost before the happy colored folk could realize at the official stand that here were their lads back home again, the last of the parade rolled along and it was over. with that formation and the step that was inspired by lieutenant europe's band--and by the police band which stood at th street and kept playing after the music of the other died away--it required only seventeen minutes for the regiment to pass. "from this point north the welcome heightened in intensity. along the park wall the colored people were banked deeply, everyone giving them the first ranks nearest the curb. wives, sweethearts and mothers began to dash into the ranks and press flowers upon their men and march alongside with them, arm-in-arm. but this couldn't be, and colonel hayward had to stop the procession for a time and order the police to put the relatives back on the sidewalks. but that couldn't stop their noise. "the residents of the avenue paid fine tribute to the dusky marchers. it seemed inspiring, at th street, to see mrs. vincent astor standing in a window of her home, a great flag about her shoulders and a smaller one in her left hand, waving salutes. and henry frick, at an open window of his home at d street, waving a flag and cheering at the top of his voice. "at the corner of th street was a wounded colored soldier wearing the croix de guerre and the victoria cross as well. colonel hayward pressed to his side with a hearty handshake, exclaiming: 'why, i thought you were dead!' it was one of his boys long ago invalided home. "no, sir, colonel, not me. i ain't dead by a long ways yet, colonel, sir,' said the lad. "'how's it going, colonel?' asked a spectator. "'fine,' said the commander. 'all i'm worrying about is whether my boys are keeping step.' he needn't have worried. "the real height of the enthusiasm was reached when, after passing through th street and northward along lenox avenue, the heroes arrived in the real black belt of harlem. this was the home, sweet home for hundreds of them, the neighborhood they'd been born in and had grown up in, and from th street north the windows and roofs and fireescapes of the five and six story apartment houses were filled to overflowing with their nearest and dearest. "the noise drowned the melody of lieut. europe's band. flowers fell in showers from above. men, women and children from the sidewalks overran the police and threw their arms about the paraders. there was a swirling maelstrom of dark humanity in the avenue. in the midst of all the racket there could be caught the personal salutations: 'oh, honey!' 'oh, jim!' 'oh, you charlie!' 'there's my boy!' 'there's daddie!' 'how soon you coming home, son?' it took all the ability of scores of reserve policemen between th street and th street, where the uptown reviewing stand was, to pry those colored enthusiasts away from their soldiermen. "there was one particular cry which was taken up for blocks along this district: 'o-oh, you wick-ed hen-nery johnson! you wick-ed ma-an!' and henry the boche killer still bowed and grinned more widely than ever, if possible. "'looks like a funeral, henry, them lilies!' called one admirer. "'funeral for them bush germans, boy! sure a funeral for them bushes.' shouted henry. "the official reviewing party, after the parade had passed th street, had hurried uptown, and so had the police band, and so there were some doings as the old th breezed past th street. but no one up there cared for governors or ex-governors or dignitaries. every eye was on the black buddies and every throat was opened wide for them. "at th street the halt was called. again there was a tremendous rush of men and women with outstretched arms; the military discipline had to prevail, and the soldiers were not allowed to break ranks, nor were the civilians (save the quickest of them) able to give the hugs and kisses they were overflowing with. "as rapidly as possible the fighters were sent down into the subway station and loaded aboard trains which took them down to the st regiment armory at th street and fourth avenue. here the galleries were filled with as many dusky citizens as could find places (maybe , or , ) and so great was the crowd in the neighborhood that the police had to block off th street almost to fifth avenue on the west and third on the east. "as each company came up from the subway the friends and relatives were allowed to go through the lines, and, while the boys stood still in ranks, but at ease, their kinsfolk were allowed to take them in their arms and tell them really and truly, in close-up fashion, what they thought about having them back. "when the entire regiment was in the armory, the civilians in the gallery broke all bounds. they weren't going to stay up there while their heroes were down below on the drill-floor! not they! they swarmed past the police and depot battalion and so jammed the floor that it was impossible for the tired black buddy even to sit down. most of the boys had to take their chicken dinner--served by colored girls, and the chow, incidentally, from delmonico's--standing up with arms about them and kisses punctuating assaults upon the plates. "'some chow, hey buddy?' would be heard. "'pretty bon.' you'd get the answer. 'i'd like to have beaucoup more of this chicken.' there was noticeable a sprinkling of french words in the conversation of the old th, and, indeed, some of them spoke it fluently. "'sam told me,' one girl was heard to say, 'that he killed nineteen of them germans all his own self, but nobody saw him and so he didn't get that cross doo gare.'" mustering out commenced at camp upton the following day. thus ended the service of the th. their deeds are emblazoned on the roll of honor. sons and grandsons of slaves, welcomed by the plaudits of the second largest city in the world. what a record of progress in a trifle over half a century of freedom. what an augury of promise for the future of the colored race, and what an augury for the world freedom which they helped to create, and, overshadowing all else, what an object lesson it should be to our country at large: east, west, north, south, that, "one touch of nature makes 'all men' kin." that in her opinion and treatment of her faithful, loyal black citizens; niggardly, parsimonious, grudging and half-heartedly, how shameful she has been, how great has been her sin; forgetting; or uncaring, even as pharoh of old, that: "god omnipotent liveth," and that "he is a just and a vengeful god!" new york's welcome to her returning negro boys was fairly typical of similar scenes all over the country. chicago gave a tremendous ovation to the heroes of the old th infantry. in washington, cleveland, and many other cities were great parades and receptions when theirs came home. in hundreds of smaller towns and hamlets the demonstrations were repeated in miniature. chapter xxx. reconstruction and the negro by julius rosenwald, president sears, roebuck & co, and trustee of tuskegee institute--a plea for industrial opportunity for the negro--tribute to negro as soldier and civilian--duty of whites pointed out--business leader and philanthropist sounds keynote. although american sacrifices in the european war have been great, we find compensation for them in many directions. not the least of these is the vastly increased number of opportunities the reconstruction period will offer to many of our citizens. today the united states is the leading nation of the world in virtually every line of activity. we have been thrust into a new world leadership by the war. it behooves us to make the most of our new opportunities. to equip ourselves creditably we must utilize the best there is in the manhood and womanhood of our nation, drawing upon the intellect and ability of every person who has either to give. approximately ten percent of our present population is colored. every man, woman and child of this ten percent should be given the opportunity to utilize whatever ability he has in the struggle for the maintenance of world leadership which we now face. just insofar as we refuse to give this part of our population an opportunity to lend its strength to helping us set a pace for the rest of the world, as best it can, so do we weaken the total strength of our nation. in other words, we can either give our colored population the right and the opportunity to do the best work of which it is capable and increase our efficiency, or we can deny them their rights and opportunities, as we have done in many instances, and decrease our efficiency proportionately. of course, the question naturally arises as to how efficient the colored man and the colored woman are when given the opportunity to demonstrate their ability. no better answer can be found than that given by the splendid work of the majority of our colored people during the war. on the firing line, in the camps behind the line, and in civil life our colored population has done well indeed. four hundred thousand negroes offered their lives for their country. many more made noble sacrifices in civilian life. it was my privilege not only to observe the work done in civil life by colored persons in this country during the war, but to visit colored troops in france during hostilities. there is no question that the negro has given a splendid account of himself both as an exceptionally fearless fighting man and as a member of non-combatant troops. i made diligent effort to ascertain the manner in which the negro troops conducted themselves behind the lines. it is much easier for a man to become lax in his conduct there than in actual fighting. without exception every officer i questioned stated he could not ask for more obedient, willing, harder working or more patriotic troops than the negro regiments had proven themselves to be. every account i have read regarding the engagement of colored men in fighting units and every case in which i had the opportunity to inquire personally regarding the bravery of colored troops has led me to believe our colored men were as good soldiers as could be found in either our own army or the armies of our allies, regardless of color. one needs only to scan the records of the war department and the official reports of general pershing to find positive proof of the valor, endurance and patriotism of the colored troops who battled for liberty and democracy for all the world. the entire nation notes with pride the splendid service of the th to the nd infantry units, inclusive. when historians tell the story of the sanguinary conflicts at chateau thierry, in the forest of argonne, in the champagne sector, belleau wood and at metz, the record will give reason to believe that the victories achieved on those memorable fields might have shown a different result had it not been for the remarkable staying and fighting abilities of the colored troops. french, english and american commanding officers unite in singing the praises of these gallant warriors and agree that in the entire allied army no element contributed more signally than did they to the final downfall of the german military machine in proportion to their numbers. not only did the combatant units of the colored troops win laurels across the sea, but the st stevedore regiment was cited for exceptionally efficient work, having broken all records by unloading and coaling the giant steamer "leviathan" in fifty-six hours, competing successfully with the best stevedore detachments on the western front of france. everywhere, behind the lines as well as when facing shot, shell and gas, the colored soldiers have given a most creditable account of themselves and are entitled to the product of their patriotism and loyalty. those who remained at home during the war realize fully that the patriotic service rendered by colored persons in civil life, both in doing war work and in the purchase of liberty bonds and war savings stamps is to be commended. surely after the many demonstrations of patriotism both on the battlefield and at home the white people of this country will be willing to accord the colored people a square deal by at least giving them a fair opportunity to earn a livelihood in accordance with their ability. we have been asking the impossible of the colored man and the colored woman. we have demanded that they be honest, self-respecting citizens, and at the same time we have forced them into surroundings which almost make this result impossible. in many places they are deprived of a fair opportunity to obtain education or amusement in a decent environment. only the most menial positions are offered them. an educated girl particularly has practically no opportunity to earn a livelihood in the manner for which her education fits her. we whites of america must begin to realize that booker t. washington was right when he said it was impossible to hold a man in the gutter without staying there with him, because "if you get up, he will get up." we do not want to remain in the gutter. we, therefore, must help the negro to rise. if we are to obtain the best results from colored labor, unions should admit it to their membership. it is not the universal practice to admit colored persons to unions. the result, of course, is that even if a colored man has the opportunity to learn a trade, knowing he will not be permitted to enjoy the benefits of a union, he does not have the highest incentive for learning it. the north is especially neglectful in not providing openings for the colored men in trades. in the south it is not unusual to see a colored brick-mason working alongside a white brick-mason. but in the north the best a colored man can hope for on a building job now is a position as a hod-carrier or mortar-mixer. when the alien arrives in this country, he is given opportunity for virtually every kind of employment. but the colored man who is born in the united states, and, therefore, should share in its opportunities, is not given as fair a chance as the alien worker. naturally, we cannot hope that these conditions will be remedied in a day or a month nor can the colored man expect that the millennium will come to him through the action of white people alone. he can improve his chances of securing greater rights and opportunities in the united states, if he will make the most of the limited opportunities now afforded him. he who does the best he can with the tools he has at hand is bound in time to demand by his good work better tools for the performance of more important and profitable duties. the conviction is general that "he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much." the late colonel theodore roosevelt, who was a good friend of the black man as well as the white, struck the right note in his introduction to the biography of booker t. washington when he said: "if there is any lesson more essential than any other for this country to learn, it is the lesson that the enjoyment of rights should be made conditional upon the performance of duty." there exist certain rights which every colored man and woman may enjoy regardless of laws and prejudice. for instance, nothing can prevent a colored person from practicing industry, honesty, saving and decency, if he or she desires to practice them. the helpfulness of the colored race to the government need not be confined to fighting in the army nor to service in the manifold domestic callings. it is the duty of the colored citizens, as it is their right, to have a part in the substantial development of the nation and to assist in financing its operations for war or peace. the colored people, as a rule, are industrious and thrifty and have come to appreciate their importance as a factor in the economic and financial world, as indicated by their prosperous business enterprises, their large holdings in real estate, their management of banks, and their scrupulous handling of the millions of deposits entrusted to their care. this capital, saved through sacrifice, has been placed in a most generous manner at the disposal of the government throughout its period of need, and the list of corporations, fraternities and individuals who have aided in bringing success to american arms by the purchase of liberty bonds and war savings stamps and by contributions to other war relief agencies, is indeed a long one. opportunities of the colored people to make safe investment of their savings never were so great as they are today. the financial program the government has entered upon and is continuing to carry out to meet the expense of the war gives a chance to save in sums as small as twenty-five cents and makes an investment upon which return of both principal and interest is absolutely guaranteed. too often colored people have entrusted their savings to wholly irresponsible persons, lost them through the dishonesty of these persons, and in discouragement abandoned all attempts at saving. today, however, there is no excuse for any man not saving a certain amount of his earnings no matter how small it may be. it is a poor person, indeed, who cannot invest twenty-five cents at stated intervals in a thrift stamp. many are able also to buy small liberty bonds. it is a duty and a privilege for colored persons to help the government finance the war, which was for both whites and blacks. it is the particular duty of white persons, in cooperation with the most influential members of their own race, to explain these government financial plans to the colored men and women that they may make safe investments, acquire a competence, and thus become better citizens. it is my belief that the negro soldier returning from france will be a better citizen than when he left. he will be benefited mentally and physically by his military training and experience. he will have a broader vision. he will appreciate american citizenship. he will know, i believe, that freedom, for which he risked his life and all, is not license. he will find his brothers at home who did not go overseas better for their war sacrifices. both the soldier and the civilian have proved their devoted loyalty. justice demands that they now be rewarded with an equal chance with the white man to climb as high in the industrial and professional world as their individual capacity warrants. [illustration: homecoming heroes of th illinois ( th infantry). famous negro fighters marching in michigan boulevard. chicago] chapter xxxi. the other fellow's burden. an emancipation day appeal for justice. by w. allison sweeney. publisher's note: at our request, mr. sweeney consented to the reproduction of this poem, which with the accompanying letter from the late dr. booker t. washington, and the comment by the chicago daily news, appeared in that newspaper just prior to new years day, . we regard it as a powerful argument, affecting the negro's past condition and his interests. "president lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation sept. , . it went into effect at the beginning of january, . new year's day has thus become 'emancipation day' to the colored people of the united states and to all members of the white race who realize the great significance of lincoln's act of striking off the shackles of an enslaved race. services on that day combine honor to lincoln with appeals to the people of lincoln's nation to grant justice to the negro. a remarkable appeal of this sort is embodied in the poem here presented. "w. allison sweeney, author of "the other fellow's burden" is well known among his people as writer, editor and lecturer. his poem, which sketches with powerful strokes the lamentable history of the colored race in america and tells of their worthy achievements in the face of discouragements, deserves a thoughtful reading by all persons. of this poem and its author dr. booker t. washington writes as follows: "tuskegee institute, ala., dec. , .--to the editor of the chicago daily news: i have read with sincere interest and appreciation w. allison sweeney's poem, 'the other fellow's burden.' all through mr. sweeney's poem there is an invitation put in rather a delicate and persuasive way, but nevertheless it is there, for the white man to put himself in the negro's place and then to lay his hand upon his heart and ask how he would like for the other fellow to treat him. if every man who reads this poem will try sincerely to answer this question i believe that mr. sweeney's poem will go a long way toward bringing about better and more helpful conditions. "mr. sweeney is, of course, a member of the negro race and writes from what might be called the inside. he knows of negro aspirations, of negro strivings and of negro accomplishments. he has had an experience of many years as writer and lecturer for and to negroes and he knows probably as well as anyone wherein the negro feels that 'the shoe is made to pinch.' the poem, it seems to me, possesses intrinsic merit and i feel quite sure that mr. sweeney's appeal to the great american people, for fair play will not fall upon deaf ears. booker t. washington." the "white man's burden" has been told the world, but what of the other fellow's-- the "lion's whelp"? lest you forget, may he not lisp his? not in arrogance, not in resentment, but that truth may stand foursquare? this then, is the other fellow's burden. * * * * * brought into existence through the enforced connivance of a helpless motherhood misused through generations-- america's darkest sin!-- there courses through his veins in calm insistence--incriminating irony of the secrecy of blighting lust! the best and the vilest blood of the south's variegated strain; her statesmen and her loafers, her chivalry and her ruffians. thus bred, his impulses twisted at the starting point by brutality and sensuous savagery, should he be crucified? is it a cause for wonder if beneath his skin of many hues-- black, brown, yellow, white-- flows the sullen flood of resentment for prenatal wrong and forced humility? should it be a wonder that the muddy life current eddying through his arteries, crossed with the good and the bad, poisoned with conflicting emotions, proclaims at times, through no fault of his, that for a surety the sins of fathers become the heritage of sons even to the fourth generation? or that murdered chastity, that ravished motherhood-- so pitiful, so helpless, before the white hot, lust-fever of the "master"-- has borne its sure fruit? you mutter, "there should be no wonder." well, somehow, sir caucasian, perhaps southern gentleman, i, marked a "whelp," am moved to prize that muttered admission. * * * * * but listen, please: the wonder is--the greater one-- that from lexington to san juan hill disloyalty never smirched his garments, nor civic wrangle nor revolutionary ebullition marked him its follower. a "striker"? yes! but he struck the insurgent and raised the flag. an ingrate? treacherous? a violator? when--oh, spectacle that moved the world! for five bloody years of fratricidal strife-- red days when brothers warred-- he fed the babe, shielded the mother. guarded the doorsill of a million southern homes? penniless when freedom came? most true; but his accumulations of fifty years could finance a group of principalities. homeless? yes; but the cabin and the hut of lincoln's day--uncover at that name!-- are memories; the mansion of today, dowered with culture and refinement, sweetened by clean lives, is a fact. unlettered? yes; but the alumni of his schools, triumphant over the handicap of "previous condition," are to be found the world over in every assemblage inspired by the democracy of letters. in the casting up what appears? the progeny of lust and helplessness, he inherited a mottled soul-- "damned spots" that biased the looker on. clothed a freeman, turned loose in the land creditless, without experience, he often stumbled, the way being strange, sometimes fell. mocked, sneered at from every angle, spurned, hindered in every section, north, south, east, west, refused the most primitive rights, his slightest mistakes made mountains of, hunted, burned, hanged, the death rattle in his throat drowned by shouts and laughter and--think of it!-- the glee of little children. still he pressed on, wrought, sowed, reaped, builded. his smile ever ready, his perplexed soul lighted with the radiance of an unquenchable optimism, god's presence visualized, he has risen, step by step. to the majesty of the home builder, useful citizen, student, teacher, unwavering patriot. this of the other fellow. what of you, his judges and his patrons? if it has been your wont in your treatment of him not to reflect, or to stand by in idle unconcern while, panting on his belly, ambushed by booted ruffianism, he lapped in sublime resignation the bitter waters of unreasoning intolerance, has not the hour of his deliverance, of your escape from your "other selves" struck? if you have erred, will you refuse to know it? has not the time arrived to discriminate between those who lower those who raise him? you are shamed by your abortions, your moral half growths who flee god's eye and stain his green earth, but you are not judged by yours; should he be judged by his? in his special case--if so, why? is manhood a myth, womanhood a toy, integrity unbelievable, honor a chimera? should not his boys and girls, mastering the curriculum of the schools, pricked on to attainment by the lure of honorable achievement, be given bread and not a stone when seeking employment in the labor mart, at the factory gate or the office door? broadened by the spirit of the golden rule, will you not grant these children of hagar an even break? is the day not here, o judges, when the other fellow may be measured in fairness, just fairness? * * * * * it is written men may rise "on their dead selves to higher things;" but can it be that this clear note of cheer to sodden men and smitten races was meant for all save him? chants an immortal: "he prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small; for the dear god who loveth us, he made and loveth all." chapter xxxii. an interpolation. held by distinguished thinkers and writers, that the negro soldier should be given a chance for promotion as well as a chance to die--why white officers over negro soldiers? ever since the conclusion of the conflict of ' -' , in which negro troops numbered by thousands, took an active part upon behalf of the union, there has been a growing and insistent wonder in the minds of many, why, given a chance to die in the military service of the nation, they should not also at the same time be given a chance for promotion. subsequent affairs engaged in by the government requiring the intervention of its military arm, the spanish-american war, the philippines investiture incident thereto, the mexican disagreement, the whole crowned by the stupendous world war; its frightful devastation and din yet fresh to our sight, still filling our ears, as it will for years; in all of which they have contributed their share of loyalty and blood--of lives!--have but added to, strengthened the wonder mentioned. up to the beginning of the european muddle it was discussed if at all, not so much as a condition demanding uncensored condemnation, as one to continue to be patient with, trusting to time and an awakened sense of fair play upon the part of the nation at large to note the custom complained of, and banish the irritation by abolishing the cause. however, there has not been lacking those who have spoken out, who have raised their voices in protest against what they deemed an injustice to the loyal "fighting men" of their race, and so feeling, have not hesitated to make their plea to those above empowered to listen, regardless of the mood in which they did so. as long ago as the summer of , or to be exact, august th of that year, capt. r.p. roots of seattle, washington, addressed a letter to the hon. lindley m. garrison at washington, at the time secretary of war, directing his attention to the discrepancy of assignment complained of, accompanied with certain suggestions; having to do with a condition that the government must eventually face; that will not down, and must sooner or later be abrogated. captain roots' communication to the secretary of war, also one addressed to the hon. joseph tumulty, private secretary to president wilson, follows: "seattle, wash., august , . "hon. lindley m. garrison, secretary of war, dear sir: as an ex-officer of the spanish-american war, having served as captain of company "e" of the eighth illinois volunteers, i am taking the liberty to ask that, if you should recommend any increase in the army you give the negro a chance in the manner, and for reasons i shall further explain. you will notice by my service with the th illinois that i am a colored man, and as such am offering these suggestions, which, in the main, are just. if the increase is sufficient, we should have: two coast artillery companies. one regiment of field artillery (in these branches we are not represented at all). one regiment of cavalry. the above to be embodied in the regular army and to be officered as you think fit. but my main object is: three regiments of infantry officered from colonel down with colored men. i should not have these infantry regiments of the regular service for the reason that to appoint officers to the rank of colonel, majors, etc., would not be fair to the regular service officers, and would interfere with the promotion of the same, but i would have them rank as volunteers. give them the name of "immunes," "foreign service regiments," or any other name that you choose. my further reasons are as to officering these regiments, that there would be many misfits in such organizations and i would leave it so that you or the president could remove them without prejudice from the service, but to fill by other colored men the vacancies that might occur. i should officer these regiments with spanish war veterans, non-commissioned officers of the retired and regulars, but should appoint all d lieutenants from the schools of the country giving military training. the d lieutenants upon passing the regular army examination could be placed in the eligible list of the regular army, but not until at least two years' service with these regiments. you could set a time limit on these regiments if you so desire, say ten or twelve years duration; either mustered out or in the regular service. "now mr. secretary, i have striven to meet any objections which might be made by the army on account of social prejudice, etc. with this thought i should send these regiments to some foreign post to serve where there are dark races; to the philippines, mexico, or haiti. the object lesson would be marked politically, both at home and abroad. "the th and th regiments organized in and sent to philippines were unsatisfactory because of there being three social lines of separation in those organizations--the field and staff of these regiments were white, and the line officers were colored. in a social way the line officers were entirely ignored, and even officially were treated very little better than enlisted men or with no more courtesy, to such an extent as to cause comment by both soldiers and natives. "now as to the colored citizen of this country coming to its defense there is no question, as he has always done so but, to use a late phrase, he is beginning to want his "place in the sun"--he wants a chance to rise on his merits and to know when he shoulders a gun, that if he is deserving of it, he will have a chance to rise. he can fight and will, but will fight better with an incentive than without one. he is a, citizen regardless of all laws to the contrary; also he is the new negro, and not of the "uncle tom" class, the passing of whom so many white citizens regret. "he reads your literature, attends your theaters, goes to your schools, observes you in his capacity as a waiter or porter, and is absorbing the best you have in the ways of civilization, and in fact, in every walk of life, he is a factor; and when he is asked to defend his country should he not be given the same chance as the white man? "you will say that he should go to west point. well and good; but who is to send him? next, who will defend him while there against the "unwritten law" of the white students not to allow him to matriculate? "the first officers of such regiments could be easily picked, made from spanish war veterans and non-commissioned officers of the regular army, and second lieutenants from graduates from colleges giving military training. such an organization officered in this manner would be ideal, speaking from my experience as a veteran of the spanish war. "one thing you may have overlooked: we are twelve million in this country, with an estimate of a million men fit for service. "suppose at such a crisis as is now transpiring in europe, this country, with its millions of foreign citizens, should suddenly find itself face to face with a revolution. the presence and loyalty of these million negroes might mean much for the stability of this government. "i have spoken plainly because i am a citizen; this is my country. i was born here, and shall at all times be found with the flag; hence i ask, that in your recommendations, looking to the betterment and enlargement of the army, you give the black patriot such consideration, as i cannot but feel is due him, the thousands of young colored men who have passed through colleges and schools in an effort to prepare themselves for filling a place in the world. "i am opposed to segregation, but as it seems, under the present conditions of the races socially to be the only way to a square deal, i accept it. there are irish regiments, german regiments, etc., let us then have negro regiments. the coming generations will look after the rest. i am, very respectfully, r.p. roots th ave., north, late capt. th ill. vol. infantry." "seattle, wash., nov. , . "hon joseph tumulty, secretary to the president, washington, d.c. dear sir:--i am enclosing a copy of a letter sent to the secretary of war, which i would be very much pleased to have you call the president's attention to, and ask if he can approve of it. "i was not fully informed as to the president's policy in regard to haiti at the time of writing, and am not now, except through such information as received by the daily press. taking that, in the main as authentic, i wish to add that i think a brigade of colored troops, such as recommended in my letter to the secretary for foreign service, would be the proper thing for haiti. "it being a negro republic, the racial feeling as to the negro's treatment in this country, which i need not mention, has been enlarged upon and not understood by the negroes of other parts of the world, so that as it seems to me, to organize a constabulary officered by white americans, would be inviting murder; for agitators from other governments, if they so desired, would soon cause a rebellion, and then you would have it all to do over again. "colored troops from this country, i mean officers as well, would tend to cause a good feeling among the natives, not at first but later on as each became used to the other. the white man thinks he is superior to any negro, and would show it even though he tried not to, and the haitian would be going around with a chip on his shoulder looking for someone to knock it off. "you have three men in the regular army who could supervise the organization of these troops, and one who is already a colonel of the eighth illinois national guard, also several others if you wished to consider them. "hoping that you will see the advisability of such an organization for diplomatic reasons and for justice to the american negro--who has been loyal--and served from bunker hill until now, i am, very respectfully, r.p. roots, th st. n. seattle, wash., late capt. eighth illinois volunteer infantry during spanish war." as touching upon the above, editor e.s. abbott of the chicago defender, made the following comment: "there may be reasons deemed good and sufficient upon the part of president wilson and secretary garrison for not having replied to the very courteous and finely conceived letters of appeal and suggestion, having to do with a new deal--with justice and fair play in the future towards the negro soldiery of our country, written them some weeks ago by capt. r.p. roots of seattle. "it is not always meet, especially in times like these, of war and stress, of worries and apprehension, reaching across the world, for our rulers and servants facing great responsibilities and perplexing situations, to respond to every query and satisfy all curiosities. much reticence must be permitted them. much accepted, as a matter of course, without pursuing curiosity to the limit. "there may be ideas conveyed by captain roots to the president, through his communications to secretaries garrison and tumulty that some people may not agree with, but there can be no disagreement over the proposition that the lot of colored soldiers in the armies of the united states--in the past, and at the present, is much different than that accorded to white soldiers; very little to really be proud of; very, very much to be ashamed of--much that is humiliating and depressing. "because the present administration may be powerless in the matter, afraid to touch it, fearing a live wire or something of that kind, should our duty in the premises, toward our own, be influenced thereby? "i wonder--is the time not now--right now, to commence an attack upon this intrenched scandal--this dirty, humiliating americanism? "no other nation on earth, christian or pagan, treats its defenders, its soldiery, so meanly, so shabbily, as does this, her black defenders; but whether the nation is more to blame, than we, who so long have submitted without a murmur, is a question. 'the trouble' shouted cassius to brutus, 'is not in our stars, that we are underlings, but in ourselves.' "shall we, responding to the initiative furnished by captain roots, commence an organized assault upon this national vice against the soldiers of our race? is this the time, readers of the defender? is this the time, brothers and editors of the contemporary press? r.s. abbott." following in the footsteps of captain roots; apparently obsessed by the same vision and spirit, mr. willis o. tyler, eminent los angeles race representative, attorney and harvard graduate, also makes a plea for justice for negro troops in the regular army, also for negro officers, and proposes reforms and legislation for utilizing the present force of negro officers, and creating enlarged opportunities for others. says mr. tyler: "officers in the regular army for the most part, are graduates of west point. they are commissioned second lieutenants at graduation. no negro has graduated from west point in the past twenty-nine years, and none has entered there in years. col. charles young graduated in , twenty-nine years ago,--he entered in . henry w. holloway entered in , but attended only that year. in all, only twelve negroes have ever attended west point and only three have graduated. of the three graduates, the first, henry o. flipper ( ) was afterwards discharged. "the second, john h. alexander ( ) died in . the third and last graduate, charles young ( ) has but recently been returned to active duty. we understand he has attained the rank of colonel. the negroes of the united states, to the number of twelve millions, have only one west point graduate in the regular army. there are however four regiments of colored troops, two of infantry, and two of cavalry, and these have been maintained for years, (since ), and more than two hundred officers find places in the four colored regiments. these two hundred officers, with about three exceptions are white officers. in all, only twelve negroes have held commissions in the regular army. of this number seven were chaplains and two were paymasters. "in there were two first lieutenants; and (then) major charles young in the regular army. hence only two officers of the line and only one of the staff (other than chaplains), out of more than two hundred who found places with the four colored regiments. "we need not stop for the reasons why negroes have not been attending west point, nor even admitted there for the past years. certain it is they have not been attending the nation's great military school, and certain it is that in law, good conscience and right, one cadet at west point in every twelve should be a negro. "the future lies before us. the four regiments of colored troops have vindicated their right to be maintained as such by having made for the army some of its finest traditions. why not have the four colored regiments officered by colored men from the colonel down to the second lieutenants? "the united states is just making an end to a glorious participation in the great world's war. in this war the negro soldiers played well their part. they laughed in the face of death on the firing line; they have been awarded the 'ribbon' and the croix de guerre--with palms. who were their officers? "from the officers training camp at fort des moines, iowa, colored men were commissioned. since then more have been commissioned, not counting those in medical reserve corps, nor the chaplains. colored captains and lieutenants led colored soldiers "over the top" and commanded them on march and in trench. many officers were given but three months in the officer's training camp; many of them had served as non-commissioned officers in one of the four colored regiments. but not one word of criticism or complaint of them has reached us. their adaptability to their new duties is beyond cavil. their efficiency, bravery--leadership, are all unquestioned and permanently established. "the future lies before us. what will our country do? surely it will not retire all of these fine young colored officers, who responded so nobly to the call of their country, to private life and continue the discrimination which in the past deprived them of admission to west point and of commissions in the regular army. i do not believe it. i believe that the sense of justice and fair play is deeply rooted in the american people. i believe that our four colored regiments in the regular army will in the future be officered by colored men. that the doors of west point will be opened in accordance with justice and fair play to a proper number and proportion of colored cadets. but this is not all nor is it enough. "we believe that at present the nation owes the colored people certain legislation and that the nation being solvent and loud in its protestations of kindness toward the colored people for their loyal and patriotic participation in the war both at home and on the battlefield, should now pay its debt toward the colored people and reward them to the extent that the best of the nearly one thousand officers now serving in the national army be transferred to the regular army, and assigned to duty in the four colored regiments, and that these be from colonel down to second lieutenants. we also believe that in the future west point and annapolis should 'lend a little colour' to their graduation exercises in the presence of colored graduates. "no doubt legislation will be needed to this end. at present commissions are granted first to the graduates of west point, and even a fair and more liberal policy in this regard in the future will not meet present needs. what is needed now is legislation providing for the transfer (or at least the opportunity to enter) into the regular army of a sufficient number of our colored officers now with commissions to officer in toto the four colored regiments we now have. "commissions are also granted at present to a limited number of enlisted men who are recommended for these examinations, and who succeed in passing. the candidates must be under years of age and unmarried. they must have had a certain amount of secondary school, or college education which few privates or non com's (colored) have had. this is the case because few young colored men with the necessary growth 'single blessedness,' and college training, feel, or have heretofore felt that the door of 'equal opportunity' announced by mr. roosevelt stands open to them in the regular army. to trust the officering of four colored regiments to this second mode of selecting and commissioning officers, would prove fatal to our hopes and fail of accomplishment. "the third method of selecting officers at present is by examinations of civilians, certain college presidents and other civilians being permitted to recommend certain civilians, (students and others) for examination for second lieutenants. "in this regard negroes have met the same difficulties that they have encountered in the past years in their efforts to gain admission to west point. at best only a small percent of each year's graduating class from west point can get commissions in this manner. those selected have been white men, what we are after now is a present day, practical way of utilizing the best material we now have, holding commissions and making secure the opportunity for other colored men to enter the army as second lieutenants and by dint of industry, close application, obedience, brains and time gain their promotion step by step, just as white men have been doing and can do now. this is the american--democratic, fair play, reward and justice we seek for the twelve million negro citizens of our great republic. congress could if it would, provide for the present by an appropriate measure giving the right and opportunity to our returning officers to stand examination for commissions in the regular army; military experience and knowledge, and general and special educational qualifications to determine the rank or grade received. "in this way our four colored regiments could be officered by colored men. otherwise, the fine talents and desire for service to the country held by the one thousand intelligent and courageous young negroes who are officers, will be lost and rejected by the country, and the million negroes in the united states will continue, notwithstanding their patriotism and devotion, to be denied of their just representation in commissions in the regular army. "we believe that once this is done the sense of fairness and justice that, after all is said and done is so firmly imbedded in the american people, will see to it that our proper and proportionate number of young colored men are admitted to west point and annapolis annually and that the other avenues for gaining admission in the army and navy will not be blocked, closed and denied negroes by the unreasonable race prejudice which has heretofore done so. "our country is either a country of 'equal opportunity' or it is not. it is either a democracy or it is not. "certainly the negroes have failed to realize this 'equal opportunity' in the matter of training at west point and annapolis, and is gaining commissions in the regular army. "the great war in europe is closed or soon will be. we have again shown our country that 'our hearts are on the right side.' what will our country do for us? we ask only that the door of 'equal opportunity' be unbarred--that we may enter." said colonel charles young, u.s.a., touching upon the same subject: i affirm that any system of schools saying to students of any race, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther," is flinging a lie in the face of god. * * * * * the ability and willingness of the government and its people to fit the negro into the body politic with all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a full fledged american will be the test before the world which knows and sees the relations and acts of the individuals and states of the united states. human equity and a respect for law and truth must be sacred with us; the spirit of america is the square deal and fair play. * * * * * this granted as an american principle, the negro people of the united states demand to know whether the sweeping generalization of lack of leadership and the capacity of the negro officer was derived by a consultation of the war department, the press, both white and negro and the reports of impartial officers. the black officer feels that there was a prejudgment against him at the outset and that nearly every move that has been made was for the purpose of bolstering up this prejudgment and discrediting him in the eyes of the world and the men whom he was to lead and will lead in the future. * * * * * remembering the multitude of the croix de guerre and citations on the breasts of the returning negro officers and the distinguished service crosses to boot, the negro officer is smiling, not discouraged with himself and is still carrying on for the flag, the country where he was born and where the bones of his fathers are buried, and for the uplift and leadership of his people for a more glorious americanism. history tells us that on the continent of america that toussaint l'ouverture, who with a leadership that no man ever surpassed and who routed the best troops of napoleon bonaparte, was a pure negro and a slave until after fifty years old. major martin r. delaney was a pure negro, and many others that can be mentioned were pure negroes. ex-parte judgments will not go in the future history, for the black man will not only act his history but he will write it, and be it said that he knows history methods, and that with him they are not those which come from the heat of prejudice and a direct and concerted attempt to discredit any group of american people. unpatriotic and unwarranted statements do no good and lull the country to sleep, and throw it off its guard while the effects of these statements are causing just rankling in the breasts of the negro people who have had a new vision. the negro officers know the psychology of their own race and also of the white race; but it is to be feared the latter will never know the mind and motive forces of the negro, if he imagines that his group has not had a new birth in america, whose language it speaks, whose thought it thinks for its own betterment, and whose ideals, both social, political, and economic it emulates. chapter xxxiii. the new negro and the new america "the old order changeth, yielding place to new." through the arbitrament of war, behold a new and better america! a new and girded negro! "the watches of the night have passed! "the watches of the day begin!" out of war's crucible new nations emerge. new ideas seize mankind and if the conflict has been a just one, waged for exalted ideals and imperishable principles and not alone for mere national security and integrity, a new character, a broader national vision is formed. such was the result of the early wars for democracy. the seeds of universal freedom once sown, finally ripened not alone to the unshackling of a race, but to the fecundity and birth of a spirit that moved all nations and peoples to seek an enlarged liberty. the finger of disintegration and change is never still; is always on the move; always the old order is passing; always the new, although unseen of man, is coming on. and so it is, that nations are still in the throes of reconstruction after the great war. that it was the greatest and most terrible of all wars, increases the difficulties incident to the establishment of the new order, precedent to a restoration of tranquil conditions. so radical were some of the results of the conflict, such as the overthrow of despotism in russia, and a swinging completely to the other extreme of the pendulum; similar happenings in germany and austria transpiring, that subject peoples in general, finding themselves in possession of a liberty which they did not expect and were not prepared for, are in a sense bewildered; put to it, as to just what steps to take; the wisest course to pursue. at home we have a nearer view and can begin to see emerging a new america. the men who fought abroad will be the dominant factor in national affairs for many years. these men have returned, and will return with a broadened vision and with new and enlarged ideas regarding themselves and, quite to be expected, of progress and human rights. with the leaven of thought which has been working at home, added to the new and illuminating; more liberal viewpoint regarding the negro attained by the american whites who served with him in france, will come; is already born, a new national judgment and charity of opinion and treatment, that will not abate; will grow and flourish through the coming years, a belated sense of justice and restitution due the negro; a most wholesome sign of shame and repentance upon the part of the nation. the old order based on slavery and environment; the handicap of "previous condition" has passed. will never return! that, or the "fatherhood of god and brotherhood of man" is, and always was, an iridescent dream; a barren ideality! the new america owes much of its life to the negro; guaranteed through centuries of a devotion, than which, there has been nothing like it; you seek in vain for a counterpart; a patriotism and suffering and shed blood; the splendor and unselfishness of which will germinate and flower through the ages; as long as history shall be read; to the last moment of recorded time. in days to come, now on the way, men will say, one to another: "how could it have been that those faithful blacks; those loyal citizens; whose toil enriched; whose blood guaranteed the perpetuity of our institutions; were discriminated against--wronged?" in a country based and governed on the principle that all men are free and equal, discrimination or special privilege will eat at the heart of national life. capital must not have special advantages over labor; neither labor over capital. jew and gentile, protestant and catholic, negro and white men, must be equal; not alone in the spirit of the law but in the application of it. not alone in the spirit of industrialism, commerce and ordinary affairs of life, but in their interpretation and application as well. social discriminations and distinctions may prevail with no great danger to the body politic, so long as people do not take them too seriously--do not mistake the shadow for the substance, and regard them the paramount things of life. obviously the negro no less than the caucasian, has a right, and no government may challenge it, to say who his associates shall be, who he shall invite into his house, but such rights are misconstrued and exceeded when carried to the point of proscribing, oppressing or hampering the development of other men, regardless of the nationality of their competitors. the logical growth of achievement for the negro is first within the lines of his own race, but, all things being equal; genius being the handmaiden of no particular race or clime, he is not to be hindered by the law of the land, the prejudice of sections or individuals, from seeking to climb to any height. the bugbear and slander, raised and kept alive by that section of the land south of the imaginary line, to wit: that the negro was ambitious for "racial equality," only is entitled to reference in these pages for the purpose of according it the contempt due it. that the whites of the country have not a complete monopoly of those unpleasing creatures known as "tuft hunters" and "social climbers," is no doubt true, but that the negro, as represented by intelligence and race pride, ever worries over it; cares a rap for it, is not true. humanity's great benefit coming from the war, which cannot be changed or abridged, will consist of a newer, broader sense of manhood; a demand for the inherent opportunities and rights belonging to it; for all men of all colors, of all climes; and beyond that; of more significance; as marking the dawn indeed of a new and better day, will be a larger, juster sense; springing up in the nation's heart; watered by her tears, of repentance of past wrongs inflicted on the negro. the negro will become the architect of his own growth and development. the south will not be permitted; through the force of national opinion, to continue to oppress him. the talk of the revival of kuklux societies to intimidate the negro; "to keep him in his place," is the graveyard yawp of a dying monster. are the thousands of negroes who faced bullets in the most disastrous war of history, and several hundred thousand more who were ready and willing to undergo the same perils, likely to be frightened by such a threat, such an antiquated, silly, short-sighted piece of injustice and terrorism? men's necessities force a resort to common sense. racial prejudice and ignorant, contemptible intolerance, must disappear under, and before the presence of the renewal of business activity in the south, and the necessity for negro labor. each soldier returning from europe is a more enlightened man than when he went away. he has had the broadening effect of travel, the chance to mingle with other races and acquire the views born of a greater degree of equality and more generous treatment. these men desire to remain in their southern homes. climatically they are suited and the country offers them employment to which they are accustomed; but more than all, it is home, and they are bound to it by ties of association and affection. with a mutual desire of whites and blacks to achieve an end, common sense will find a basis of agreement. the negro will get better pay and better treatment. his status accordingly will be improved. his employer will get better service, he also will be broadened and improved by a new spirit of tolerance and charity. cooperation among the white and black races received a decided impetus during the war. a movement so strongly started is sure to gather force until it attains the objects more desirious of accomplishment. some of these objects undoubtedly are far in the distance, but will be achieved in time. when they are, the negro will be far advanced on the road of racial development. the day has dawned and the start has been made. before the noontime, america will be prouder of her negro citizens and will be a happier, a more inspired and inspiring nation; a better home for all her people. one of the results of the war will be an improvement in the government and condition of negroes in africa. exploitation of the race for european aggrandisement is sure to be lessened. no such misgoverned colonies as those of germany will be tolerated under the new rule and the new spirit actuating the victorious allies. evils in other sections of that continent will disappear or receive positive amelioration. the most hopeful sign in america is the tendency in some sections where trouble has been prevalent in the past, to meet and discuss grievances. in some sections of the south, men of prominence are exhibiting a willingness to meet and talk over matters with representatives of the race. such a spirit of tolerance will grow and eventually lead to a better understanding; perhaps a general reconciling of differences. many concessions will be required before complete justice prevails and the negro comes into his own; before the soil can be prepared for the complete flowering of his spirit. primarily, before attaining to the full growth and usefulness of the citizen under the rights guaranteed to him by the constitution, the negro, especially in the south, will require better educational facilities. if he is to become a better citizen, he must have the education and training necessary to know the full duties of citizenship. he pays his share of the school taxes and it is manifestly unjust to deny him the accruing benefits. he is ambitious too, and should be encouraged to own land, and to that end should have the assistance without prejudice or discrimination, of national and state farm loan bureaus. unjust suffrage restrictions must and shall be removed, giving to the negro the full rights of other citizens in this respect. with better educational facilities and the ownership of real estate, he will vote more intelligently, and there will be no danger that his vote will be against the interests of the country at large or the section in which he resides. the withering taint of "jim crow"-ism, must be obliterated; wiped out--will be. railroads will be compelled to extend the same accommodations to white and colored passengers. the traveller; whatever his color, who pays the price for a ticket, must and shall in this land of equality and justice, be accorded the same accommodations. peonage, so-called, will end. it cannot endure under an awakened, enlightened public opinion. negroes, all other things equal, will be admitted to labor unions, or labor unions will lose the potentiality and force they should wield in labor and industrial affairs. the negro's contribution to the recent war and to previous conflicts, has earned him beyond question or challenge, a right to just consideration in the military and naval establishment of the nation. america, grudging as she has been in the past to enlarge his rights, or even to guarantee those which she has granted, has grown too great indeed. her discipline has been too real to deny him this fair consideration. there will be more negro units in the regular army and national guard organizations; untrammelled facilities for training, in government, state and college institutions. selective draft figures having revealed the negro as a better; if not the best, physical risk, will make it easier for him to secure life insurance, which; after all is a plain business proposition. insurance companies are after business and are not concerned with racial distinctions where the risk is good. the draft has furnished figures regarding the negro's health and longevity which hitherto were not available to insurance actuaries. now that they have them, no reason exists for denying insurance facilities to the race. with a growing, every minute, of a better understanding between the races; with the negro learning thrift through liberty bonds, savings stamps and the lessons of the war; with an encouragement to own property and take out insurance; being vastly enlightened through his military service, and with improved industrial conditions about to appear, he is started on a better road, to end only when he shall have reached the full attainment belonging to the majesty of american citizenship. with this start, lynchings, the law's delays, the denial of full educational advantages; segregation, insanitary conditions, unjust treatment in reform and penal institutions, will vanish from before him; will be conditions that were, but are no more. there is a predominance of anglo-saxon heritage in the white blood of america. the anglo-saxon was the first to establish fair play and make it his shibboleth. should he deny it to the negro; his proudest and most vaunted principle would prove to be a doddering lie; a shimmering evanescence. he will not deny it! * * * * * note--up to this point the text faces only have been numbered. the full pages of half-tone photographs (over separate pictures) and the plates, tinted in many colors (not printed on back) bring the total number of pages to over four hundred. the peace treaty the treaty of peace was drawn by the allied and associated powers at versailles, and was there delivered to the german government's delegation on may , --the fourth anniversary of the lusitania sinking. it stipulates in the preamble that war will have ceased when all powers have signed and the treaty shall have come into force by ratification of the signatures. it names as party of the one part the united states, the british empire, france, italy, japan, described as the five allied and associated powers, and belgium, bolivia, brazil, china, cuba, equador, greece, guatemala, haiti, the hedjaz, honduras, liberia, nicaragua, panama, peru, portugal, roumania, serbia, siam, czecho-slovakia and uruguay; and on the other side germany. the treaty contains agreements in substance as follows: section . the league of nations--the league of nations may question germany at any time for a violation of the neutralized zone east of the rhine as a threat against the world's peace. it will work out the mandatory system to be applied to the former german colonies and act as a final court in the belgian-german frontier and in disputes as to the kiel canal, and decide certain economic and financial problems. membership--the members of the league will be the signatories of the covenant, and other states invited to accede. a state may withdraw upon giving two years' notice, if it has fulfilled all its international obligations. section . a permanent secretariat will be established at geneva. the league will meet at stated intervals. each state will have one vote and not more than three representatives. the council will consist of representatives of the five great allied powers, with representatives of four members selected by the assembly from time to time. it will meet at least once a year. voting will be by states. each state will have one vote and not more than one representative. the council will formulate plans for a reduction of armaments for consideration and adoption. these plans will be revised every ten years. preventing war--upon any war, or threat of war, the council will meet to consider what common action shall be taken. members are pledged to submit matters of dispute to arbitration or inquiry and not to resort to war until three months after the award. if a member fails to carry out the award, the council will propose the necessary measures. the council will establish a permanent court of international justice to determine international disputes or to give advisory opinions. if agreement cannot be secured, the members reserve the right to take such action as may be necessary for the maintenance of right and justice. members resorting to war in disregard of the covenant will immediately be debarred from all intercourse with other members. the council will in such cases consider what military or naval action can be taken by the league collectively. the covenant abrogates all obligations between members inconsistent with its terms, but nothing in it shall affect the validity of international engagements such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the monroe doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace. the mandatory system--nations not yet able to stand by themselves will be intrusted to advanced nations who are best fitted to guide them. in every case the mandatory will render an annual report, and the degree of its authority will be defined. international provisions--the members of the league will in general, through the international organization established by the labor convention to secure and maintain fair conditions of labor for men, women and children in their own countries, and undertake to secure just treatment of the native inhabitants of territories under their control; they will intrust the league with general supervision over the execution of agreements for the suppression of traffic in women and children, etc.; and the control of the trade in arms and ammunition with countries in which control is necessary; they will make provision for freedom of communications and transit and equitable treatment for commerce of all members of the league, with special reference to the necessities of regions devastated during the war; and they will endeavor to take steps for international prevention and control of disease. boundaries of germany--germany cedes to france alsace-lorraine , square miles to the southwest, and to belgium two small districts between luxemburg and holland, totaling square miles. she also cedes to poland the southeastern tip of silesia, beyond and including oppeln, most of posen and west prussia, , square miles, east prussia being isolated from the main body by a part of poland. she loses sovereignty over the northeastern tip of east prussia, forty square miles north of the eiver memel, and the internationalized areas about danzig, square miles, and the basin of the saar, square miles, between the western border of the rhenish palatinate of bavaria and the southeast corner of luxemburg; and schleswig, , square miles. section . belgium--germany consents to the abrogation of the treaties of by which belgium was established as a neutral state, and agrees to any convention with which the allied and associated powers may determine to replace them. luxemburg--germany renounces her various treaties and conventions with the grand duchy of luxemburg, and recognizes that it ceased to be a part of the german zolverein from january , , and renounces all right of exploitation of the railroads. left bank of the rhine--germany will not maintain any fortifications or armed forces less than fifty kilometers to the east of the rhine, hold any maneuvers, nor within that limit maintain any works to facilitate mobilization. in case of violation she shall be regarded as committing a hostile act against the powers who sign the present treaty and as intending to disturb the peace of the world. alsace and lorraine--the territories ceded to germany by the treaty of frankfort are restored to france with their frontiers as before , to date from the signing of the armistice, and to be free of all public debts. all public property and private property of german ex-sovereigns passes to france without payment or credit. france is substituted for germany as regards ownership of the railroads and rights over concessions of tramways. the rhine bridges pass to france, with the obligation for the upkeep. political condemnations during the war are null and void and the obligation to repay war fines is established as in other parts of allied territory. the saar--in compensation for the destruction of coal mines in northern france and as payment on account of reparation, germany cedes to france full ownership of the coal mines of the saar basin with the subsidiaries, accessories and facilities. after fifteen years a plebiscite will be held by communes to ascertain the desires of the population as to continuance of the existing regime under the league of nations, union with france or union with germany. the right to vote will belong to all inhabitants of over years resident therein at the time of the signature. section . german austria--germany recognizes the total independence of german austria in the boundaries traced. germany recognizes the entire independence of the czecho-slovak state. the five allied and associated powers will draw up regulations assuring east prussia full and equitable access to and use of the vistula. danzig--danzig and the district immediately about it is to be constituted into the free city of danzig under the guaranty of the league of nations. denmark--the frontier between germany and denmark will be fixed by the self-determination of the population. the fortifications, military establishments and harbors of the islands of helgoland and dune are to be destroyed under the supervision of the allies by german labor and at germany's expense. they may not be reconstructed, nor any similar fortifications built in the future. russia--germany agrees to respect as permanent and inalienable the independence of all territories which were part of the former russian empire, to accept abrogation of the brest-litovsk and other treaties entered into with the maximalist government of russia, to recognize the full force of all treaties entered into by the allied and associated powers with states which were a part of the former russian empire, and to recognize the frontiers as determined therein. the allied and associated powers formally reserve the right of russia to obtain restitution and reparation of the principles of the present treaty. section . german rights outside of europe--outside europe, germany renounces all rights, title and privileges as to her own or her allied territories, to all the allied and associated powers. german colonies--germany renounces in favor of the allied and associated powers her overseas possessions with all rights and titles therein. all movable and immovable property belonging to the german empire or to any german state shall pass to the government exercising authority therein. germany undertakes to pay reparation for damage suffered by french nationals in the kameruns or its frontier zone through the acts of german civil and military authorities and of individual germans from january , , to august , . china--germany renounces in favor of china all privileges and indemnities resulting from the boxer protocol of , and all buildings, wharves, barracks, forts, munitions or warships, wireless plants, and other property (except diplomatic) in the german concessions of tientsin and hankow and in other chinese territory except kiaochow, and agrees to return to china at her own expense all the astronomical instruments seized in . germany accepts the abrogation of the concessions of hankow and tientsin, china agreeing to open them to international use. siam--germany recognizes that all agreements between herself and siam, including the right of extra territory, ceased july , . all german public property except consular and diplomatic premises passes, without compensation, to siam. liberia--germany renounces all rights under the international arrangements of and regarding liberia. morocco--germany renounces all her rights, titles and privileges under the act of algeciras and the franco-german agreements of and and under all treaties and arrangements with the sheriffian empire. all movable and immovable german property may be sold at public auction, the proceeds to be paid to the sheriffian government and deducted from the reparation account. egypt--germany recognizes the british protectorate over egypt declared on december , , and transfers to great britain the powers given to the late sultan of turkey for securing the free navigation of the suez canal. turkey and bulgaria--germany accepts all arrangements which the allied and associated powers make with turkey and bulgaria with reference to any right, privileges or interests claimed in those countries by germany or her nationals and not dealt with elsewhere. shantung--germany cedes to japan all rights, titles and privileges acquired by her treaty with china of march , , and other agreements, as to shantung. all german state property in kiaochow is acquired by japan free of all charges. section . the demobilization of the german army must take place within two months. its strength may not exceed , , including , officers, with not over seven divisions of infantry, also three of cavalry, and to be devoted exclusively to maintenance of internal order and control of frontiers. the german general staff is abolished. the army administrative service, consisting of civilian personnel, not included in the number of effectives, is reduced to one-tenth the total in the budget. employes of the german states, such as customs officers, first guards and coast guards, may not exceed the number in . gendarmes and local police may be increased only in accordance with the growth of population. none of these may be assembled for military training. armaments--all establishments for the manufacturing, preparation or storage of arms and munitions of war, must be closed, and their personnel dismissed. the manufacture or importation of poisonous gases is forbidden as well as the importation of arms, munitions and war material. conscription--conscription is abolished in germany. the personnel must be maintained by voluntary enlistment for terms of twelve consecutive years, the number of discharges before the expiration of that term not in any year to exceed per cent of the total effectives. officers remaining in the service must agree to serve to the age of years and newly appointed officers must agree to serve actively for twenty-five years. no military schools except those absolutely indispensable for the units allowed shall exist in germany. all measures of mobilization are forbidden. all fortified and field works within fifty kilometers (thirty miles) east of the rhine will be dismantled. the construction of any new fortifications there is forbidden. control--interallied commissions of control will see to the execution of the provisions, for which a time limit is set, the maximum named being three months. germany must give them complete facilities, and pay for the labor and material necessary in demolition, destruction or surrender of war equipment. naval--the german navy must be demobilized within a period of two months. all german vessels of war in foreign ports, and the german high sea fleet interned at scapa flow will be surrendered, the final disposition of these ships to be decided upon by the allied and associated powers. germany must surrender forty-five modern destroyers, fifty modern torpedo boats, and all submarines, with their salvage vessels; all war vessels under construction, including submarines, must be broken up. germany is required to sweep up the mines in the north sea and the baltic. german fortifications in the baltic must be demolished. during a period of three months after the peace, german high power wireless stations at nauen, hanover and berlin, will not be permitted to send any messages except for commercial purposes. air--the armed forces of germany must not include any military or naval air forces except one hundred unarmed seaplanes. no aviation grounds or dirigible sheds are to be allowed within kilometers of the rhine or the eastern or southern frontiers. the manufacture of aircraft and parts of aircraft is forbidden. all military and aeronautical material must be surrendered. the repatriation of german prisoners and interned civilians is to be carried out without delay and at germany's expense. both parties will respect and maintain the graves of soldiers and sailors buried on their territories. responsibility and reparation--the allied and associated powers will publicly arraign william ii of hohenzollern, formerly german emperor, before a special tribunal composed of one judge from each of the five great powers, with full right of defense. persons accused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war are to be tried and punished by military tribunals under military law. section . reparation--germany accepts responsibility for all loss and damages to which civilians of the allies have been subjected by the war, and agrees to compensate them. germany binds herself to repay all sums borrowed by belgium from the allies. germany irrevocably recognizes the authority of a reparation commission named by the allies to enforce and supervise these payments. she further agrees to restore to the allies cash and certain articles which can be identified. as an immediate step toward restoration, germany shall pay within two years $ , , , in either gold, goods, ships or other specific forms of payment. the measures which the allied and associated powers shall have the right to take, in case of voluntary default by germany, and which germany agrees not to regard as acts of war, may include economic and financial prohibitions and reprisals and in general such other measures as the respective governments may determine to be necessary in the circumstances. the commission may require germany to give from time to time, by way of guaranty, issues of bonds or other obligations to cover such claims as are not otherwise satisfied. the german government recognizes the right of the allies to the replacement, ton for ton and class for class, of all merchant ships and fishing boats lost or damaged owing to the war, and agrees to cede to the allies all german merchant ships of sixteen hundred tons gross and upward. the german government further agrees to build merchant ships for the account of the allies to the amount of not exceeding , tons' gross annually during the next five years. section . devastated areas--germany undertakes to devote her economic resources directly to the physical restoration of the invaded areas. coal--germany is to deliver annually for ten years to france coal equivalent to the difference between annual pre-war output of nord and pas de calais mines and annual production during above ten year period. germany further gives options over ten years for delivery of , , tons coal per year to france, in addition to the above, of , , tons to belgium, and of an amount rising from , , tons in to to , , tons in to to italy, at prices to be fixed as prescribed. coke may be taken in place of coal in ratio of three tons to four. dyestuffs and drugs--germany accords option to the commission on dyestuffs and chemical drugs, including quinine, up to per cent of total stock to germany at the time the treaty comes into force, and similar option during each six months to end of up to per cent of previous six months' output. cables--germany renounces all title to specific cables, value of such as were privately owned being credited to her against reparation indebtedness. restitution--as reparation for the destruction of the library of louvain, germany is to hand over manuscripts, early printed books, prints, etc., to the equivalent of those destroyed, and all works of art taken from belgium and france. section . finances--germany is required to pay the total cost of the armies of occupation from the date of the armistice as long as they are maintained in german territory. germany is to deliver all sums deposited in germany by turkey and austria-hungary in connection with the financial support extended by her to them during the war and to transfer to the allies all claims against austria-hungary, bulgaria or turkey in connection with agreements made during the war. germany guarantees to repay to brazil the fund arising from the sale of sao paulo coffee which she refused to allow brazil to withdraw from germany. contracts--pre-war contracts between allied and associated nations, excepting the united states, japan and brazil, and german nationals, are canceled except for debts for accounts already performed. opium--the contracting powers agree, whether or not they have signed and ratified the opium convention of january , , or signed the special protocol opened at the hague in accordance with resolutions adopted by the third opium conference in , to bring the said convention into force by enacting within twelve months of the time of peace the necessary legislation. missions--the allied and associated powers agree that the properties of religious missions in territories belonging or ceded to them shall continue in their work under the control of the powers, germany renouncing all claims in their behalf. section . air navigation--aircraft of the allied and associated powers shall have full liberty of passage and landing over and in german territory; equal treatment with german planes as to use of german airdromes, and with most favored nation planes as to internal commercial traffic in germany. section .--freedom of transit--germany must grant freedom of transit through her territories by rail or water to persons, goods, ships, carriages and mail from or to any of the allied or associated powers, without customs or transit duties, undue delays, restrictions and discriminations based on nationality, means of transport or place of entry or departure. goods in transit shall be assured all possible speed of journey, especially perishable goods. (the remainder of section concerns the use of european waterways and railroads.) section . international labor organizations--members of the league of nations agree to establish a permanent organization to promote international adjustment of labor conditions, to consist of an annual international labor conference and an international labor office. the former is composed of four representatives of each state, two from the government and one each from the employers and the employed; each of them may vote individually. it will be a deliberative legislative body, its measures taking the form of draft conventions or recommendations for legislation, which if passed by two-thirds vote must be submitted to the lawmaking authority in every state participating. each government may either enact the terms into law; approve the principles, but modify them to local needs; leave the actual legislation in case of a federal state to local legislatures; or reject the convention altogether without further obligation. the international labor office is established at the seat of the league of nations as part of its organization. it is to collect and distribute information on labor through the world and prepare agents for the conference. it will publish a periodical in french and english and possibly other languages. each state agrees to make to it, for presentation to the conference, an annual report of measures taken to execute accepted conventions. the governing body is its executive. it consists of twenty-four members, twelve representing the government, six the employers and six the employes, to serve for three years. on complaint that any government has failed to carry out a convention to which it is a party the governing body may make inquiries directly to that government and in case the reply is unsatisfactory may publish the complaint with comment. a complaint by one government against another may be referred by the governing body to a commission of inquiry nominated by the secretary-general of the league. if the commission report fails to bring satisfactory action, the matter may be taken to a permanent court of international justice for final decision. the chief reliance for securing enforcement of the law will be publicity with a possibility of economic action in the background. the first meeting of the conference will take place in october, , at washington, to discuss the eight-hour day or forty-eight hour week; prevention of unemployment; extension and application of the international conventions adopted at bern in prohibiting night work for women and the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of matches; and employment of women and children at night or in unhealthful work, of women before and after childbirth, including maternity benefit, and of children as regards minimum age. nine principles of labor conditions are recognized on the ground that the well-being, physical and moral, of the industrial wage earners is of supreme international importance. with exceptions necessitated by differences of climate, habits and economic developments, they include: the guiding principle that labor should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce; right of association of employers and employes is granted; and a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of life; the eight-hour day or forty-eight hour week; a weekly rest of at least twenty-four hours, which should include sunday wherever practicable; abolition of child labor and assurance of the continuation of the education and proper physical development of children; equal pay for equal work as between men and women; equitable treatment of all workers lawfully resident therein, including foreigners, and a system of inspection in which women shall take part. section . guaranties--as a guaranty for the execution of the treaty, german territory west of the rhine, together with bridgeheads, will be occupied by allied and associated troops for fifteen years. if before the expiration of the fifteen years germany complies with all the treaty undertakings, the occupying forces will be withdrawn. eastern europe--all german troops at present in territories to the east of the new frontier shall return as soon as the allied and associated governments deem wise. section . germany agrees to recognize the full validity of the treaties of peace and additional conventions to be concluded by the allied and associated powers with the powers allied with germany; to agree to the decisions to be taken as to the territories of austria-hungary, bulgaria and turkey, and to recognize the new states in the frontiers to be fixed for them. germany agrees not to put forward any pecuniary claim against any allied or associated power signing the present treaty, based on events previous to the coming into force of the treaty. germany accepts all decrees as to german ships and goods made by any allied or associated prize court. the allies reserve the right to examine all decisions of german prize courts. the treaty is to become effective in all respects for each power on the date of deposition of its ratification. occasional papers, no. . the american negro academy, rev. alexander crummell, founder. how the black st. domingo legion saved the patriot army in the siege of savannah, , by t. g. steward, u. s. a. price, fifteen cents. washington, d. c. published by the academy. . how the black st. domingo legion saved the patriot army in the siege of savannah, . the siege and attempted reduction of savannah by the combined french and american forces is one of the events of our revolutionary war, upon which our historians care little to dwell. because it reflects but little glory upon the american arms, and resulted so disastrously to the american cause, its important historic character and connections have been allowed to fade from general sight; and it stands in the ordinary school text-books, much as an affair of shame. the following, quoted from barnes' history, is a fair sample of the way in which it is treated: "french-american attack on savannah.--in september, d'estaing joined lincoln in besieging that city. after a severe bombardment, an unsuccessful assault was made, in which a thousand lives were lost. count pulaski was mortally wounded. the simple-hearted sergeant jasper died grasping the banner[ ] presented to his regiment at fort moultrie. d'estaing refused to give further aid; thus again deserting the americans when help was most needed." from this brief sketch the reader is at liberty to infer that the attack was unwise if not fool-hardy; that the battle was unimportant; and that the conduct of count d'estaing immediately after the battle was unkind if not unjust, to the americans. while the paragraph does not pretend to tell the whole truth, what it does tell ought to be the truth; and this ought to be told in such a way as to give correct impressions. the attack upon savannah was well-planned and thoroughly well considered; and it failed only because the works were so ably defended, chiefly by british regulars, under brave and skillful officers. in a remote way, which it is the purpose of this paper to trace, that sanguinary struggle had a wider bearing upon the progress of liberty in the western world than any other one battle fought during the revolution. but first let us listen to the story of the battle itself. colonel campbell with a force of three thousand men, captured savannah in december ; and in the january following, general prevost arrived, and by march had established a sort of civil government in georgia, savannah being the capital. in april, the american general, lincoln, feeble in more senses than one, perhaps, began a movement against savannah by way of augusta; but prevost, aware of his purpose, crossed into south carolina and attempted an attack upon charleston. finding the city too well defended, he contented himself with ravaging the plantations over a wide extent of adjacent country, and returned to savannah laden with rich spoils, among which were included three thousand slaves, of whose labor he made good use later. the patriots of the south now awaited in hope the coming of the french fleet; and on the first of september, count d'estaing appeared suddenly on the coast of georgia with thirty-three sail, surprised and captured four british war-ships, and, announced to the government of south carolina his readiness to assist in the recapture of savannah. he urged as a condition, however, that his ships should not be detained long off so dangerous a coast, as it was now the hurricane season, and there was neither harbor, road, nor offing for their protection. by means of small vessels sent from charleston he effected a landing in ten days, and four days thereafter, on the th, he summoned the garrison to surrender to the arms of france. although this demand was made in the name of france for the plain reason that the american army was not yet upon the spot, the loyalists did not fail to make it a pretext for the accusation that the french were desirous of making conquests in the war on their own account. in the meantime lincoln with the regular troops, was hurrying toward savannah, and had issued orders for the militia to rendezvous at the same place; and the militia full of hope of a speedy, if not of a bloodless conquest, were entering upon this campaign with more than ordinary enthusiasm. during the time that the fleet had been off the coast, and especially since the landing, the british had been very busy in putting the city in a high state of defence, and in making efforts to strengthen the garrison. lieutenant-colonel cruger, who had a small force at sunbury, the last place in georgia that had been captured by the british, and lieutenant-colonel maitland who was commanding a considerable force at beaufort, were ordered to report in haste with their commands at savannah. on the th, when the summons to surrender was received by prevost, maitland had not arrived, but was hourly expected. prevost asked for a delay of twenty-four hours to consider the proposal, which delay was granted; and on that very evening, maitland with his force arrived at dawfuskie. finding the river in the possession of the french, his course for a time seemed effectually cut off. by the merest chance he fell in with some negro fishermen who informed him of a passage known as wall's cut, through scull's creek, navigable for small boats. a favoring tide and a dense fog enabled him to conduct his command unperceived by the french, through this route, and thus arrive in savannah on the afternoon of the th, before the expiration of the twenty-four hours. general prevost had gained his point; and now believing himself able to resist an assault, declined the summons to surrender. two armed ships and four transports were sunk in the channel of the river below the city, and a boom in the same place laid entirely across the river; while several small boats were sunk above the town, thus rendering it impossible for the city to be approached by water. [illustration: map showing maitland's course from dawfuskie to savannah.] [illustration: --springhill redoubt. --french reserve. --count pulaski's course. --huger's feint. --dillon's course. --obstructions.] on the day of the summons to surrender, although the works were otherwise well advanced, there were not ten cannon mounted in the lines of savannah; but from that time until the day of assault, the men of the garrison, with the slaves they had captured, worked day and night to get the defences of the city in the highest state of excellence. major moncrief, chief of the engineers, is credited with placing in position more than eighty cannons in a short time after the call to surrender had been received. the city itself at this time was but a mere village of frame buildings and unpaved streets. viewed as facing its assailants, it was protected in its rear, or upon its north side, by the savannah river; and on its west side by a thick swamp or morass, which communicated with the river above the city. the exposed sides were those of the east and south. these faced an open country which for several miles was entirely clear of woods. this exposed portion of the city was well protected by an unbroken line of defences extending from the river back to the swamp, the right and left extremes of the line consisting of strong redoubts, while the centre was made up of seamen's batteries in front, with impalements and traverses thrown up to protect the troops from the fire of the besiegers. the whole extent of the works was faced with an ample abattis. to be still more particular: there were three redoubts on the right of the line, and on the right of them quite near the swamp, was a sailor's battery of nine pounders, covered by a company of the british legion. the left redoubt of these three, was known as the springhill redoubt; and proved to be the objective of the final assault. between it and the centre, was another sailor's battery behind which were posted the grenadiers of the th regiment, with the marines which had been landed from the warships. on the left of the line near the river were two redoubts, strongly constructed, with a massy frame of green spongy wood, filled in with sand, and mounted with heavy cannon. the centre, or space between these groups of redoubts, was composed, as has been said, of lighter but nevertheless very effective works, and was strongly garrisoned. having thus scanned the works, let us now take a glance at the men who are to defend them. as all of the assaulting forces are not made up of americans, so all of the defenders are not foreigners. the centre redoubt of the triplet on the right, was garrisoned by two companies of militia, with the north carolina regiment to support them; captains roworth and wylie, with the provincial corps of king's rangers, were posted in the redoubt on the right; and captain tawse with his corps of provincial dragoons, dismounted, in the left or springhill redoubt, supported by the south carolina regiment. the whole of this force on the right of the line, was under the command of the gallant lieutenant-colonel maitland; and it was this force that made the charge that barely failed of annihilating the american army. on the left of the line, the georgia loyalists garrisoned one of those massy wooden sand-filled redoubts; while in the centre, cheek by jowl so to speak, with two battalions of the seventy-first regiment, and two regiments of hessians, stood the new york volunteers. all of these corps were ready to act as circumstances should require and to support any part of the line that might be attacked. the negroes who worked on these defences were under the direction of major moncrief. the french troops had landed below the city and were formed facing the british lines, with the river on their right. on their left, later, assembled the american troops. the final dispositions were concluded by september nd, and were as follows: the american troops under lincoln formed the left of the line, their left resting upon the swamp and the entire division facing the springhill redoubt and her two sister defences; then came the division of m. de noailles, composed of nine hundred men. d'estaing's division of one thousand men beside the artillery, came next, and formed the centre of the french army. on d'estaing's right was count dillon's division of nine hundred men; on the right of dillon were the powder magazine, cattle depot, and a small field hospital; on the right of the depot and a little in advance, were dejean's dragoons, numbering fifty men; upon the same alignment and to the right of the dragoons were rouvrais' volunteer chasseurs, numbering seven hundred and fifty men; still further on to the right and two hundred yards in advance of rouvrais, was framais, commanding the grenadier volunteers, and two hundred men besides, his right resting upon the swampy wood that bordered the river, thus completely closing in the city on the land side. the frigate, la truite, and two galleys, lay within cannon shot of the town, and with the aid of the armed store ship, la bricole, and the frigate, la chimere, effectually cut off all communication by water. on the rd, both the french and the americans opened their trenches; and on the th, a small detachment of the besieged made a sortie against the french. the attack was easily repulsed, but the french pursuing, approached so near the entrenchments of the enemy that they were fired upon and several were killed. on the night of the th another sortie was made which threw the besiegers into some confusion and caused the french and americans to fire upon each other. cannonading continued with but little result until october th. the engineers were now of the opinion that a speedy reduction of the city could not be accomplished by regular approaches; and the naval officers were very anxious about the fleet, both because of the dangers to which it was exposed from the sea, and also because, with so many men ashore it was in especial danger of being attacked and captured by british men-of-war. these representations agreeing altogether with d'estaing's previously expressed wishes to leave the coast as soon as possible, induced that officer and general lincoln to decide upon an attempt to storm the british works at once. it is quite probable that this had been the purpose as a last resort from the first. the preservation of the fleet was, however, the powerful factor in determining the time and character of the assault upon savannah. on the night of the eighth, major l'enfant, with a detachment attempted to set fire to the abattis in order to clear the way for the assault, but failed through the dampness of the wood. the plan of the assault may be quite accurately obtained from the orders given to the american troops on the evening of the th by general lincoln and from the inferences to be drawn from the events of the morning of the th as they are recorded in history. at least two of the historians who have left us accounts of the seige, ramsey and mccall, were present at the time, and their accounts may be regarded as original authority. general lincoln's orders were as follows: "evening orders. by general lincoln. watchword--lewis. "the soldiers will be immediately supplied with rounds of cartridges, a spare flint, and have their arms in good order. the infantry destined for the attack of savannah will be divided into two bodies; first composed of the light troops under the command of colonel laurens; the second, of the continental battalions and the first battalion of the charleston militia, except the grenadiers, who are to join the light troops. the whole will parade at o'clock, near the left of the line, and march by platoons. the guards of the camp will be formed of the invalids, and be charged to keep the fires as usual, in camp. "the cavalry under the command of count pulaski, will parade at the same time with the infantry and follow the left column of the french troops, precede the column of the american light troops; they will endeavor to penetrate the enemy's lines between the battery on the left of springhill redoubt, and the next towards the river; having effected this, will pass to the left towards yamacraw and secure such parties of the enemy as may be lodged in that quarter. "the artillery will parade at the same time, follow the french artillery, and remain with the _corps de reserve_ until they receive further orders. "the whole will be ready by the time appointed, with the utmost silence and punctuality; and be ready to march the instant count dillon and general lincoln shall order. "the light troops who are to follow the cavalry, will attempt to enter the redoubt on the left of the springhill, by escalade if possible; if not by entrance into it, they are to be supported if necessary by the first south carolina regiment; in the meantime the column will proceed with the lines to the left of the springhill battery. "the light troops having succeeded against the redoubt will proceed to the left and attempt the several works between that and the river. "the column will move to the left of the french troops, taking care not to interfere with them. "the light troops having carried the work towards the river will form on the left of the column. "it is especially forbidden to fire a single gun before the redoubts are carried; or for any soldier to quit his rank to plunder without an order for that purpose; any who shall presume to transgress in either of these respects shall be reputed a disobeyer of military orders which is punishable with death. "the militia of the first and second brigades, general williamson's and the second battalion of the charleston militia will parade immediately under the command of general huger; after draughting five hundred of them the remainder of them will go into the trenches and put themselves under the commanding officer there; with the he will march to the left of the enemy's line, remain as near them as he possibly can without being seen, until four o'clock in the morning, at which time the troops in the trenches will begin an attack upon the enemy; he will then advance and make his attack as near the river as possible; though this is only meant as a feint, yet should a favorable opportunity offer, he will improve it and push into the town. "in case of a repulse after taking springhill redoubt, the troops will retreat and rally in the rear of the redoubt; if it cannot be effected that way, it must be attempted by the same route at which they entered. "the second place of rallying (or the first if the redoubt should not be carried) will be at the jews' burying-ground, where the reserve will be placed; if these two halts should not be effected, they will retire towards camp. "the troops will carry in their hats a piece of white paper by which they will be distinguished." general huger with his five hundred militia, covered by the river swamp, crept quite close to the enemy's lines and delivered his attack as directed. its purpose was to draw attention to that quarter and if possible cause a weakening of the strength in the left centre of the line. what its real effect was, there is now no means of knowing. count dillon, who during the siege had been on d'estaing's right, and who appears to have been second in command in the french army, in this assault was placed in command of a second attacking column. his purpose was to move to the right of general huger, and keeping in the edge of the swamps along the river, steal past the enemy's batteries on the left, and attack him in the rear. bancroft describes the results of his efforts as follows: "the column under count dillon, which was to have attacked the rear of the british lines, became entangled in a swamp of which it should only have skirted the edge was helplessly exposed to the british batteries and could not even be formed." here were the two strong sand-filled redoubts, mounted with heavy cannon, and these may have been the batteries that stopped dillon's column. count pulaski with his two hundred brave cavalrymen, undertook his part in the deadly drama with ardor, and began that perilous ride which had for its object: "to penetrate the enemy's lines, between the battery on the left of the springhill redoubt, and the next towards the river." balch describes it as an attempt to "penetrate into the city by galloping between the redoubts." it was the anticipation of the crimean "charge of the light brigade;" only in this case, no one blundered; it was simply a desperate chance. cannon were to the right, left, and front, and the heroic charge proved in vain; the noble pole fell, banner in hand, pierced with a mortal wound--another foreign martyr to our dear bought freedom. the cavalry dash having failed, that much of the general plan was blotted out. the feints may have been understood; it is said a sergeant of the charleston grenadiers deserted during the night of the th and gave the whole plan of the attack to general prevost, so that he knew just where to strengthen his lines. the feints were effectually checked by the garrison on the left, twenty-eight of the americans being killed; while dillon's column was stopped by the batteries near the river. this state of affairs allowed the whole of maitland's force to protect the springhill redoubt and that part of the line which was most threatened. the springhill redoubt, as has been stated, was occupied by the south carolina regiment and a corps of dragoons. this circumstance may account for the fact, that while the three hundred and fifty charleston militia occupied a most exposed position in the attacking column, only one man among them was killed and but six wounded. the battery on the left of this redoubt was garrisoned by grenadiers and marines. the attacking column now advanced boldly, under the command of d'estaing and lincoln, the americans consisting of six hundred continental troops and three hundred and fifty charleston militia, being on the left, while the centre and right were made up of the french forces. they were met with so severe and steady a fire that the head of the column was soon thrown into confusion. they endured this fire for fifty-five minutes, returning it as best they could, although many of the men had no opportunity to fire at all. two american standards, and one french standard, were placed on the british works, but their bearers were instantly killed. it being found impossible to carry any part of the works, a general retreat was ordered. of the six hundred continental troops, more than one-third had fallen, and about one-fifth of the french. the charleston militia had not suffered, although they had bravely borne their part in the assault, and it had certainly been no fault of theirs if their brethren behind the enbankments had not fired upon them. count d'estaing had received two wounds, one in the thigh, and being unable to move, was saved by the young naval lieutenant truguet. ramsey gives the losses of the battle as follows: french soldiers ; officers ; americans ; total . as the army began its retreat, lieutenant-colonel maitland with the grenadiers, and marines who were incorporated with the grenadiers, charged its rear with the purpose of accomplishing its annihilation. it was then that there occurred the most brilliant feat of the day, and one of the bravest ever performed by foreign troops in the american cause. in the army of d'estaing was a legion of black and mulatto freedmen, known as fontages legion, commanded by vicount de fontages, a brave and experienced officer. the strength of this legion is given variously from six hundred to over eight hundred men. this legion met the fierce charge of maitland and saved the retreating army. in an official record prepared in paris, now before me, are these words: "this legion saved the army at savannah by bravely covering its retreat. among the blacks who rendered signal services at that time were: andre, beauvais, rigaud, villatte, beauregard, lambert, who latterly became generals under the convention, including henri christophe, the future king of haiti." this quotation is taken from a paper secured by the honorable richard rush, our minister to paris in , and is preserved in the pennsylvania historical society. henri christophe received a dangerous gunshot wound in savannah. balch says in speaking of fontages at savannah: "he commanded there a legion of mulattoes, according to my manuscript, of more than eight hundred men, and saved the army after the useless assault on the fortifications, by bravely covering the retreat." it was this legion that formed the connecting link between the siege of savannah and the wide development of republican liberty on the western continent, which followed early in the present century. in order to show this connection and the sequences, it will be necessary to sketch in brief the history of this remarkable body of men, especially that of the prominent individuals who distinguished themselves at savannah. in the french colony of saint domingo was in a state of peace, the population then consisting of white slaveholders, mulatto and black freedmen (affranchis), and slaves. count d'estaing received orders to recruit men from saint domingo for the auxiliary army; and there being no question of color raised, received into the service a legion of colored freedmen. there had been for years a colored militia in saint domingo, and as early as , the marquis de chateau-morand, then governor of the colony, made one vincent, the captain-general of all the colored militia in the vicinity of the cape. this captain vincent died in at the reputed age of years. he was certainly of great age, for he had been in the siege of carthagenia in , was taken prisoner, afterwards liberated by exchange and presented to louis xiv, and fought in the german war under villars. moreau de st. mery, in his description of vincent incidentally mentions the savannah expedition. he says: "i saw him (vincent) the year preceding his death, recalling his ancient prowess to the men of color who were enrolling themselves for the expedition to savannah; and showing in his descendants who were among the first to offer themselves, that he had transmitted his valor. vincent, the good captain vincent, had a most pleasing countenance; and the contrast of his black skin with his white hair produced an effect that always commanded respect." the haytian historian, enclus robin, says when the call for volunteers reached saint domingo: "eight hundred young freedmen, blacks and mulattoes, offered themselves to take part in the expedition;" that they went and "fought valiantly; and returned to saint domingo covered with glory." madiou, another haytian historian of the highest respectability says: "a crowd of young men, black and colored, enlisted with the french troops and left for the continent. they covered themselves with glory in the siege of savannah, under the orders of count d'estaing." what effect this experience had upon these volunteers may be inferred from their subsequent history. robin says: "these men who contributed their mite toward american independence, had still their mothers and sisters in slavery; and they themselves were subject to humiliating discriminations. should not france have expected from that very moment, that they would soon use in their own cause, those very arms which they had learned so well to use in the interests of others?" madiou says: "on their return to saint domingo they demanded for their brothers the enjoyment of political rights." beauvais went to europe and served in the army of france; but returned to fight for liberty in hayti, and was captain-general in : rigaud, lambert and christophe wrote their names--not in the sand. these are the men who dared to stir saint domingo, under whose influence hayti became the first country of the new world, after the united states, to throw off european rule. the connection between the siege of savannah and the independence of hayti is traced, both as to its spirit, and physically, through the black legion that on that occasion saved the american army. how this connection is traced to the republics of south america, i will allow a haytian statesman and man of letters, honored both at home and abroad, to relate. i translate from a work published in paris in : "the illustrious bolivar, liberator and founder of five republics in south america, undertook in his great work of shaking off the yoke of spain, and of securing the independence of those immense countries which swelled the pride of the catholic crown--but failed. stripped of all resources he took flight and repaired to jamaica, where he implored in vain of the governor of that island, the help of england. almost in despair, and without means, he resolved to visit hayti, and appeal to the generosity of the black republic for the help necessary to again undertake that work of liberation which had gone to pieces in his hands. never was there a more solemn hour for any man--and that man the representative of the destiny of south america! could he hope for success? after the english, who had every interest in the destruction of spanish colonial power, had treated him with so much indifference, could he hope that a newborn nation, weak, with microscopic territory, and still guarding anxiously its own ill-recognized independence, would risk itself in an enterprise hazardous as the one he represented? full of doubt he came: but petion gave him a most cordial welcome. "taking the precautions that a legitimate sentiment of prudence dictated at that delicate moment of our national existence, the government of port-au-prince put to the disposition of the hero of boyaca and carabobo, all the elements, of which he had need--and bolivar needed everything. men, arms, and money were generously given him. petion did not wish to act openly for fear of compromising himself with the spanish government; it was arranged that the men should embark secretly as volunteers; and that no mention of hayti should ever be made in any official act of venezuela." bolivar's first expedition with his haytian volunteers was a failure; returning to the island he procured reinforcements and made a second descent which was brilliantly successful. haytian arms, money, and men turned bolivar's disasters to victory; and the spirit of western liberty marched on to the redemption of south america. the liberation of mexico and all central america, followed as a matter of course; and the ground was thus cleared for the practical application of that continentalism enunciated in the monroe doctrine. the black men of the antilles who fought in the siege of savannah, enjoy unquestionably the proud historical distinction of being the physical conductors that bore away from our altars the sacred fire of liberty to rekindle it in their own land; and also of becoming the humble but important link that served to unite the two americas in the bond of enlightened independence. t. g. steward, u. s. a. note: in the preparation of the above paper i have been greatly assisted by the honorable l. j. janvier, chargè d' affairs d' hayti, in london; by right reverend james theodore holly, bishop of hayti; and by messrs. charles and frank rudolph steward of harvard university. to all of these gentlemen my thanks are here expressed. t. g. s. footnote: [ ]the presentation of this banner by the moravian nuns of bethlehem forms the text of the poem by longfellow beginning,-- when the dying flame of day through the chancel shot its ray, far the glimmering tapers shed faint light on the cowled head; and the censer burning swung, where, before the altar, hung the crimson banner, that with prayer had been consecrated there. and the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, sung low in the dim, mysterious aisle. "take thy banner! may it wave proudly o'er the good and brave; when the battle's distant wail breaks the sabbath of our vale. when the cannon's music thrills to the hearts of those lone hills, when the spear in conflict shakes, and the strong lance shivering breaks. * * * * * "take thy banner! and if e'er thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, and the muffled drum shall beat to the tread of mournful feet, then the crimson flag shall be martial cloak and shroud for thee." the warrior took that banner proud, and it was his martial cloak and shroud! transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. the following misprints have been corrected: "commande" corrected to "command" (page ) "and and" corrected to "and" (page ) "remander" corrected to "remainder" (page ) "the the" corrected to "the" (page ) "annihihilation" corrected to "annihilation" (page ) "brillant" corrected to "brilliant" (page ) other than the corrections listed above, printer's spelling and hyphenation usage have been retained. [transcriber's note: obvious printer's errors have been corrected, author's spelling has been retained. --missing page numbers correspond to illustration or blank pages.] integration of the armed forces - _defense studies series_ integration of the armed forces - _by_ _morris j. macgregor, jr._ _defense historical studies committee_ (as of april ) alfred goldberg office of the secretary of defense robert j. watson historical division, joint chiefs of staff brig. gen. james l. collins, jr. chief of military history maj. gen. john w. huston chief of air force history maurice matloff center of military history stanley l. falk office of air force history rear adm. john d. h. kane, jr. director of naval history brig. gen. (ret.) edwin h. simmons director of marine corps history and museums dean c. allard naval historical center henry j. shaw, jr. marine corps historical center library of congress cataloging in publication data macgregor, morris j integration of the armed forces, - (defense studies series) includes bibliographical references and index. supt. of docs. no.: d . :in / - . afro-american soldiers. . united states--race relations. i. title. ii. series. ub .a m . ' - _department of the army_ _historical advisory committee_ (as of april ) otis a. singletary university of kentucky maj. gen. robert c. hixon u.s. army training and doctrine command brig. gen. robert arter u.s. army command and general staff college sara d. jackson national historical publications and records commission harry l. coles ohio state university maj. gen. enrique mendez, jr. deputy surgeon general, usa robert h. ferrell indiana university james o'neill deputy archivist of the united states cyrus h. fraker the adjutant general center benjamin quarles morgan state college william h. goetzmann university of texas brig. gen. alfred l. sanderson army war college col. thomas e. griess u.s. military academy russell f. weigley temple university foreword the integration of the armed forces was a momentous event in our military and national history; it represented a milestone in the development of the armed forces and the fulfillment of the democratic ideal. the existence of integrated rather than segregated armed forces is an important factor in our military establishment today. the experiences in world war ii and the postwar pressures generated by the civil rights movement compelled all the services--army, navy, air force, and marine corps--to reexamine their traditional practices of segregation. while there were differences in the ways that the services moved toward integration, all were subject to the same demands, fears, and prejudices and had the same need to use their resources in a more rational and economical way. all of them reached the same conclusion: traditional attitudes toward minorities must give way to democratic concepts of civil rights. if the integration of the armed services now seems to have been inevitable in a democratic society, it nevertheless faced opposition that had to be overcome and problems that had to be solved through the combined efforts of political and civil rights leaders and civil and military officials. in many ways the military services were at the cutting edge in the struggle for racial equality. this volume sets forth the successive measures they and the office of the secretary of defense took to meet the challenges of a new era in a critically important area of human relationships, during a period of transition that saw the advance of blacks in the social and economic order as well as in the military. it is fitting that this story should be told in the first volume of a new defense studies series. the defense historical studies program was authorized by the then deputy secretary of defense, cyrus vance, in april . it is conducted under the auspices of the defense historical studies group, an _ad hoc_ body chaired by the historian of the office of the secretary of defense and consisting of the senior officials in the historical offices of the services and of the joint chiefs of staff. volumes produced under its sponsorship will be interservice histories, covering matters of mutual interest to the army, navy, air force, marine corps, and the joint chiefs of staff. the preparation of each volume is entrusted to one of the service historical sections, in this case the army's center of military history. although the book was written by an army historian, he was generously given access to the pertinent records of the other services and the office of the secretary of defense, and this initial volume in the defense studies series covers the experiences of all components of the department of defense in achieving integration. washington, d.c. james l. collins, jr. march brigadier general, usa chief of military history the author morris j. macgregor, jr., received the a.b. and m.a. degrees in history from the catholic university of america. he continued his graduate studies at the johns hopkins university and the university of paris on a fulbright grant. before joining the staff of the u.s. army center of military history in he served for ten years in the historical division of the joint chiefs of staff. he has written several studies for military publications including "armed forces integration--forced or free?" in _the military and society: proceedings of the fifth military symposium of the u.s. air force academy_. he is the coeditor with bernard c. nalty of the thirteen-volume _blacks in the united states armed forces: basic documents_ and with ronald spector of _voices of history: interpretations in american military history_. he is currently working on a sequel to _integration of the armed forces_ which will also appear in the defense studies series. preface (p. ix) this book describes the fall of the legal, administrative, and social barriers to the black american's full participation in the military service of his country. it follows the changing status of the black serviceman from the eve of world war ii, when he was excluded from many military activities and rigidly segregated in the rest, to that period a quarter of a century later when the department of defense extended its protection of his rights and privileges even to the civilian community. to round out the story of open housing for members of the military, i briefly overstep the closing date given in the title. the work is essentially an administrative history that attempts to measure the influence of several forces, most notably the civil rights movement, the tradition of segregated service, and the changing concept of military efficiency, on the development of racial policies in the armed forces. it is not a history of all minorities in the services. nor is it an account of how the black american responded to discrimination. a study of racial attitudes, both black and white, in the military services would be a valuable addition to human knowledge, but practically impossible of accomplishment in the absence of sufficient autobiographical accounts, oral history interviews, and detailed sociological measurements. how did the serviceman view his condition, how did he convey his desire for redress, and what was his reaction to social change? even now the answers to these questions are blurred by time and distorted by emotions engendered by the civil rights revolution. few citizens, black or white, who witnessed it can claim immunity to the influence of that paramount social phenomenon of our times. at times i do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white servicemen and the black and white communities at large as well. but i have permitted myself to do so only when these attitudes were clearly pertinent to changes in the services' racial policies and only when the written record supported, or at least did not contradict, the memory of those participants who had been interviewed. in any case this study is largely history written from the top down and is based primarily on the written records left by the administrations of five presidents and by civil rights leaders, service officials, and the press. many of the attitudes and expressions voiced by the participants in the story are now out of fashion. the reader must be constantly on guard against viewing the beliefs and statements of many civilian and military officials out of context of the times in which they were expressed. neither bigotry nor stupidity was the monopoly of some of the people quoted; their statements are important for what they tell us about certain attitudes of our society rather than for what they reveal about any individual. if the methods or attitudes of some (p. x) of the black spokesmen appear excessively tame to those who have lived through the 's, they too should be gauged in the context of the times. if their statements and actions shunned what now seems the more desirable, albeit radical, course, it should be given them that the style they adopted appeared in those days to be the most promising for racial progress. the words _black_ and _negro_ have been used interchangeably in the book, with negro generally as a noun and black as an adjective. aware of differing preferences in the black community for usage of these words, the author was interested in comments from early readers of the manuscript. some of the participants in the story strongly objected to one word or the other. "do me one favor in return for my help," lt. comdr. dennis d. nelson said, "never call me a black." rear adm. gerald e. thomas, on the other hand, suggested that the use of the term negro might repel readers with much to learn about their recent past. still others thought that the historian should respect the usage of the various periods covered in the story, a solution that would have left the volume with the term _colored_ for most of the earlier chapters and negro for much of the rest. with rare exception, the term black does not appear in twentieth century military records before the late 's. fashions in words change, and it is only for the time being perhaps that black and negro symbolize different attitudes. the author has used the words as synonyms and trusts that the reader will accept them as such. professor john hope franklin, mrs. sara jackson of the national archives, and the historians and officials that constituted the review panel went along with this approach. the second question of usage concerns the words _integration_ and _desegregation_. in recent years many historians have come to distinguish between these like-sounding words. desegregation they see as a direct action against segregation; that is, it signifies the act of removing legal barriers to the equal treatment of black citizens as guaranteed by the constitution. the movement toward desegregation, breaking down the nation's jim crow system, became increasingly popular in the decade after world war ii. integration, on the other hand, professor oscar handlin maintains, implies several things not yet necessarily accepted in all areas of american society. in one sense it refers to the "leveling of all barriers to association other than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";[ ] in other words, providing equal opportunity. but in another sense integration calls for the random distribution of a minority throughout society. here, according to handlin, the emphasis is on racial balance in areas of occupation, education, residency, and the like. [footnote : oscar handlin, "the goals of integration," _daedalus _ (winter ): .] from the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. it constantly used the terms integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its racial goals. rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in military files that include much correspondence from the various (p. xi) civil rights organizations. that the military made the right choice, this study seems to demonstrate, for the racial goals of the defense department, as they slowly took form over a quarter of a century, fulfilled both of professor handlin's definitions of integration. the mid- 's saw the end of a long and important era in the racial history of the armed forces. although the services continued to encounter racial problems, these problems differed radically in several essentials from those of the integration period considered in this volume. yet there is a continuity to the story of race relations, and one can hope that the story of how an earlier generation struggled so that black men and women might serve their country in freedom inspires those in the services who continue to fight discrimination. this study benefited greatly from the assistance of a large number of persons during its long years of preparation. stetson conn, chief historian of the army, proposed the book as an interservice project. his successor, maurice matloff, forced to deal with the complexities of an interservice project, successfully guided the manuscript through to publication. the work was carried out under the general supervision of robert r. smith, chief of the general history branch. he and robert w. coakley, deputy chief historian of the army, were the primary reviewers of the manuscript, and its final form owes much to their advice and attention. the author also profited greatly from the advice of the official review panel, which, under the chairmanship of alfred goldberg, historian, office of the secretary of defense, included martin blumenson; general j. lawton collins (usa ret.); lt. gen. benjamin o. davis, jr. (usaf ret.); roy k. davenport, former deputy assistant secretary of the army; stanley l. falk, chief historian of the air force; vice adm. e. b. hooper, chief of naval history; professor benjamin quarles; paul j. scheips, historian, center of military history; henry i. shaw, chief historian of the u.s. marine corps; loretto c. stevens, senior editor of the center of military history; robert j. watson, chief historian of the joint chiefs of staff; and adam yarmolinsky, former assistant to the secretary of defense. many of the participants in this story generously shared their knowledge with me and kindly reviewed my efforts. my footnotes acknowledge my debt to them. nevertheless, two are singled out here for special mention. james c. evans, former counselor to the secretary of defense for racial affairs, has been an endless source of information on race relations in the military. if i sometimes disagreed with his interpretations and assessments, i never doubted his total dedication to the cause of the black serviceman. i owe a similar debt to lt. comdr. dennis d. nelson (usn ret.) for sharing his intimate understanding of race relations in the navy. a resourceful man with a sure social touch, he must have been one hell of a sailor. i want to note the special contribution of several historians. martin blumenson was first assigned to this project, and before leaving the center of military history he assembled research material that proved most helpful. my former colleague john bernard corr prepared a study on the national guard upon which my account of the guard is based. in addition, he patiently reviewed many pages of the draft (p. xii) manuscript. his keen insights and sensitive understanding were invaluable to me. professors jack d. foner and marie carolyn klinkhammer provided particularly helpful suggestions in conjunction with their reviews of the manuscript. samuel b. warner, who before his untimely death was a historian in the joint chiefs of staff as well as a colleague of lee nichols on some of that reporter's civil rights investigations, also contributed generously of his talents and lent his support in the early days of my work. finally, i am grateful for the advice of my colleague ronald h. spector at several key points in the preparation of this history. i have received much help from archivists and librarians, especially the resourceful william h. cunliffe and lois aldridge (now retired) of the national archives and dean c. allard of the naval historical center. although the fruits of their scholarship appear often in my footnotes, three fellow researchers in the field deserve special mention: maj. alan m. osur and lt. col. alan l. gropman of the u.s. air force and ralph w. donnelly, former member of the u.s. marine corps historical center. i have benefited from our exchange of ideas and have had the advantage of their reviews of the manuscript. i am especially grateful for the generous assistance of my editors, loretto c. stevens and barbara h. gilbert. they have been both friends and teachers. in the same vein, i wish to thank john elsberg for his editorial counsel. i also appreciate the help given by william g. bell in the selection of the illustrations, including the loan of two rare items from his personal collection, and arthur s. hardyman for preparing the pictures for publication. i would like to thank mary lee treadway and wyvetra b. yeldell for preparing the manuscript for panel review and terrence j. gough for his helpful pre-publication review. finally, while no friend or relative was spared in the long years i worked on this book, three colleagues especially bore with me through days of doubts and frustrations and shared my small triumphs: alfred m. beck, ernest f. fisher, jr., and paul j. scheips. i also want particularly to thank col. james w. dunn. i only hope that some of their good sense and sunny optimism show through these pages. washington, d.c. morris j. macgregor, jr. march contents (p. xiii) _chapter_ _page_ . introduction............................................. _the armed forces before _............................ _civil rights and the law in _........................ _to segregate is to discriminate_........................ . world war ii: the army.................................. _a war policy: reaffirming segregation_.................. _segregation and efficiency_............................. _the need for change_.................................... _internal reform: amending racial practices_............. _two exceptions_......................................... . world war ii: the navy.................................. _development of a wartime policy_........................ _a segregated navy_...................................... _progressive experiments_................................ _forrestal takes the helm_............................... . world war ii: the marine corps and the coast guard...... _the first black marines_............................... _new roles for black coast guardsmen_................... . a postwar search....................................... _black demands_......................................... _the army's grand review_............................... _the navy's informal inspection_........................ . new directions......................................... _the gillem board report_............................... _integration of the general service_.................... _the marine corps_...................................... . a problem of quotas.................................... _the quota in practice_................................. _broader opportunities_................................. _assignments_........................................... _a new approach_........................................ _the quota system: an assessment_....................... . segregation's consequences............................. _discipline and morale among black troops_.............. _improving the status of the segregated soldier_........ _discrimination and the postwar army_................... (p. xiv) _segregation in theory and practice_.................... _segregation: an assessment_............................ . the postwar navy....................................... _the steward's branch_.................................. _black officers_........................................ _public image and the problem of numbers_............... . the postwar marine corps.............................. _racial quotas and assignments_......................... _recruitment_........................................... _segregation and efficiency_............................ _toward integration_.................................... . the postwar air force................................. _segregation and efficiency_............................ _impulse for change_.................................... . the president intervenes.............................. _the truman administration and civil rights_............ _civil rights and the department of defense_............ _executive order _.................................. . service interests versus presidential intent.......... _public reaction to executive order _............... _the army: segregation on the defensive_................ _a different approach_.................................. _the navy: business as usual_........................... _adjustments in the marine corps_....................... _the air force plans for limited integration_........... . the fahy committee versus the department of defense... _the committee's recommendations_....................... _a summer of discontent_................................ _assignments_........................................... _quotas_................................................ _an assessment_......................................... . the role of the secretary of defense, - ....... _overseas restrictions_................................. _congressional concerns_................................ . integration in the air force and the navy............. _the air force, - _.............................. _the navy and executive order _..................... . the army integrates................................... _race and efficiency: _............................. _training_.............................................. _performance of segregated units_....................... _final arguments_....................................... _integration of the eighth army_........................ _integration of the european and continental commands_.. (p. xv) . integration of the marine corps....................... _impetus for change_.................................... _assignments_........................................... . a new era begins...................................... _the civil rights revolution_........................... _limitations on executive order _................... _integration of navy shipyards_......................... _dependent children and integrated schools_............. . limited response to discrimination.................... _the kennedy administration and civil rights_........... _the department of defense, - _.................. _discrimination off the military reservation_........... _reserves and regulars: a comparison_................... . equal treatment and opportunity redefined............. _the secretary makes a decision_........................ _the gesell committee_.................................. _reaction to a new commitment_.......................... _the gesell committee: final report_.................... . equal opportunity in the military community........... _creating a civil rights apparatus_..................... _fighting discrimination within the services_........... . from voluntary compliance to sanctions................ _development of voluntary action programs_.............. _civil rights, - _............................... _the civil rights act and voluntary compliance_......... _the limits of voluntary compliance_.................... . conclusion............................................ _why the services integrated_........................... _how the services integrated, - _................ _equal treatment and opportunity_....................... note on sources........................................... index..................................................... illustrations crewmen of the uss _miami_ during the civil war............. buffalo soldiers............................................ integration in the army of ............................. gunner's gang on the uss _maine_........................... (p. xvi) general john j. (black jack) pershing inspects troops...... heroes of the th infantry, february ................ judge william h. hastie.................................... general george c. marshall and secretary of war henry l. stimson............................................... engineer construction troops in liberia, july ......... labor battalion troops in the aleutian islands, may ... sergeant addressing the line............................... pilots of the d fighter group........................... service club, fort huachuca................................ d division troops in bougainville, april ............ gun crew of battery b, th field artillery, september ........................................... tankers of the st medium tank battalion prepare for action................................................... waac replacements.......................................... volunteers for combat in training.......................... road repairmen............................................. mess attendant, first class, dorie miller addressing recruits at camp smalls.................................. admiral ernest j. king and secretary of the navy frank knox..................................................... crew members of uss _argonaut_, pearl harbor, ......... messmen volunteer as gunners, july .................... electrician mates string power lines....................... laborers at naval ammunition depot......................... seabees in the south pacific............................... lt. comdr. christopher s. sargent.......................... uss _mason_................................................ first black officers in the navy........................... lt. (jg.) harriet ida pickens and ens. frances wills....... sailors in the general service............................. security watch in the marianas............................. specialists repair aircraft................................ the d special construction battalion celebrates v-j day.. marines of the st defense battalion, montford point, ............................................. shore party in training, camp lejeune, ............... d-day on peleliu.......................................... medical attendants at rest, peleliu, october ......... gun crew of the d defense battalion..................... crewmen of uscg lifeboat station, pea island, north carolina................................................ coast guard recruits at manhattan beach training station, new york....................................... stewards at battle station on the cutter _campbell_....... shore leave in scotland................................... lt. comdr. carlton skinner and crew of the uss _sea cloud_............................................. ens. joseph j. jenkins and lt. (jg.) clarence samuels..... president harry s. truman addressing the naacp convention.............................................. assistant secretary of war john j. mccloy................. civilian aide to the secretary of war truman k. gibson.... (p. xvii) company i, th infantry, d division, advances through cascina, italy.................................. d division engineers prepare a ford for arno river traffic................................................. lester granger interviewing sailors....................... granger with crewmen of a naval yard craft................ lt. gen. alvan c. gillem, u.s. army....................... secretary of war robert p. patterson...................... admiral louis e. denfeld, u.s. navy....................... general gerald c. thomas, u.s. marine corps............... lt. gen. willard s. paul.................................. adviser to the secretary of war marcus ray................ lt. gen. robert l. eichelberger inspects th infantry troops.................................................. army specialists report for airborne training............. bridge players, seaview service club, tokyo, japan, ............................................. th infantry band, gifu, japan, ..................... lt. gen. clarence r. huebner inspects the th military police company................................. reporting to kitzingen.................................... inspection by the chief of staff.......................... brig. gen. benjamin o. davis, sr.......................... shore leave in korea...................................... mess attendants, uss _bushnell_, ..................... mess attendants, uss _wisconsin_, .................... lt. comdr. dennis d. nelson ii............................ naval unit passes in review, naval advanced base, bremerhaven, germany.................................... submariner................................................ marine artillery team..................................... d lt. and mrs. frederick c. branch....................... training exercises........................................ damage inspection......................................... col. noel f. parrish...................................... officers' softball team................................... checking ammunition....................................... squadron f, th aaf battalion, in review................ col. benjamin o. davis, jr., commander, th composite group, ............................................. lt. gen. idwal h. edwards................................. col. jack f. marr......................................... walter f. white........................................... truman's civil rights campaign............................ a. philip randolph........................................ national defense conference on negro affairs, april .................................................... mp's hitch a ride......................................... secretary of the army kenneth c. royall reviews military police battalion............................... spring formal dance, fort george g. meade, maryland, .......................................... secretary of defense james v. forrestal................... general clifton b. cates.................................. (p. xviii) st marine division drill team on exhibition.............. secretary of the air force w. stuart symington............ secretary of defense louis c. johnson..................... fahy committee with president truman and armed services secretaries............................................. e. w. kenworthy........................................... charles fahy.............................................. roy k. davenport.......................................... press notice.............................................. secretary of the army gordon gray......................... chief of staff of the army j. lawton collins.............. "no longer a dream"....................................... navy corpsman in korea.................................... th division troops in japan............................. assistant secretary of defense anna m. rosenberg.......... assistant secretary of the air force eugene m. zuckert.... music makers.............................................. maintenance crew, d strategic fighter squadron......... jet mechanics............................................. christmas in korea, .................................. rearming at sea........................................... broadening skills......................................... integrated stewards class graduates, great lakes, .... wave recruits, naval training center, bainbridge, maryland, .......................................... rear adm. samuel l. gravely, jr........................... moving up................................................. men of battery a, th field artillery battalion......... survivors of an intelligence and reconnaissance platoon, th infantry.................................. general matthew b. ridgway, far east commander............ machine gunners of company l, th infantry, hill , korea................................................... color guard, th infantry, korea, .................. visit with the commander.................................. brothers under the skin................................... marines on the kansas line, korea......................... marine reinforcements..................................... training exercises on iwo jima, march ................ marines from camp lejeune................................. lt. col. frank e. petersen, jr............................ sergeant major edgar r. huff.............................. clarence mitchell......................................... congressman adam clayton powell........................... secretary of the navy robert b. anderson.................. reading class in the military dependents school, yokohama. civil rights leaders at the white house................... president john f. kennedy and president jorge allessandri. (p. xix) secretary of defense robert s. mcnamara................... adam yarmolinsky.......................................... james c. evans............................................ the gesell committee meets with the president............. alfred b. fitt............................................ arriving in vietnam....................................... digging in................................................ listening to the squad leader............................. supplying the seventh fleet............................... usaf ground crew, tan son nhut air base, vietnam.......... fighter pilots on the line................................ medical examination....................................... auto pilot shop........................................... submarine tender duty..................................... first aid................................................. vietnam patrol............................................ marine engineers in vietnam............................... loading a rocket launcher................................. american sailors help evacuate a vietnamese child......... booby trap victim from company b, th infantry........... camaraderie............................................... all illustrations are from the files of the department of defense and the national archives and records service with the exception of the pictures on pages and , courtesy of william g. bell; on page , by fabian bachrach, courtesy of judge william h. hastie; on page , courtesy of carlton skinner; on page , courtesy of the washington _star_, on page , courtesy of the _afro-american_ newspapers; on page , courtesy of the sengstacke newspapers; and on page , courtesy of the washington bureau of the national association for the advancement of colored people. tables _no._ . classification of all men tested from march through december ........................................... . agct percentages in selected world war ii divisions.... . percentage of black enlisted men and women............. . disposition of black personnel at eight air force bases, ............................................ . racial composition of air force units.................. . black strength in the air force........................ . racial composition of the training command, december .......................................... . black manpower, u.s. navy.............................. (p. xx) . worldwide distribution of enlisted personnel by race, october ........................................... . distribution of black enlisted personnel by branch and rank, october ............................. . black marines, - .............................. . defense installations with segregated public schools.. . black strength in the armed forces for selected years. . estimated percentage distribution of draft-age males in u.s. population by afqt groups............... . rate of men disqualified for service in .......... . rejection rates for failure to pass armed forces mental test, ..................................... . nonwhite inductions and first enlistments, fiscal years - ....................................... . distribution of enlisted personnel in each major occupation, ...................................... . occupational group distribution by race, all dod, .................................................. . occupational group distribution of enlisted personnel by length of service, and race.............. . percentage distribution of navy enlisted personnel by race, afqt groups and occupational areas, and length of service, ............................... . percentage distribution of blacks and whites by pay grade, all dod, .................................. . percentage distribution of navy enlisted personnel by race, afqt groups, pay grade, and length of service, ......................................... . black percentages, - .......................... . rates for first reenlistments, - .............. . black attendance at the military academies, july . . army and air force commissions granted at predominately black schools........................... . percentage of negroes in certain military ranks, - ............................................. . distribution of servicemen in occupational groups by race, ......................................... integration of the armed forces (p.  ) - chapter (p.  ) introduction in the quarter century that followed american entry into world war ii, the nation's armed forces moved from the reluctant inclusion of a few segregated negroes to their routine acceptance in a racially integrated military establishment. nor was this change confined to military installations. by the time it was over, the armed forces had redefined their traditional obligation for the welfare of their members to include a promise of equal treatment for black servicemen wherever they might be. in the name of equality of treatment and opportunity, the department of defense began to challenge racial injustices deeply rooted in american society. for all its sweeping implications, equality in the armed forces obviously had its pragmatic aspects. in one sense it was a practical answer to pressing political problems that had plagued several national administrations. in another, it was the services' expression of those liberalizing tendencies that were permeating american society during the era of civil rights activism. but to a considerable extent the policy of racial equality that evolved in this quarter century was also a response to the need for military efficiency. so easy did it become to demonstrate the connection between inefficiency and discrimination that, even when other reasons existed, military efficiency was the one most often evoked by defense officials to justify a change in racial policy. _the armed forces before _ progress toward equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces was an uneven process, the result of sporadic and sometimes conflicting pressures derived from such constants in american society as prejudice and idealism and spurred by a chronic shortage of military manpower. in his pioneering study of race relations, gunnar myrdal observes that ideals have always played a dominant role in the social dynamics of america.[ - ] by extension, the ideals that helped involve the nation in many of its wars also helped produce important changes in the treatment of negroes by the armed forces. the democratic spirit embodied in the declaration of independence, for example, opened the continental army to many negroes, holding out to them the promise of eventual freedom.[ - ] [footnote - : gunnar myrdal, _the american dilemma: the negro problem and modern democracy_, rev. ed. (new york: harper row, ), p. lxi.] [footnote - : benjamin quarles, _the negro in the american revolution_ (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, ), pp. - . the following brief summary of the negro in the pre-world war ii army is based in part on the quarles book and roland c. mcconnell, _negro troops of antebellum louisiana: a history of the battalion of free men of color_ (baton rouge: louisiana state university press, ); dudley t. cornish, _sable arm: negro troops in the union army, - _ (new york: norton, ); william h. leckie, _the buffalo soldiers: a narrative of the negro cavalry in the west_ (norman: university of oklahoma press, ); william bruce white, "the military and the melting pot: the american army and minority groups, - " (ph.d. dissertation, university of wisconsin, ); marvin e. fletcher, _the black soldier and officer in the united states army, - _ (columbia: university of missouri press, ); arthur e. barbeau and florette henri, _unknown soldiers: black american troops in world war i_ (philadelphia: temple university press, ). for a general survey of black soldiers in america's wars, see jack foner, _blacks and the military in american history: a new perspective_ (new york: praeger, ).] yet the fact that the british themselves were taking large numbers (p.  ) of negroes into their ranks proved more important than revolutionary idealism in creating a place for negroes in the american forces. above all, the participation of both slaves and freedmen in the continental army and the navy was a pragmatic response to a pressing need for fighting men and laborers. despite the fear of slave insurrection shared by many colonists, some , negroes, the majority from new england, served with the american forces in the revolution, often in integrated units, some as artillerymen and musicians, the majority as infantrymen or as unarmed pioneers detailed to repair roads and bridges. again, general jackson's need for manpower at new orleans explains the presence of the louisiana free men of color in the last great battle of the war of . in the civil war the practical needs of the union army overcame the lincoln administration's fear of alienating the border states. when the call for volunteers failed to produce the necessary men, negroes were recruited, generally as laborers at first but later for combat. in all, , negroes served in the union army. in addition to those in the sixteen segregated combat regiments and the labor units, thousands also served unofficially as laborers, teamsters, and cooks. some , negroes served in the navy, about percent of its total civil war strength. the influence of the idealism fostered by the abolitionist crusade should not be overlooked. it made itself felt during the early months of the war in the demands of radical republicans and some union generals for black enrollment, and it brought about the postwar establishment of black units in the regular army. in congress authorized the creation of permanent, all-black units, which in were designated the th and th cavalry and the th and th infantry. [illustration: crewmen of the uss miami during the civil war] military needs and idealistic impulses were not enough to guarantee uninterrupted racial progress; in fact, the status of black servicemen tended to reflect the changing patterns in american race relations. during most of the nineteenth century, for example, negroes served in an integrated u.s. navy, in the latter half of the century averaging between and percent of the enlisted strength.[ - ] but the employment of negroes in the navy was abruptly curtailed after . paralleling the rise of jim crow and legalized segregation (p.  ) in much of america was the cutback in the number of black sailors, who by were mostly in the galley and the engine room. in contrast to their high percentage of the ranks in the civil war and spanish-american war, only , black sailors, including twenty-four women reservists (yeomanettes), served in world war i; they constituted . percent of the navy's total enlistment.[ - ] their service was limited chiefly to mess duty and coal passing, the latter becoming increasingly rare as the fleet changed from coal to oil. [footnote - : estimates vary; exact racial statistics concerning the nineteenth century navy are difficult to locate. see enlistment of men of colored race, jan , a note appended to hearings before the general board of the navy, , operational archives, department of the navy (hereafter opnavarchives). the following brief summary of the negro in the pre-world war ii navy is based in part on foner's _blacks and the military in american history_ as well as harold d. langley, "the negro in the navy and merchant service, - ," _journal of negro history_ (october ): - ; langley's _social reform in the united states navy - _, (urbana: university of illinois press, ) peter karsten, _the naval aristocracy: the golden age of annapolis and the emergence of modern american navalism_ (new york: the free press, ); frederick s. harrod, _manning the new navy: the development of a modern naval enlisted force, - _ (westport: greenwood press, ).] [footnote - : ltr, rear adm c. w. nimitz, actg chief, bureau of navigation, to rep. hamilton fish, jun , a - , general records of the department of the navy (hereafter genrecsnav).] [illustration: buffalo soldiers. (_frederick remington's sketch._)] when postwar enlistment was resumed in , the navy recruited filipino stewards instead of negroes, although a decade later it reopened the branch to black enlistment. negroes quickly took advantage of this limited opportunity, their numbers rising from in to , in june , when they constituted . percent of the navy's , total.[ - ] curiously enough, because black (p.  ) reenlistment in combat or technical specialties had never been barred, a few black gunner's mates, torpedomen, machinist mates, and the like continued to serve in the 's. [footnote - : memo, h. a. badt, bureau of navigation, for officer in charge, public relations, jul , sub: negroes in u.s. navy, nav- , records of the bureau of naval personnel (hereafter bupersrecs).] although the army's racial policy differed from the navy's, the resulting limited, separate service for negroes proved similar. the laws of and that guaranteed the existence of four black regular army regiments also institutionalized segregation, granting federal recognition to a system racially separate and theoretically equal in treatment and opportunity a generation before the supreme court sanctioned such a distinction in _plessy_ v. _ferguson_.[ - ] so important to many in the black community was this guaranteed existence of the four regiments that had served with distinction against the frontier indians that few complained about segregation. in fact, as historian jack foner has pointed out, black leaders sometimes interpreted demands for integration as attempts to eliminate black soldiers altogether.[ - ] [footnote - : u.s. ( ). in this case concerning segregated seating on a louisiana railroad, the supreme court ruled that so long as equality of accommodation existed, segregation could not in itself be considered discriminatory and therefore did not violate the equal rights provision of the fourteenth amendment. this "separate but equal" doctrine would prevail in american law for more than half a century.] [footnote - : foner, _blacks and the military in american history_, p. .] the spanish-american war marked a break with the post-civil war tradition of limited recruitment. besides the , black regulars, approximately , black volunteers served in the army during (p.  ) the conflict. world war i was another exception, for negroes made up nearly percent of the army's total strength, some , officers and men.[ - ] the acceptance of negroes during wartime stemmed from the army's pressing need for additional manpower. yet it was no means certain in the early months of world war i that this need for men would prevail over the reluctance of many leaders to arm large groups of negroes. still remembered were the brownsville affair, in which men of the th infantry had fired on texan civilians, and the august riot involving members of the th infantry at houston, texas.[ - ] ironically, those idealistic impulses that had operated in earlier wars were operating again in this most jim crow of administrations.[ - ] woodrow wilson's promise to make the world safe for democracy was forcing his administration to admit negroes to the army. although it carefully maintained racially separate draft calls, the national army conscripted some , negroes, . percent of all those drafted in world war i.[ - ] [footnote - : ulysses lee, _the employment of negro troops_, united states army in world war ii (washington: government printing office, ), p. . see also army war college historical section, "the colored soldier in the u.s. army," may , p. , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : for a modern analysis of the two incidents and the effect of jim crow on black units before world war i, see john d. weaver, _the brownsville raid_ (new york: w. w. norton co., ); robert v. haynes, _a night of violence: the houston riot of _ (baton rouge: louisiana state university press, ).] [footnote - : on the racial attitudes of the wilson administration, see nancy j. weiss, "the negro and the new freedom: fighting wilsonian segregation," _political science quarterly_ (march ): - .] [footnote - : _special report of the provost marshal general on operations of the selective service system to december _ (washington: government printing office, ), p. .] black assignments reflected the opinion, expressed repeatedly in army staff studies throughout the war, that when properly led by whites, blacks could perform reasonably well in segregated units. once again negroes were called on to perform a number of vital though unskilled jobs, such as construction work, most notably in sixteen specially formed pioneer infantry regiments. but they also served as frontline combat troops in the all-black d and d infantry divisions, the latter serving with distinction among the french forces. established by law and tradition and reinforced by the army staff's conviction that black troops had not performed well in combat, segregation survived to flourish in the postwar era.[ - ] the familiar practice of maintaining a few black units was resumed in the regular army, with the added restriction that negroes were totally excluded from the air corps. the postwar manpower retrenchments common to all regular army units further reduced the size of the remaining black units. by june the number of negroes on active duty stood at approximately , men, . percent of the army's total, about the same proportion as negroes in the navy.[ - ] [footnote - : the development of post-world war i policy is discussed in considerable detail in lee, _employment of negro troops_, chapters i and ii. see also u.s. army war college miscellaneous file - through - and - , u.s. army military history research collection, carlisle barracks (hereafter amhrc).] [footnote - : the strength figure is extrapolated from misc div, ago, returns sec, oct - nov . the figures do not include some , negroes in national guard units under state control.] _civil rights and the law in _ (p.  ) the same constants in american society that helped decide the status of black servicemen in the nineteenth century remained influential between the world wars, but with a significant change.[ - ] where once the advancing fortunes of negroes in the services depended almost exclusively on the good will of white progressives, their welfare now became the concern of a new generation of black leaders and emerging civil rights organizations. skilled journalists in the black press and counselors and lobbyists presenting such groups as the national association for the advancement of colored people (naacp), the national urban league, and the national negro congress took the lead in the fight for racial justice in the united states. they represented a black community that for the most part lacked the cohesion, political awareness, and economic strength which would characterize it in the decades to come. nevertheless, negroes had already become a recognizable political force in some parts of the country. both the new deal politicians and their opponents openly courted the black vote in the presidential election. [footnote - : this discussion of civil rights in the pre-world war ii period draws not only on lee's _employment of negro troops_, but also on lee finkle, _forum for protest: the black press during world war ii_ (cranbury: fairleigh dickinson university press, ); harvard sitkoff, "racial militancy and interracial violence in the second world war," _journal of american history_ (december ): - ; reinhold schumann, "the role of the national association for the advancement of colored people in the integration of the armed forces according to the naacp collection in the library of congress" ( ), in cmh; richard m. dalfiume, _desegregation of the united states armed forces: fighting on two fronts, - _ (columbia: university of missouri press, ).] these politicians realized that the united states was beginning to outgrow its old racial relationships over which jim crow had reigned, either by law or custom, for more than fifty years. in large areas of the country where lynchings and beatings were commonplace, white supremacy had existed as a literal fact of life and death.[ - ] more insidious than the jim crow laws were the economic deprivation and dearth of educational opportunity associated with racial discrimination. traditionally the last hired, first fired, negroes suffered all the handicaps that came from unemployment and poor jobs, a condition further aggravated by the great depression. the "separate but equal" educational system dictated by law and the realities of black life in both urban and rural areas, north and south, had proved anything but equal and thus closed to negroes a traditional avenue to advancement in american society. [footnote - : the jim crow era is especially well described in rayford w. logan's _the negro in american life and thought: the nadir, - _ (new york: dial, ) and c. vann woodward's _the strange career of jim crow_, d ed. rev. (new york: oxford university press, )] in these circumstances, the economic and humanitarian programs of the new deal had a special appeal for black america. encouraged by these programs and heartened by eleanor roosevelt's public support of civil rights, black voters defected from their traditional allegiance to the republican party in overwhelming numbers. but the civil rights leaders were already aware, if the average black citizen was not, that despite having made some considerable improvements franklin roosevelt never, in one biographer's words, "sufficiently challenged southern (p.  ) traditions of white supremacy to create problems for himself."[ - ] negroes, in short, might benefit materially from the new deal, but they would have to look elsewhere for advancement of their civil rights. [footnote - : frank freidel, _f.d.r. and the south_ (baton rouge: louisiana state university press, ), pp. - . see also bayard rustin, _strategies for freedom: the changing patterns of black protest_ (new york: columbia university press, ), p. .] men like walter f. white of the naacp and the national urban league's t. arnold hill sought to use world war ii to expand opportunities for the black american. from the start they tried to translate the idealistic sentiment for democracy stimulated by the war and expressed in the atlantic charter into widespread support for civil rights in the united states. at the same time, in sharp contrast to many of their world war i predecessors, they placed a price on black support for the war effort: no longer could the white house expect this sizable minority to submit to injustice and yet close ranks with other americans to defeat a common enemy. it was readily apparent to the negro, if not to his white supporter or his enemy, that winning equality at home was just as important as advancing the cause of freedom abroad. as george s. schuyler, a widely quoted black columnist, put it: "if nothing more comes out of this emergency than the widespread understanding among white leaders that the negro's loyalty is conditional, we shall not have suffered in vain."[ - ] the naacp spelled out the challenge even more clearly in its monthly publication, _the crisis_, which declared itself "sorry for brutality, blood, and death among the peoples of europe, just as we were sorry for china and ethiopia. but the hysterical cries of the preachers of democracy for europe leave us cold. we want democracy in alabama, arkansas, in mississippi and michigan, in the district of columbia--in the _senate of the united states_."[ - ] [footnote - : pittsburgh _courier_, december , .] [footnote - : _the crisis_ (july ): .] this sentiment crystallized in the black press's double v campaign, a call for simultaneous victories over jim crow at home and fascism abroad. nor was the double v campaign limited to a small group of civil rights spokesmen; rather, it reflected a new mood that, as myrdal pointed out, was permeating all classes of black society.[ - ] the quickening of the black masses in the cause of equal treatment and opportunity in the pre-world war ii period and the willingness of negroes to adopt a more militant course to achieve this end might well mark the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. [footnote - : myrdal, _american dilemma_, p. .] [illustration: integration in the army of . _the army band at fort duchesne, utah, composed of soldiers from the black th cavalry and the white st infantry._] historian lee finkle has suggested that the militancy advocated by most of the civil rights leaders in the world war ii era was merely a rhetorical device; that for the most part they sought to avoid violence over segregation, concentrating as before on traditional methods of protest.[ - ] this reliance on traditional methods was apparent when the leaders tried to focus the new sentiment among negroes on two war-related goals: equality of treatment in the armed forces and equality of job opportunity in the expanding defense industries. in the pittsburgh _courier_, the largest and one (p.  ) of the most influential of the nation's black papers, called upon the president to open the services to negroes and organized the committee for negro participation in the national defense program. these moves led to an extensive lobbying effort that in time spread to many other newspapers and local civil rights groups. the black press and its satellites also attracted the support of several national organizations that were promoting preparedness for war, and these groups, in turn, began to demand equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces.[ - ] [footnote - : lee finkle, "the conservative aims of militant rhetoric: black protest during world war ii," _journal of american history_ (december ): .] [footnote - : some impression of the extent of this campaign and its effect on the war department can be gained from the volume of correspondence produced by the pittsburgh _courier_ campaign and filed in ag . ( - - )( ).] the government began to respond to these pressures before the united states entered world war ii. at the urging of the white house the army announced plans for the mobilization of negroes, and congress amended several mobilization measures to define and increase the military training opportunities for negroes.[ - ] the most important of these legislative amendments in terms of influence on future race relations in the united states were made to the selective service act of . the matter of race played only a small part in the debate on this highly controversial legislation, but during congressional hearings on the bill black spokesmen testified on discrimination against negroes in the services.[ - ] these witnesses concluded that if the draft law did not provide specific guarantees against it, discrimination would prevail. [footnote - : the army's plans and amendments are treated in great detail in lee, _employment of negro troops_.] [footnote - : hearings before the committee on military affairs. house of representatives, th cong., d sess., on h.r. , _selective compulsory military training and service_, pp. - .] [illustration: gunner's gang on the uss maine.] a majority in both houses of congress seemed to agree. during (p.  ) floor debate on the selective service act, senator robert f. wagner of new york proposed an amendment to guarantee to negroes and other racial minorities the privilege of voluntary enlistment in the armed forces. he sought in this fashion to correct evils described some ten days earlier by rayford w. logan, chairman of the committee for negro participation in the national defense, in testimony before the house committee on military affairs. the wagner proposal triggered critical comments and questions. senators john h. overton and allen j. ellender of louisiana viewed the wagner amendment as a step toward "mixed" units. overton, ellender, and senator lister hill of alabama proposed that the matter should be "left to the army." hill also attacked the amendment because it would allow the enlistment of japanese-americans, some of whom he claimed were not loyal to the united states.[ - ] [footnote - : _congressional record_, th cong., d sess., vol. , p. .] [illustration: general pershing, aef commander, inspects troops _of the d (colored) pioneer regiment in france, _.] no filibuster was attempted, and the wagner amendment passed the senate easily, to . it provided that any person between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five regardless of race or color shall be afforded an opportunity voluntarily to enlist and be inducted into the land and naval forces (including aviation units) of the united states for the training and service prescribed in subsection (b), if he is acceptable to the land or naval forces for such training and service.[ - ] [footnote - : _u.s. stat._ ( ).] the wagner amendment was aimed at _volunteers_ for military service. congressman hamilton fish, also of new york, later introduced a similar measure in the house aimed at _draftees_. the fish (p.  ) amendment passed the house by a margin of to and emerged intact from the house-senate conference. the law finally read that in the selection and training of men and execution of the law "there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or color."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid. fish commanded black troops in world war i. captain of company k, fifteenth new york national guard (colored), which subsequently became the th infantry, fish served in the much decorated d division in the french sector of the western front.] [illustration: heroes of the th infantry. _winners of the croix de guerre arrive in new york harbor, february ._] the fish amendment had little immediate impact upon the services' racial patterns. as long as official policy permitted separate draft calls for blacks and whites and the officially held definition of discrimination neatly excluded segregation--and both went unchallenged in the courts--segregation would remain entrenched in the armed forces. indeed, the rigidly segregated services, their ranks swollen by the draft, were a particular frustration to the civil rights forces because they were introducing some black citizens to racial discrimination more pervasive than any they had ever endured in civilian life. moreover, as the services continued to open bases throughout the country, they actually spread federally sponsored segregation into areas where it had never before existed with the force of law. in the long run, however, the draft law and subsequent draft legislation had a strong influence on the armed forces' racial policies. they created a climate in which progress could be made toward integration within the services. although not apparent in , the pressure of a draft-induced flood of black (p.  ) conscripts was to be a principal factor in the separate decisions of the army, navy, and marine corps to integrate their units. _to segregate is to discriminate_ as with all the administration's prewar efforts to increase opportunities for negroes in the armed forces, the selective service act failed to excite black enthusiasm because it missed the point of black demands. guarantees of black participation were no longer enough. by most responsible black leaders shared the goal of an integrated armed forces as a step toward full participation in the benefits and responsibilities of american citizenship. the white house may well have thought that walter white of the naacp singlehandedly organized the demand for integration in , but he was merely applying a concept of race relations that had been evolving since world war i. in the face of ever-worsening discrimination, white's generation of civil rights advocates had rejected the idea of the preeminent black leader booker t. washington that hope for the future lay in the development of a separate and strong black (p.  ) community. instead, they gradually came to accept the argument of one of the founders of the national association for the advancement of colored people, william e. b. dubois, that progress was possible only when negroes abandoned their segregated community to work toward a society open to both black and white. by the end of the 's this concept had produced a fundamental change in civil rights tactics and created the new mood of assertiveness that myrdal found in the black community. the work of white and others marked the beginning of a systematic attack against jim crow. as the most obvious practitioner of jim crow in the federal government, the services were the logical target for the first battle in a conflict that would last some thirty years. this evolution in black attitudes was clearly demonstrated in correspondence in the 's between officials of the naacp and the roosevelt administration over equal treatment in the armed forces. the discussion began in with a series of exchanges between chief of staff douglas macarthur and naacp counsel charles h. houston and continued through the correspondence between white and the administration in . the naacp representatives rejected macarthur's defense of army policy and held out for a quota guaranteeing that negroes would form at least percent of the nation's military strength. their emphasis throughout was on numbers; during these first exchanges, at least, they fought against disbandment of the existing black regiments and argued for similar units throughout the service.[ - ] [footnote - : see especially ltr, houston to cofs, aug and aug ; ltr, cofs to houston, aug ; ltr, maj gen edgar t. conley, actg ag, usa, to walter white, nov ; ltr, houston to roosevelt, oct ; ltr, houston to sw, oct . see also elijah reynolds, _colored soldiers and the regular army_ (naacp pamphlet, december , ). all in c- , naacp collection, library of congress.] yet the idea of integration was already strongly implied in houston's call for "a more united nation of free citizens,"[ - ] and in february the organization emphasized the idea in an editorial in _the crisis_, asking why black and white men could not fight side by side as they had in the continental army.[ - ] and when the army informed the naacp in september that more black units were projected for mobilization, white found this solution unsatisfactory because the proposed units would be segregated.[ - ] if democracy was to be defended, he told the president, discrimination must be eliminated from the armed forces. to this end, the naacp urged roosevelt to appoint a commission of black and white citizens to investigate discrimination in the army and navy and to recommend the removal of racial barriers.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid. ltr, houston to cofs, aug .] [footnote - : _the crisis_ ( ): , , .] [footnote - : ltr, presley holliday to white, sep ; ltr, white to holliday, sep . both in c- , naacp collection, lc.] [footnote - : ltr, white to roosevelt, sep , in c- , naacp collection, lc. this letter was later released to the press.] the white house ignored these demands, and on october the secretary to the president, col. edwin m. watson, referred white to a war department report outlining the new black units being created under presidential authorization. but the naacp leaders were not to be diverted from the main chance. thurgood marshall, then the head of (p.  ) the organization's legal department, recommended that white tell the president "that the naacp is opposed to the separate units existing in the armed forces at the present time."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, marshall for white, oct ; ltr, secy to the president to white, oct . both in c- , naacp collection, lc.] when his associates failed to agree on a reply to the administration, white decided on a face-to-face meeting with the president.[ - ] roosevelt agreed to confer with white, hill of the urban league, and a. philip randolph, head of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, the session finally taking place on september . at that time the civil rights officials outlined for the president and his defense assistants what they called the "important phases of the integration of the negro into military aspects of the national defense program." central to their argument was the view that the army and navy should accept men without regard to race. according to white, the president had apparently never considered the use of integrated units, but after some discussion he seemed to accept the suggestion that the army could assign black regiments or batteries alongside white units and from there "the army could 'back into' the formation of units without segregation."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, white for roy wilkins et al., oct ; ltr, houston to white, oct ; memo, wilkins to white, oct . all in c- , naacp collection, lc.] [footnote - : walter white, "conference at white house, friday, september , : a.m.," arthur b. spingarn papers, library of congress. see also white's _a man called white_ (new york: viking press, ), pp. - .] nothing came of these suggestions. although the policy announced by the white house subsequent to the meeting contained concessions regarding the employment and distribution of negroes in the services, it did not provide for integrated units. the wording of the press release on the conference implied, moreover, that the administration's entire program had been approved by white and the others. to have their names associated with any endorsement of segregation was particularly infuriating to these civil rights leaders, who immediately protested to the president.[ - ] the white house later publicly absolved the leaders of any such endorsement, and press secretary early was forced to retract the "damaging impression" that the leaders had in any way endorsed segregation. the president later assured white, randolph, and hill that further policy changes would be made to insure fair treatment for negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, white to stephen early, oct . see also memo, white for r. s. w. [roy wilkins], oct . both in c- , naacp collection, lc. see also ltr, s. early to white, oct , incl to ltr, white to spingarn, oct , spingarn papers, lc.] [footnote - : white, _a man called white_, pp. - .] presidential promises notwithstanding, the naacp set out to make integration of the services a matter of overriding interest to the black community during the war. the organization encountered opposition at first when some black leaders were willing to accept segregated units as the price for obtaining the formation of more all-black divisions. the naacp stood firm, however, and demanded at its annual convention in an immediate end to segregation. in a related move symbolizing the growing unity behind the campaign to integrate the military, the leaders of the march on washington movement, a group of black activists under a. philip randolph, (p.  ) specifically demanded the end of segregation in the army and navy. the movement was the first since the days of marcus garvey to involve the black masses; in fact negroes from every social and economic class rallied behind randolph, ready to demonstrate for equal treatment and opportunity. although some black papers objected to the movement's militancy, the major civil rights organization showed no such hesitancy. roy wilkins, a leader of the naacp, later claimed that randolph could supply only about , potential demonstrators and that the naacp had provided the bulk of the movement's participants.[ - ] [footnote - : roy wilkins oral history interview, columbia university oral history collection. see also a. philip randolph, "why should we march," _survey graphic_ (november ), as reprinted in john h. franklin and isidore starr, eds., _the negro in twentieth century america_ (new york: random house, ).] although randolph was primarily interested in fair employment practices, the naacp had been concerned with the status of black servicemen since world war i. reflecting the degree of naacp support, march organizers included a discussion of segregation in the services when they talked with president roosevelt in june . randolph and the others proposed ways to abolish the separate racial units in each service, charging that integration was being frustrated by prejudiced senior military officials.[ - ] [footnote - : white, _a man called white_, pp. - .] the president's meeting with the march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the fair employment practices committee, to coordinate the reform. while it prompted no similar reform in the racial policies of the armed forces, the march on washington movement was nevertheless a significant milestone in the services' racial history.[ - ] it signaled the beginning of a popularly based campaign against segregation in the armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, their allies in congress and the press, and many in the black community would hammer away on a single theme: segregation is unacceptable in a democratic society and hypocritical during a war fought in defense of the four freedoms. [footnote - : herbert garfinkle, _when negroes march: the march on washington movement in the organizational politics of fepc_ (glencoe: the free press, ), provides a comprehensive account of the aims and achievements of the movement.] chapter (p.  ) world war ii: the army civil rights leaders adopted the "double v" slogan as their rallying cry during world war ii. demanding victory against fascism abroad and discrimination at home, they exhorted black citizens to support the war effort and to fight for equal treatment and opportunity for negroes everywhere. although segregation was their main target, their campaign was directed against all forms of discrimination, especially in the armed forces. they flooded the services with appeals for a redress of black grievances and levied similar demands on the white house, congress, and the courts. black leaders concentrated on the services because they were public institutions, their officials sworn to uphold the constitution. the leaders understood, too, that disciplinary powers peculiar to the services enabled them to make changes that might not be possible for other organizations; the armed forces could command where others could only persuade. the army bore the brunt of this attention, but not because its policies were so benighted. in the army was a fairly progressive organization, and few institutions in america could match its record. rather, the civil rights leaders concentrated on the army because the draft law had made it the nation's largest employer of minority groups. for its part, the army resisted the demands, its spokesmen contending that the service's enormous size and power should not be used for social experiment, especially during a war. further justifying their position, army officials pointed out that their service had to avoid conflict with prevailing social attitudes, particularly when such attitudes were jealously guarded by congress. in this period of continuous demand and response, the army developed a racial policy that remained in effect throughout the war with only superficial modifications sporadically adopted to meet changing conditions. _a war policy: reaffirming segregation_ the experience of world war i cast a shadow over the formation of the army's racial policy in world war ii.[ - ] the chief architects of the new policy, and many of its opponents, were veterans of the first war and reflected in their judgments the passions and prejudices of that era.[ - ] civil rights activists were determined to eliminate the (p.  ) segregationist practices of the mobilization and to win a fair representation for negroes in the army. the traditionalists of the army staff, on the other hand, were determined to resist any radical change in policy. basing their arguments on their evaluation of the performance of the d division and some other black units in world war i, they had made, but not publicized, mobilization plans that recognized the army's obligation to employ black soldiers yet rigidly maintained the segregationist policy of world war i.[ - ] these plans increased the number of types of black units to be formed and even provided for a wide distribution of the units among all the arms and services except the army air forces and signal corps, but they did not explain how the skilled negro, whose numbers had greatly increased since world war i, could be efficiently used within the limitations of black units. in the name of military efficiency the army staff had, in effect, devised a social rather than a military policy for the employment of black troops. [footnote - : this survey of the army and the negro in world war ii is based principally on lee's _employment of negro troops_. a comprehensive account of the development of policy, the mobilization of black soldiers, and their use in the various theaters and units of world war ii, this book is an indispensable source for any serious student of the subject.] [footnote - : for examples of how world war i military experiences affected the thinking of the civil rights advocates and military traditionalists of world war ii, see lester b. granger oral history interview, , columbia university oral history collection; interview, lee nichols with lt. gen. john c. h. lee (c. ). for the influence of world war ii on a major contributor to postwar racial policy, see interview, lee nichols with harry s. truman, jun . last two in nichols collection, cmh. these interviews are among many compiled by nichols as part of his program associated with the production of _breakthrough on the color front_ (new york: random house, ). nichols, a journalist, presented this collection of interviews, along with other documents and materials, to the center of military history in . the interviews have proved to be a valuable supplement to the official record. they capture the thoughts of a number of important participants, some no longer alive, at a time relatively close to the events under consideration. they have been checked against the sources whenever possible and found accurate.] [footnote - : memo, acofs, g- , for cofs, jun , sub: employment of negro manpower, g- / - .] the white house tried to adjust the conflicting demands of the civil rights leaders and the army traditionalists. eager to placate and willing to compromise, president franklin d. roosevelt sought an accommodation by directing the war department to provide jobs for negroes in all parts of the army. the controversy over integration soon became more public, the opponents less reconcilable; in the weeks following the president's meeting with black representatives on september the army countered black demands for integration with a statement released by the white house on october. to provide "a fair and equitable basis" for the use of negroes in its expansion program, the army planned to accept negroes in numbers approximate to their proportion in the national population, about percent. black officers and enlisted men were to serve, as was then customary, only in black units that were to be formed in each major branch, both combatant and noncombatant, including air units to be created as soon as pilots, mechanics, and technical specialists were trained. there would be no racial intermingling in regimental organizations because the practice of separating white and black troops had, the army staff said, proved satisfactory over a long period of time. to change would destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense. since black units in the army were already "going concerns, accustomed through many years to the present system" of segregation, "no experiments should be tried ... at this critical time."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, tag for cg's et al., oct , sub: war department policy in regard to negroes, ag . ( - - ) m-a-m.] the president's "ok, f.d.r." on the war department statement (p.  ) transformed what had been a routine prewar mobilization plan into a racial policy that would remain in effect throughout the war. in fact, quickly elevated in importance by war department spokesmen who made constant reference to the "presidential directive," the statement would be used by some army officials as a presidential sanction for introducing segregation in new situations, as, for example, in the pilot training of black officers in the army air corps. just as quickly, the civil rights leaders, who had expected more from the tone of the president's own comments and more also from the egalitarian implications of the new draft law, bitterly attacked the army's policy. black criticism came at an awkward moment for president roosevelt, who was entering a heated campaign for an unprecedented third term and whose new deal coalition included the urban black vote. his opponent, the articulate wendell l. willkie, was an unabashed champion of civil rights and was reportedly attracting a wide following among black voters. in the weeks preceding the election the president tried to soften the effect of the army's announcement. he promoted col. benjamin o. davis, sr., to brigadier general, thereby making davis the first negro to hold this rank in the regular army. he appointed the commander of reserve officers' training at howard university, col. campbell c. johnson, special aide to the director of selective service. and, finally, he named judge william h. hastie, dean of the howard university law school, civilian aide to the secretary of war. a successful lawyer, judge hastie entered upon his new assignment with several handicaps. because of his long association with black causes, some civil rights organizations assumed that hastie would be their man in washington and regarded his duties as an extension of their crusade against discrimination. hastie's war department superiors, on the other hand, assumed that his was a public relations job and expected him to handle all complaints and mobilization problems as had his world war i predecessor, emmett j. scott. both assumptions proved false. hastie was evidently determined to break the racial logjam in the war department, yet unlike many civil rights advocates he seemed willing to pay the price of slow progress to obtain lasting improvement. according to those who knew him, hastie was confident that he could demonstrate to war department officials that the army's racial policies were both inefficient and unpatriotic.[ - ] [footnote - : the foregoing impressions are derived largely from interviews, lee nichols with james c. evans, who worked for judge hastie during world war ii, and ulysses g. lee (c. ). both in nichols collection, cmh.] judge hastie spent his first ten months in office observing what was happening to the negro in the army. he did not like what he saw. to him, separating black soldiers from white soldiers was a fundamental error. first, the effect on black morale was devastating. "beneath the surface," he wrote, "is widespread discontent. most white persons are unable to appreciate the rancor and bitterness which the negro, as a matter of self-preservation, has learned to hide beneath a smile, a joke, or merely an impassive face." the inherent paradox of trying to inculcate pride, dignity, and aggressiveness in a black soldier while inflicting on him the segregationist's concept of the negro's (p.  ) place in society created in him an insupportable tension. second, segregation wasted black manpower, a valuable military asset. it was impossible, hastie charged, to employ skilled negroes at maximum efficiency within the traditionally narrow limitations of black units. third, to insist on an inflexible separation of white and black soldiers was "the most dramatic evidence of hypocrisy" in america's professed concern for preserving democracy. although he appreciated the impossibility of making drastic changes overnight, judge hastie was disturbed because he found "no apparent disposition to make a beginning or a trial of any different plan." he looked for some form of progressive integration by which qualified negroes could be classified and assigned, not by race, but as individuals, according to their capacities and abilities.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, william h. hastie for sw, with attachment, sep , sub: survey and recommendations concerning the integration of the negro soldiers into the army, g- / - . see also intervs, nichols with evans and lee.] [illustration: judge hastie.] judge hastie gained little support from the secretary of war, henry l. stimson, or the chief of staff, general george c. marshall, when he called for progressive integration. both considered the army's segregated units to be in accord with prevailing public sentiment against mixing the races in the intimate association of military life. more to the point, both stimson and marshall were sensitive to military tradition, and segregated units had been a part of the army since . stimson embraced segregation readily. while conveying to the president that he was "sensitive to the individual tragedy which went with it to the colored man himself," he nevertheless urged roosevelt not to place "too much responsibility on a race which was not showing initiative in battle."[ - ] stimson's attitude was not unusual for the times. he professed to believe in civil rights for every citizen, but he opposed social integration. he never tried to reconcile these seemingly inconsistent views; in fact, he probably did not consider them inconsistent. stimson blamed what he termed eleanor roosevelt's "intrusive and impulsive folly" for some of the criticism visited upon the army's racial policy, just as he inveighed against the "foolish leaders of the colored race" who were seeking "at (p.  ) bottom social equality," which, he concluded, was out of the question "because of the impossibility of race mixture by marriage."[ - ] influenced by under secretary robert p. patterson, assistant secretary john j. mccloy, and truman k. gibson, jr., who was judge hastie's successor, but most of all impressed by the performance of black soldiers themselves, stimson belatedly modified his defense of segregation. but throughout the war he adhered to the traditional arguments of the army's professional staff. [footnote - : stimson, a republican, had been appointed by roosevelt in , along with secretary of the navy frank knox, in an effort to enlist bipartisan support for the administration's foreign policy in an election year. stimson brought a wealth of experience with him to the office, having served as secretary of war under william howard taft and secretary of state under herbert hoover. the quotations are from stimson diary, october , henry l. stimson papers, yale university library.] [footnote - : henry l. stimson and mcgeorge bundy, _on active service in peace and war_ (new york: harper and brothers, ), pp. - . the quotations are from stimson diary, jan .] [illustration: general marshall and secretary stimson.] general marshall was a powerful advocate of the views of the army staff. he lived up to the letter of the army's regulations, consistently supporting measures to eliminate overt discrimination in the wartime army. at the same time, he rejected the idea that the army should take the lead in altering the racial mores of the nation. asked for his views on hastie's "carefully prepared memo,"[ - ] general marshall admitted that many of the recommendations were sound but said that judge hastie's proposals would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has perplexed the american people throughout the history of this nation. the army cannot accomplish such a solution and (p.  ) should not be charged with the undertaking. the settlement of vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the tremendous task of the war department and thereby jeopardize discipline and morale.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, usw for cofs, oct , g- / - .] [footnote - : memo, cofs for sw, dec , sub: report of judge william h. hastie, civilian aide to the secretary of war, dated sep , ocs - .] as chief of staff, marshall faced the tremendous task of creating in haste a large army to deal with the axis menace. since for several practical reasons the bulk of that army would be trained in the south where its conscripts would be subject to southern laws, marshall saw no alternative but to postpone reform. the war department, he said, could not ignore the social relationship between blacks and whites, established by custom and habit. nor could it ignore the fact that the "level of intelligence and occupational skill" of the black population was considerably below that of whites. though he agreed that the army would reach maximum strength only if individuals were placed according to their abilities, he concluded that experiments to solve social problems would be "fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and morale." in sum, marshall saw no reason to change the policy approved by the president less than a year before.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid. see also forrest c. pogue, _george c. marshall: organizer of victory_ (new york: the viking press, ), pp. - .] the army's leaders and the secretary's civilian aide had reached an impasse on the question of policy even before the country entered the war. and though the use of black troops in world war i was not entirely satisfactory even to its defenders,[ - ] there appeared to be no time now, in view of the larger urgency of winning the war, to plan other approaches, try other solutions, or tamper with an institution that had won victory in the past. further ordering the thoughts of some senior army officials was their conviction that wide-scale mixing of the races in the services might, as under secretary patterson phrased it, foment social revolution.[ - ] [footnote - : the army staff's mobilization planning for black units in the 's generally relied upon the detailed testimony of the commanders of black units in world war i. this testimony, contained in documents submitted to the war department and the army war college, was often critical of the army's employment of black troops, although rarely critical of segregation. the material is now located in the u.s. army's military history research collection, carlisle barracks, pennsylvania. for discussion of the post-world war i review of the employment of black troops, see lee's _employment of negro troops_, chapter i, and alan m. osur's _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii: the problem of race relations_ (washington: government printing office, ), chapter i.] [footnote - : memo, usw for maj gen william bryden (principal deputy chief of staff), jan , ocs - .] these opinions were clearly evident on december , the day the united states entered world war ii, when the army's leaders met with a group of black publishers and editors. although general marshall admitted that he was not satisfied with the department's progress in racial matters and promised further changes, the conference concluded with a speech by a representative of the adjutant general who delivered what many considered the final word on integration during the war. the army is made up of individual citizens of the united states who have pronounced views with respect to the negro just as they have individual ideas with respect to other matters in their daily walk of life. military orders, fiat, or dicta, will not change their viewpoints. the army then cannot be made the (p.  ) means of engendering conflict among the mass of people because of a stand with respect to negroes which is not compatible with the position attained by the negro in civil life.... the army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective it must be organized and trained according to the principles which will insure success. experiments to meet the wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.[ - ] [footnote - : col eugene r. householder, tago, speech before conference of negro editors and publishers, dec , ag . ( - - ) ( ).] the civil rights advocates refused to concede that the discussion was over. judge hastie, along with a sizable segment of the black press, believed that the beginning of a world war was the time to improve military effectiveness by increasing black participation in that war.[ - ] they argued that eliminating segregation was part of the struggle to preserve democracy, the transcendent issue of the war, and they viewed the unvarying pattern of separate black units as consonant with the racial theories of nazi germany.[ - ] their continuing efforts to eliminate segregation and discrimination eventually brought hastie a sharp reminder from john j. mccloy. "frankly, i do not think that the basic issues of this war are involved in the question of whether colored troops serve in segregated units or in mixed units and i doubt whether you can convince people of the united states that the basic issues of freedom are involved in such a question." for negroes, he warned sternly, the basic issue was that if the united states lost the war, the lot of the black community would be far worse off, and some negroes "do not seem to be vitally concerned about winning the war." what all negroes ought to do, he counseled, was to give unstinting support to the war effort in anticipation of benefits certain to come after victory.[ - ] [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, ch. vi.] [footnote - : noteworthy is the fact that for several reasons not related to race (for instance, language and nationality) the german army also organized separate units. its d infantry division was composed of troops from turkestan and the caucasus, and its th ss panzer division had segregated scandinavian, dutch, and flemish regiments. unlike the racially segregated u.s. army, germany's so-called ost units were only administratively organized into separate divisions, and an ost infantry battalion was often integrated into a "regular" german infantry regiment as its fourth infantry battalion. several allied armies also had segregated units, composed, for example, of senegalese, gurkhas, maoris, and algerians.] [footnote - : memo, asw for judge hastie, jul , asw . , nt .] thus very early in world war ii, even before the united states was actively engaged, the issues surrounding the use of negroes in the army were well defined and the lines sharply drawn. was segregation, a practice in conflict with the democratic aims of the country, also a wasteful use of manpower? how would modifications of policy come--through external pressure or internal reform? could traditional organizational and social patterns in the military services be changed during a war without disrupting combat readiness? _segregation and efficiency_ in the years before world war ii, army planners never had to consider segregation in terms of manpower efficiency. conditioned by the experiences of world war i, when the nation had enjoyed a surplus of untapped manpower even at the height of the war, and aware of the overwhelming manpower surplus of the depression years, the staff (p.  ) formulated its mobilization plans with little regard for the economical use of the nation's black manpower. its decision to use negroes in proportion to their percentage of the population was the result of political pressures rather than military necessity. black combat units were considered a luxury that existed to indulge black demands. when the army began to mobilize in it proceeded to honor its pledge, and one year after pearl harbor there were , negroes in the army, . percent of the total and . percent of all enlisted troops.[ - ] [footnote - : strength of the army, jan , stm- , p. .] the effect of segregation on manpower efficiency became apparent only as the army tried to translate policy into practice. in the face of rising black protest and with direct orders from the white house, the army had announced that negroes would be assigned to all arms and branches in the same ratio as whites. several forces, however, worked against this equitable distribution. during the early months of mobilization the chiefs of those arms and services that had traditionally been all white accepted less than their share of black recruits and thus obliged some organizations, the quartermaster corps and the engineer corps in particular, to absorb a large percentage of black inductees. the imbalance worsened in . in december of that year negroes accounted for percent of the infantry and less than percent each of the air corps, medical corps, and signal corps. the quartermaster corps was percent black, the engineer corps percent, and unassigned and miscellaneous detachments were percent black. the rejection of black units could not always be ascribed to racism alone. with some justification the arms and services tried to restrict the number and distribution of negroes because black units measured far below their white counterparts in educational achievement and ability to absorb training, according to the army general classification test (agct). the army had introduced this test system in march as its principal instrument for the measurement of a soldier's learning ability. five categories, with the most gifted in category i, were used in classifying the scores made by the soldiers taking the test (_table _). the army planned to take officers and enlisted specialists from the top three categories and the semiskilled soldiers and laborers from the two lowest. table --classification of all men tested from march through december white black agct category number percentage number percentage i , . , . ii , , . , . iii , , . , . iv , , . , . v , . , . total , , . , . _source_: tab a, memo, g- for cofs, apr , ag . ( mar )( ). although there was considerable confusion on the subject, basically the army's mental tests measured educational achievement rather than native intelligence, and in educational achievement in the united states hinged more on geography and economics than color. though black and white recruits of comparable educations made comparable scores, the majority of negroes came from areas of the country where inferior schools combined with economic and cultural poverty to put them at a significant disadvantage.[ - ] many whites suffered similar (p.  ) disadvantages, and in absolute numbers more whites than blacks appeared in the lower categories. but whereas the army could distribute the low-scoring white soldiers throughout the service so that an individual unit could easily absorb its few illiterate and semiliterate white men, the army was obliged to assign an almost equal number of low-scoring negroes to the relatively few black units where they could neither be absorbed nor easily trained. by the same token, segregation penalized the educated negro whose talents were likely to be wasted when he was assigned to service units along with the unskilled. [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - . for an extended discussion of army test scores and their relation to education, see department of the army, _marginal man and military service: a review_ (washington: government printing office, ). this report was prepared for the deputy under secretary of the army for personnel management by a working group under the leadership of dr. samuel king, office of the chief of research and development.] segregation further hindered the efficient use of black manpower by complicating the training of black soldiers. although training facilities were at a premium, the army was forced to provide its training and replacement centers with separate housing and other facilities. with an extremely limited number of regular army negroes to draw from, the service had to create cadres for the new units and find officers to lead them. black recruits destined for most arms and services were assured neither units, billets, nor training cadres. the army's solution to the problem: lower the quotas for black inductees. the use of quotas to regulate inductees by race was itself a source of tension between the army and the bureau of selective service.[ - ] selective service questioned the legality of the whole procedure whereby white and black selectees were delivered on the basis of separate calls; in many areas of the country draft boards were under attack for passing over large numbers of negroes in order to fill these racial quotas. with the navy depending exclusively on volunteers, selective service had by early a backlog of , black registrants who, according to their order numbers, should have been called to service but had been passed over. selective service wanted to eliminate the quota system altogether. at the very least it demanded that the army accept more negroes to adjust the racial imbalance of the draft rolls. the army, determined to preserve the quota system, tried to satisfy the selective service's minimum demands, making room for more black inductees by forcing its arms (p.  ) and services to create more black units. again the cost to efficiency was high. [footnote - : for discussion of how selective service channeled manpower into the armed forces, see selective service system, special monograph number , _special groups_ (washington: government printing office, ), ch. viii, and special monograph number , _quotas, calls, and inductions_ (washington: government printing office, ), chs. iv-vi.] under the pressure of providing sufficient units for negroes, the organization of units for the sake of guaranteeing vacancies became a major goal. in some cases, careful examination of the usefulness of the types of units provided was subordinated to the need to create units which could receive negroes. as a result, several types of units with limited military value were formed in some branches for the specific purpose of absorbing otherwise unwanted negroes. conversely, certain types of units with legitimate and important military functions were filled with negroes who could not function efficiently in the tasks to which they were assigned.[ - ] [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, p. .] [illustration: engineer construction troops in liberia, july .] the practice of creating units for the specific purpose of absorbing negroes was particularly evident in the army air forces.[ - ] long considered the most recalcitrant of branches in accepting negroes, (p.  ) the air corps had successfully exempted itself from the allotment of black troops in the mobilization plans. black pilots could not be used, maj. gen. henry h. arnold, chief of the air corps, explained, "since this would result in having negro officers serving over white enlisted men. this would create an impossible social problem."[ - ] and this situation could not be avoided, since it would take several years to train black mechanics; meanwhile black pilots would have to work with white ground crews, often at distant bases outside their regular chain of command. the air corps faced strong opposition (p.  ) when both the civil rights advocates and the rest of the army attacked this exclusion. the civil rights organizations wanted a place for negroes in the glamorous air corps, but even more to the point the other arms and services wanted this large branch of the army to absorb its fair share of black recruits, thus relieving the rest of a disproportionate burden. [footnote - : the army's air arm was reorganized several times. designated as the army air corps in (the successor to the historic army air service), it became the army air forces in the summer of . this designation lasted until a separate u.s. air force was created in . organizationally, the army was divided in march into three equal parts: the army ground forces, the army service forces (originally services of supply), and the army air forces. this division was administrative. each soldier continued to be assigned to a branch of the army, for example, infantry, artillery, or air corps, a title retained as the name of an army branch.] [footnote - : memo, cofac for g- , may , sub: employment of negro personnel in air corps units, g- / -gen- .] [illustration: labor battalion troops in the aleutian islands, may . _stevedores pause for a hot meal at massacre bay._] [illustration: sergeant addressing the line. _aviation squadron standing inspection, ._] when the war department supported these demands the army air forces capitulated. its mobilization plans provided for the formation of nine separate black aviation squadrons which would perform the miscellaneous tasks associated with the upkeep of airfields. during the next year the chief of staff set the allotment of black recruits for the air arm at a rate that brought over , negroes into the air corps by . on january under secretary patterson announced the formation of a black pursuit squadron, but the army air forces, bowing to the opposition typified by general arnold's comments of the previous year, trained the black pilots in separate facilities at tuskegee, alabama, where the army tried to duplicate the expensive training center established for white officers at maxwell field, just forty miles away.[ - ] black pilots were at first trained exclusively for pursuit flying, a very difficult kind of combat for which a negro had to qualify both physically and technically or else, in judge (p.  ) hastie's words, "not fly at all."[ - ] the th fighter squadron was organized at tuskegee in and sent to the mediterranean theater in april . by then the all-black d fighter group with three additional fighter squadrons had been organized, and in it too was deployed to the mediterranean. [footnote - : usaf oral history program, interv with maj gen noel f parrish (usaf, ret.), mar .] [footnote - : william h. hastie, _on clipped wings: the story of jim crow in the army air corps_ (new york: naacp, ). based on war department documents and statistics, this famous pamphlet was essentially an attack on the army air corps. for a more comprehensive account of the negro and the army air forces, see osur, _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii_.] [illustration: pilots of the d fighter group being briefed _for combat mission in italy_.] these squadrons could use only a limited number of pilots, far fewer than those black cadets qualified for such training. all applicants in excess of requirements were placed on an indefinite waiting list where many became overage or were requisitioned for other military and civilian duties. yet when the army air forces finally decided to organize a black bomber unit, the th bombardment group, in late , it encountered a scarcity of black pilots and crewmen. because of the lack of technical and educational opportunities for negroes in america, fewer blacks than whites were included in the manpower pool, and tuskegee, already overburdened with its manifold training functions and lacking the means to train bomber crews, was unable to fill the training gap. sending black cadets to white training schools was one obvious solution; the army air forces chose instead to postpone the operational date of the th until its pilots could be trained at tuskegee. in the end, the th was not declared (p.  ) operational until after the war. even then some compromise with the army air forces' segregation principles was necessary, since tuskegee could not accommodate b- pilot transition and navigator-bombardier training. in black officers were therefore temporarily assigned to formerly all-white schools for such training. tuskegee's position as the sole and separate training center for black pilots remained inviolate until its closing in , however, and its graduates, the "tuskegee airmen," continued to serve as a powerful symbol of armed forces segregation.[ - ] [footnote - : for a detailed discussion of the black training program, see osur, _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii_, ch. iii; lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - ; charles e. francis, _the tuskegee airmen: the story of the negro in the u.s. air force_ (boston bruce humphries, ).] training for black officer candidates other than flyers, like that of most officer candidates throughout the army, was integrated. at first the possibility of integrated training seemed unlikely, for even though assistant secretary of war for air robert a. lovett had assured hastie that officer candidate training would be integrated, the technical training command announced plans in for a segregated facility. although the plans were quickly canceled the command's announcement was the immediate cause for hastie's resignation from the war department. the air staff assured the assistant secretary of war in january of that qualified negroes were being sent to officer candidate schools and to training courses "throughout the school system of the technical training command."[ - ] in fact, negroes did attend the air forces' officer candidate school at miami beach, although not in great numbers. in spite of their integrated training, however, most of these black officers were assigned to the predominantly black units at tuskegee and godman fields. [footnote - : memo, cofas for asw, jan , asw . .] the army air forces found it easier to absorb the thousands of black enlisted men than to handle the black flying squadrons. for the enlisted men it created a series of units with vaguely defined duties, usually common labor jobs operating for the most part under a bulk allotment system that allowed the air forces to absorb great numbers of new men. through hundreds of these aviation training squadrons, quartermaster truck companies, and engineer aviation and air base security battalions were added to the air forces' organization tables. practically every american air base in the world had its contingent of black troops performing the service duties connected with air operations. the air corps, like the armor and the artillery branches, was able to form separate squadrons or battalions for black troops, but the infantry and cavalry found it difficult to organize the growing number of separate black battalions and regiments. the creation of black divisions was the obvious solution, although this arrangement would run counter to current practice, which was based in part on the army's experience with the d division in world war i. convinced of the poor performance of that unit in , the war department had decided in the 's not to form any more black divisions. the regiment would serve as the basic black unit, and from time to time these regiments would be employed as organic elements of divisions whose other regiments and units would be white. in keeping with this decision, the black th and th cavalry regiments were combined in october (p.  ) with white regiments to form the d cavalry division. before world war ii most black leaders had agreed with the army's opposition to all-black divisions, but for different reasons. they considered that such divisions only served to strengthen the segregation pattern they so opposed. in the early weeks of the war a conference of black editors, including walter white, pressed for the creation of an experimental integrated division of volunteers. white argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a tremendous psychological effect upon white america," and refute the enemy's charge that "the united states talks about democracy but practices racial discrimination and segregation."[ - ] the naacp organized a popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many important individuals and organizations.[ - ] yet this experiment was unacceptable to the army. ignoring its experience with all-volunteer paratroopers and other special units, the war department declared that the volunteer system was "an ineffective and dangerous" method of raising combat units. admitting that the integrated division might be an encouraging gesture toward certain minorities, general marshall added that "the urgency of the present military situation necessitates our using tested and proved methods of procedure, and using them with all haste."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, walter white to gen marshall, dec , ag . ( - - ).] [footnote - : see c- , , volunteer division folder, naacp collection, manuscripts division, lc.] [footnote - : ltr, cofs to dorothy canfield fisher, feb , ocs - .] even though it rejected the idea of a volunteer, integrated division, the army staff reviewed in the fall of a proposal for the assignment of some black recruits to white units. the organization-mobilization group of g- , headed by col. edwin w. chamberlain, argued that the army general classification test scores proved that black soldiers in groups were less useful to the army than white soldiers in groups. it was a waste of manpower, funds, and equipment, therefore, to organize the increasingly large numbers of black recruits into segregated units. not only was such organization wasteful, but segregation "aggravated if not caused in its entirety" the racial friction that was already plaguing the army. to avoid both the waste and the strife, chamberlain recommended that the army halt the activation of additional black units and integrate black recruits in the low-score categories, iv and v, into white units in the ratio of one black to nine whites. the black recruits would be used as cooks, orderlies, and drivers, and in other jobs which required only the minimum basic training and which made up to percent of those in the average unit. negroes in the higher categories, i through iii, would be assigned to existing black units where they could be expected to improve the performance of those units. chamberlain defended his plan against possible charges of discrimination by pointing out that the negroes would be assigned wholly on the basis of native capacity, not race, and that this plan would increase the opportunities for negroes to participate in the war effort. to those who objected on the grounds that the proposal meant racial integration, chamberlain replied that there was no more integration involved than in "the (p.  ) employment of negroes as servants in a white household."[ - ] [footnote - : draft memo (initialed e.w.c.) for gen edwards, g- negro file, - . see also lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - .] the chamberlain plan and a variant proposed the following spring prompted discussion in the army staff that clearly revealed general dissatisfaction with the current policy. nonetheless, in the face of opposition from the service and ground forces, the plan was abandoned. yet because something had to be done with the mounting numbers of black draftees, the army staff reversed the decision made in its prewar mobilization plans and turned once more to the concept of the all-black division. the d infantry division was reactivated in the spring of and the d the following fall. the d cavalry division was reconstituted as an all-black unit and reactivated in february . these units were capable of absorbing , or more men each and could use men trained in the skills of practically every arm and service. this absorbency potential became increasingly important in when the chairman of the war manpower commission, paul v. mcnutt, began to attack the use of racial quotas in selecting inductees. he considered the practice of questionable legality, and the commission faced mounting public criticism as white husbands and fathers were drafted while single healthy negroes were not called.[ - ] secretary stimson defended the legality of the quota system. he did not consider the current practice "discriminatory in any way" so long as the army accepted its fair percentage of negroes. he pointed out that the selective service act provided that no man would be inducted "_unless and until_" he was acceptable to the services, and negroes were acceptable "only at a rate at which they can be properly assimilated."[ - ] stimson later elaborated on this theme, arguing that the quota system would be necessary even after the army reached full strength because inductions would be limited to replacement of losses. since there were few negroes in combat, their losses would be considerably less than those of whites. mcnutt disagreed with stimson's interpretation of the law and announced plans to abandon it as soon as the current backlog of uninducted negroes was absorbed, a date later set for january .[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, paul v. mcnutt to sw, feb , ag . ( - - ) ( ) sec. .] [footnote - : ltr, sw to mcnutt, feb , ag . ( - - ) ( ) sec. .] [footnote - : ltr, mcnutt to sw, mar , ag . ( - - ) ( ) sec. .] a crisis over the quota system was averted when, beginning in the spring of , the army's monthly manpower demands outran the ability of the bureau of selective service to provide black inductees. so long as the army requested more negroes than the bureau could supply, little danger existed that mcnutt would carry out his threat.[ - ] but it was no victory for the army. the question of the quota's legality remained unanswered, and it appeared that the army might be forced to abandon the system at some future time when there was a black surplus. [footnote - : the danger was further reduced when, as part of a national manpower allocation reform, president roosevelt removed the bureau of selective service from the war manpower commission's control and restored it to its independent status as the selective service system on december . see stimson and bundy, _on active service_, pp. - ; theodore wyckoff, "the office of the secretary of war under henry l. stimson," in cmh.] there were many reasons for the sudden shortage of black inductees (p.  ) in the spring of . since more negroes were leaving the service for health or other reasons, the number of calls for black draftees had increased. in addition, local draft boards were rejecting more negroes. but the basic reason for the shortage was that the magnitude of the war had finally turned the manpower surpluses of the 's into manpower shortages, and the shortages were appearing in black as well as white levies for the armed forces. the negro was no longer a manpower luxury. the quota calls for negroes rose in , and black strength stood at , men in september, approximately . percent of the whole army. [ - ] the percentage of black women in the army stayed at less than percent of the women's army auxiliary corps--after july the women's army corps--throughout the war. training and serving under the same racial policy that governed the employment of men, the women's corps also had a black recruitment goal of percent, but despite the active efforts of recruiters and generally favorable publicity from civil rights groups, the volunteer organization was unable to overcome the attitude among young black women that they would not be well received at army posts.[ - ] [footnote - : strength of the army, jan , stm- , p. .] [footnote - : memo, dir of mil pers, sos, for g- , sep , spgam/ . (waac) ( - - ). see also edwin r. embree, "report of informal visit to training camp for waac's des moines, iowa" (c. ), spwa . . for a general description of negroes in the women's army auxiliary corps, see mattie e. treadwell, _the women's army corps_, united states army in world war ii (washington: government printing office, ), especially chapter iii. see also lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - .] faced with manpower shortages, the army began to reassess its plan to distribute negroes proportionately throughout the arms and services. the demand for new service units had soared as the size of the overseas armies grew, while black combat units, unwanted by overseas commanders, had remained stationed in the united states. the war department hoped to ease the strain on manpower resources by converting black combat troops into service troops. a notable example of the wholesale conversion of such combat troops and one that received considerable notice in the press was the inactivation of the d cavalry division upon its arrival in north africa in march . victims of the change included the th and th cavalry regiments, historic combat units that had fought with distinction in the indian wars, with teddy roosevelt in cuba, and in the philippine insurrection.[ - ] [footnote - : inactivation of the d cavalry division began in february , and its headquarters completed the process on may. the th cavalry was inactivated on march, the th cavalry on march .] by trying to justify the conversion, secretary stimson only aggravated the controversy. in the face of congressional questions and criticism in the black press, stimson declared that the decision stemmed from a study of the relative abilities and status of training of the troops in the units available for conversion. if black units were particularly affected, it was because "many of the negro units have been unable to master efficiently the techniques of modern weapons."[ - ] thus, by the end of , the army had abandoned its attempt to maintain a balance between black combat and service units, and during the rest of the war most negroes were assigned to service units. [footnote - : ltr, sw to rep. hamilton fish, feb , reprinted in u.s. congress, house, _congressional record_, th cong., d sess., pp. - .] according to the war department, the relationship between negroes (p.  ) and the army was a mutual obligation. negroes had the right and duty to serve their country to the best of their abilities; the army had the right and the duty to see that they did so. true, the use of black troops was made difficult because their schooling had been largely inferior and their work therefore chiefly unskilled. nevertheless, the army staff concluded, all races were equally endowed for war and most of the less mentally alert could fight if properly led.[ - ] a manual on leadership observed: war department concern with the negro is focused directly and solely on the problem of the most effective use of colored troops ... the army has no authority or intention to participate in social reform as such but does view the problem as a matter of efficient troop utilization. with an imposed ceiling on the maximum strength of the army it is the responsibility of all officers to assure the most efficient use of the manpower assigned.[ - ] [footnote - : war department pamphlet - , _command of negro troops_, february .] [footnote - : army service forces manual m- , _leadership and the negro soldier_, october , p. iv.] but the best efforts of good officers could not avail against poor policy. although the army maintained that negroes had to bear a proportionate share of the casualties, by policy it assigned the majority to noncombat units and thus withheld the chance for them to assume an equal risk. subscribing to the advantage of making full use of individual abilities, the army nevertheless continued to consider negroes as a group and to insist that military efficiency required racially segregated units. segregation in turn burdened the service with the costly provision of separate facilities for the races. although a large number of negroes served in world war ii, their employment was limited in opportunity and expensive for the service. _the need for change_ if segregation weakened the army's organization for global war, it had even more serious effects on every tenth soldier, for as it deepened the negro's sense of inferiority it devastated his morale. it was a major cause of the poor performance and the disciplinary problems that plagued so many black units. and it made black soldiers blame their personal difficulties and misfortunes, many the common lot of any soldier, on racial discrimination.[ - ] [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, p. ; for a full discussion of morale, see ch. xi. see also david g. mandelbaum, _soldier groups and negro soldiers_ (berkeley: university of california press, ); charles dollard and donald young, "in the armed forces," _survey graphic_ (january ): ff.] deteriorating morale in black units and pressure from a critical audience of articulate negroes and their sympathizers led the war department to focus special attention on its race problem. early in the war secretary stimson had agreed with a general staff recommendation that a permanent committee be formed to evaluate racial incidents, propose special reforms, and answer questions involving the training and assignment of negroes.[ - ] on august he established the advisory committee on negro troop policies, with assistant secretary mccloy as chairman.[ - ] caught in the cross (p.  ) fire of black demands and army traditions, the committee contented itself at first with collecting information on the racial situation and acting as a clearinghouse for recommendations on the employment of black troops.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, g- for cofs, jul ; df, g- to tag, aug . both in ag (advisory cmte on negro trp policies, jul ) ( ).] [footnote - : the committee included the assistant chiefs of staff, g- , of the war department general staff, the air staff, and the army ground forces; the director of personnel, army service forces; general davis, representing the inspector general, and an acting secretary. the civilian aide to the secretary of war was not a member, although judge hastie's successor was made an _ex officio_ member in march . see min of mtg of advisory cmte, col j. s. leonard, mar , asw . ntc.] [footnote - : see, for example, memo, recorder, cmte on negro troop policies (col john h. mccormick), for cofs, sub: negro troops, wdcsa . ( - - ).] [illustration: service club, fort huachuca.] serious racial trouble was developing by the end of the first year of the war. the trouble was a product of many factors, including the psychological effects of segregation which may not have been so obvious to the committee or even to the black soldier. other factors, however, were visible to all and begged for remedial action. for example, the practice of using racially separated facilities on military posts, which was not sanctioned in the army's basic plan for black troops, took hold early in the war. many black units were located at camps in the south, where commanders insisted on applying local laws and customs inside the military reservations. this (p.  ) practice spread rapidly, and soon in widely separated sections of the country commanders were separating the races in theaters, post exchanges, service clubs, and buses operating on posts. the accommodations provided negroes were separate but rarely equal, and substandard recreational and housing facilities assigned to black troops were a constant source of irritation. in fact the army, through the actions of local commanders, actually introduced jim crow in some places at home and abroad. negroes considered such practices in violation of military regulations and inconsistent with the announced principles for which the united states was fighting. many believed themselves the victims of the personal prejudices of the local commander. judge hastie reported their feelings: "the traditional mores of the south have been widely accepted and adopted by the army as the basis of policy and practice affecting the negro soldier.... in tactical organization, in physical location, in human contacts, the negro soldier is separated from the white soldier as completely as possible."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, hastie for sw, sep , sub: survey and recommendations concerning the integration of the negro soldier into the army, g- / - .] in november another controversy erupted over the discovery that the red cross had established racially segregated blood banks. the red cross readily admitted that it had no scientific justification for the racial separation of blood and blamed the armed services for the decision. despite the evidence of science and at risk of demoralizing the black community, the army's surgeon general defended the controversial practice as necessary to insure the acceptance of a potentially unpopular program. ignoring constant criticism from the naacp and elements of the black press, the armed forces continued to demand segregated blood banks throughout the war. negroes appreciated the irony of the situation, for they were well aware that a black doctor, charles r. drew, had been a pioneer researcher in the plasma extraction process and had directed the first red cross blood bank.[ - ] [footnote - : on january the navy announced that "in deference to the wishes of those for whom the plasma is being provided, the blood will be processed separately so that those receiving transfusions may be given blood of their own race." three days later the chief of the bureau of medicine, who was also the president's personal physician, told the secretary of the navy, "it is my opinion that at this time we cannot afford to open up a subject such as mixing blood or plasma regardless of the theoretical fact that there is no chemical difference in human blood." see memo, rear adm ross t. mcintire for secnav, jan , genrecsnav. see also florence murray, ed., _negro handbook, - _ (new york: a. a. wyn, ), pp. - . for effect of segregated blood banks on black morale, see mary a. morton, "the federal government and negro morale," _journal of negro education_ (summer ): , - .] black morale suffered further in the leadership crisis that developed in black units early in the war. the logic of segregated units demanded a black officer corps, but there were never enough black officers to command all the black units. in only . percent of the negroes in the army were officers, a shortcoming that could not be explained by poor education alone.[ - ] but when the number of black officers did begin to increase, obstacles to their employment appeared: some white commanders, assuming that negroes did not possess leadership ability and that black troops preferred white (p.  ) officers, demanded white officers for their units. limited segregated recreational and living facilities for black officers prevented their assignment to some bases, while the active opposition of civilian communities forced the army to exclude them from others. the army staff practice of forbidding negroes to outrank or command white officers serving in the same unit not only limited the employment and restricted the rank of black officers but also created invidious distinctions between white and black officers in the same unit. it tended to convince enlisted men that their black leaders were not full-fledged officers. thus restricted in assignment and segregated socially and professionally, his ability and status in question, the black officer was often an object of scorn to himself and to his men. [footnote - : eli ginzberg, _the negro potential_ (new york: columbia university press, ), p. . ginzberg points out that only about one out of ten black soldiers in the upper two mental categories became an officer, compared to one out of four white soldiers.] the attitude and caliber of white officers assigned to black units hardly compensated for the lack of black officers. in general, white officers resented their assignment to black units and were quick to seek transfer. worse still, black units, where sensitive and patient leaders were needed to create an effective military force, often became, as they had in earlier wars, dumping grounds for officers unwanted in white units.[ - ] the army staff further aggravated black sensibilities by showing a preference for officers of southern birth and training, believing them to be generally more competent to exercise command over negroes. in reality many negroes, especially those from the urban centers, particularly resented southern officers. at best these officers appeared paternalistic, and negroes disliked being treated as a separate and distinct group that needed special handling and protection. as general davis later circumspectly reported, "many colored people of today expect only a certain line of treatment from white officers born and reared in the south, namely, that which follows the southern pattern, which is most distasteful to them."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dcofs to cg, aaf, aug , sub: professional qualities of officers assigned to negro units, wdgap . ; memo, cg, vii corps, to cg, agf, aug , same sub, gnags . .] [footnote - : brig gen b. o. davis, "history of a special section office of the inspector general ( june to november )," p. , in cmh.] some of these humiliations might have been less demeaning had the black soldier been convinced that he was a full partner in the crusade against fascism. as news of the conversion of black units from combat to service duties and the word that no new black combat units were being organized became a matter of public knowledge, the black press asked: will any black combat units be left? will any of those left be allowed to fight? in fact, would black units ever get overseas? actually, the army had a clear-cut plan for the overseas employment of both black service and combat units. in may the war department directed the army air forces, ground forces, and service forces to make sure that black troops were ordered overseas in numbers not less than their percentage in each of these commands. theater commanders would be informed of orders moving black troops to their commands, but they would not be asked to agree to their shipment beforehand. since troop shipments to the british isles were the chief concern at (p.  ) that time, the order added that "there will be no positive restrictions on the use of colored troops in the british isles, but shipment of colored units to the british isles will be limited, initially, to those in the service categories."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg, aaf, et al., may , ag . ( - - ).] the problem here was not the army's policy but the fact that certain foreign governments and even some commanders in american territories wanted to exclude negroes. some countries objected to black soldiers because they feared race riots and miscegenation. others with large black populations of their own felt that black soldiers with their higher rates of pay might create unrest. still other countries had national exclusion laws. in the case of alaska and trinidad, secretary stimson ordered, "don't yield." speaking of iceland, greenland, and labrador, he commented, "pretty cold for blacks." to the request of panamanian officials that a black signal construction unit be withdrawn from their country he replied, "tell them [the black unit] they must complete their work--it is ridiculous to raise such objections when the panama canal itself was built with black labor." as for chile and venezuela's exclusion of negroes he ruled that "as we are the petitioners here we probably must comply."[ - ] stimson's rulings led to a new war department policy: henceforth black soldiers would be assigned without regard to color except that they would not be sent to extreme northern areas or to any country against its will when the united states had requested the right to station troops in that country.[ - ] [footnote - : stimson's comments were not limited to overseas areas. to a request by the second army commander that negroes be excluded from maneuvers in certain areas of the american south he replied: "no, get the southerners used to them!" memo, acofs, wpd, for cofs, mar , sub: the colored troop problem, opd . . stimson's comments are written marginally in ink and initialed "h.l.s."] [footnote - : memo, g- for tag, apr , and revised proposals, apr and apr . all in g- / - .] ultimately, theater commanders decided which troops would be committed to action and which units would be needed overseas; their decisions were usually respected by the war department where few believed that washington should dictate such matters. unwilling to add racial problems to their administrative burdens, some commanders had been known to cancel their request for troops rather than accept black units. consequently, very few negroes were sent overseas in the early years of the war. black soldiers were often the victims of gross discrimination that transcended their difficulties with the army's administration. for instance, black soldiers, particularly those from more integrated regions of the country, resented local ordinances governing transportation and recreation facilities that put them at a great disadvantage in the important matters of leave and amusement. infractions of local rules were inevitable and led to heightened racial tension and recurring violence.[ - ] at times black soldiers themselves, reflecting the low morale and lack of discipline in their units, instigated the violence. whoever the culprits, the army's files are replete with cases of discrimination charged, investigations launched, and exonerations issued or reforms ordered.[ - ] an incredible amount of time and effort went into handling these cases during the darkest days of the war--cases growing out of a policy (p.  ) created in the name of military efficiency. [footnote - : memo, civilian aide to sw, nov , asw . nt.] [footnote - : see, for example, aaf central decimal files for october -may (rg ). for an extended discussion of this subject, see lee, _employment of negro troops_, ch xi-xiii.] nor was the violence limited to the united states. racial friction also developed in great britain where some american troops, resenting their black countrymen's social acceptance by the british, tried to export jim crow by forcing the segregation of recreational facilities. appreciating the treatment they were receiving from the british, the black soldiers fought back, and the clashes grew at times to riot proportions. general davis considered discrimination and prejudice the cause of trouble, but he placed the immediate blame on local commanders. many commanders, convinced that they had little jurisdiction over racial disputes in the civilian community or simply refusing to accept responsibility, delegated the task of keeping order to their noncommissioned officers and military police.[ - ] these men, rarely experienced in handling racial disturbances and often prejudiced against black soldiers, usually managed to exacerbate the situation. [footnote - : memo, brig gen b. o. davis for the ig, dec , ig . -great britain.] in an atmosphere charged with rumors and counterrumors, personal incidents involving two men might quickly blow up into riots involving hundreds. in the summer of the army began to reap what ulysses lee called the "harvest of disorder." race riots occurred at military reservations in mississippi, georgia, california, texas, and kentucky. at other stations, the advisory committee on negro troop policies somberly warned, there were indications of unrest ready to erupt into violence.[ - ] by the middle of the war, violence over racial issues at home and abroad had become a source of constant concern for the war department. [footnote - : memo, asw for cofs, jul , sub: negro troops, asw . nt. the judge advocate general described disturbances of this type as military "mutiny." see the judge advocate general, _military justice, july to december _, p. , in cmh.] _internal reform: amending racial practices_ concern over troop morale and discipline and the attendant problem of racial violence did not lead to a substantial revision of the army's racial policy. on the contrary, the army staff continued to insist that segregation was a national issue and that the army's task was to defend the country, not alter its social customs. until the nation changed its racial practices or until congress ordered such changes for the armed forces, racially separated units would remain.[ - ] in the army had insisted that debate on the subject was closed,[ - ] and, in fact, except for discussion of the chamberlain plan there was no serious thought of revising racial policy in the army staff until after the war. [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, p. .] [footnote - : ltr, tag to dr. amanda v. g. hillyer, chmn program cmte, d.c. branch, naacp, apr , ag . ( - - ) ( ).] had the debate been reopened in , the traditionalists on the army staff would have found new support for their views in a series of surveys made of white and black soldiers in and . these surveys supported the theory that the army, a national institution (p.  ) composed of individual citizens with pronounced views on race, would meet massive disobedience and internal disorder as well as national resistance to any substantial change in policy. one extensive survey, covering , soldiers in ninety-two units, revealed that percent of the whites and percent of the negroes preferred segregated units. among the whites, percent preferred separate service clubs and percent preferred separate post exchanges. almost half of the negroes thought separate service clubs and post exchanges were a good idea.[ - ] these attitudes merely reflected widely held national views as suggested in a survey of five key cities by the office of war information.[ - ] the survey showed that percent of the whites and percent of the blacks questioned supported segregation. [footnote - : research branch, special service division, "what the soldier thinks," december , and "attitudes of the negro soldier," july . both cited in lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - . for detailed analysis, see samuel a. stouffer et al., _studies in social psychology in world war ii_, vol. i, _the american soldier: adjustment during army life_ (princeton: princeton university press, ), pp. - . for a more personal view of black experiences in world war ii service clubs, see margaret halsey's _color blind: a white woman looks at the negro_ (new york: simon and schuster, ). for a comprehensive expression of the attitudes of black soldiers, see mary p. motley, ed., _the invisible soldier: the experience of the black soldier, world war ii_ (detroit: wayne state university press, ), a compilation of oral histories by world war ii veterans. although these interviews were conducted a quarter of a century after the event and in the wake of the modern civil rights movement, they provide useful insight to the attitude of black soldiers toward discrimination in the services.] [footnote - : office of war information, the negroes' role in the war: a study of white and colored opinions (memorandum , surveys division, bureau of special services), jul , in cmh.] some army officials considered justification by statistics alone a risky business. reviewing the support for segregation revealed in the surveys, for example, the special services division commented: "many of the negroes and some of the whites who favor separation in the army indicate by their comments that they are opposed to segregation in principle. they favor separation in the army to avoid trouble or unpleasantness." its report added that the longer a negro remained in the army, the less likely he was to support segregation.[ - ] nor did it follow from the overwhelming support for segregation that a policy of integration would result in massive resistance. as critics later pointed out, the same surveys revealed that almost half the respondents expressed a strong preference for civilian life, but the army did not infer that serious disorders would result if these men were forced to remain in uniform.[ - ] [footnote - : special services division, "what the soldier thinks," number , august , pp. - , ssd . .] [footnote - : dollard and young, "in the armed forces," p. .] by negroes within and without the war department had just about exhausted arguments for a policy change. after two years of trying, judge hastie came to believe that change was possible only in response to "strong and manifest public opinion." he concluded that he would be far more useful as a private citizen who could express his views freely and publicly than he was as a war department employee, bound to conform to official policy. quitting the department, hastie joined the increasingly vocal black organizations in a sustained attack on the army's segregation policy, an attack that was also being translated into political action by the major civil rights organizations. in , a full year before the national elections, representatives of twenty-five civil rights groups met and formulated the demands (p.  ) they would make of the presidential candidates: full integration (some groups tempered this demand by calling for integrated units of volunteers); abolition of racial quotas; abolition of segregation in recreational and other army facilities; abolition of blood plasma segregation; development of an educational program in race relations in the army; greater black participation in combat forces; and the progressive removal of black troops from areas where they were subject to disrespect, abuse, and even violence.[ - ] [footnote - : new york _times_, december , .] the army could not afford to ignore these demands completely, as truman k. gibson, jr., judge hastie's successor, pointed out.[ - ] the political situation indicated that the racial policy of the armed forces would be an issue in the next national election. recalling the changes forced on the army as a result of political pressures applied before the election, gibson predicted that actions that might now seem impolitic to the army and the white house might not seem so during the next campaign when the black vote could influence the outcome in several important states, including new york, pennsylvania, illinois, and michigan. already the chicago _tribune_ and other anti-administration groups were trying to encourage black protest in terms not always accurate but nonetheless believable to the black voter. gibson suggested that the army act before the political pressure became even more intense.[ - ] [footnote - : gibson, a lawyer and a graduate of the university of chicago, became judge hastie's assistant in . after hastie's resignation on january , gibson served as acting civilian aide and assumed the position permanently on september . see memo, asw for admin asst (john w. martyn), sep , asw . nt-civ aide.] [footnote - : memo, gibson to asw, nov , asw . nt. see also new york _times_, december , .] caught between the black demands and war department traditions, the advisory committee on negro troop policies launched an attack--much too late and too weak, its critics agreed--on what it perceived as the causes of the army's racial disorders. some of the credit for this attack must go to truman gibson. no less dedicated to abolition of racial segregation than hastie, gibson eschewed the grand gesture and emphasized those practical changes that could be effected one step at a time. for all his zeal, gibson was admirably detached.[ - ] he knew that his willingness to recognize that years of oppression and injustice had marred the black soldier's performance would earn for him the scorn of many civil rights activists, but he also knew that his fairness made him an effective advocate in the war department. he worked closely with mccloy's committee, always describing with his alternatives for action their probable effect upon the army, the public, and the developing military situation. as a result of the close cooperation between the advisory committee and gibson, the army for the first time began to agree on practical if not policy changes. [footnote - : for discussion of gibson's attitude and judgments, see interv, author with evans, jun .] the advisory committee's first campaign was directed at local commanders. after a long review of the evidence, the committee was convinced that the major cause of racial disorder was the failure of commanders in some echelons to appreciate the seriousness of racial unrest and their own responsibility for dealing with the discipline, morale, and (p.  ) welfare of their men. since it found that most disturbances began with real or fancied incidents of discrimination, the committee concluded that there should be no discrimination against negroes in the matter of privileges and accommodations and none in favor of negroes that compromised disciplinary standards. the committee wanted local commanders to be reminded that maintaining proper discipline and good order among soldiers, and between soldiers and civilians, was a definite command responsibility.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chmn, advisory cmte, for cofs, jul , sub: negro troops, asw . nt. this was not sent until july.] general marshall incorporated the committee's recommendations in a letter to the field. he concluded by saying that "failure on the part of any commander to concern himself personally and vigorously with this problem will be considered as evidence of lack of capacity and cause for reclassification and removal from assignment."[ - ] at the same time, the chief of staff did not adopt several of the committee's specific recommendations. he did not require local commanders to recommend changes in war department policy on the treatment of negroes and the organization and employment of black units. nor did he require them to report on steps taken by them to follow the committee's recommendations. moreover, he did not order the dispatch of black combat units to active theaters although the committee had pointed to this course as "the most effective means of reducing tension among negro troops." [footnote - : memo, cofs for cg, aaf, et al., jul , sub: negro troops, wdcsa . .] next, the advisory committee turned its attention to the black press. judge hastie and the representatives of the senior civil rights organizations were judicious in their criticism and accurate in their charges, but this statement could not be made for much of the black press. along with deserving credit for spotlighting racial injustices and giving a very real impetus to racial progress, a segment of the black press had to share the blame for fomenting racial disorder by the frequent publication of inaccurate and inflammatory war stories. some field commanders charged that the constant criticism was detrimental to troop morale and demanded that the war department investigate and even censor particular black newspapers. in july the army service forces recommended that general marshall officially warn the editors against printing inciting and untrue stories and suggested that if this caution failed sedition proceedings be instituted against the culprits.[ - ] general marshall followed a more moderate course suggested by assistant secretary mccloy.[ - ] the army staff amplified and improved the services of the bureau of public relations by appointing negroes to the bureau and by releasing more news items of special interest to black journalists. the result was a considerable increase in constructive and accurate stories on (p.  ) black participation in the war, although articles and editorials continued to be severely critical of the army's segregation policy. [footnote - : memo, advisory cmte for cofs, mar , sub: inflammatory publications, asw . nt cmte; memo, cg, th service cmd, asf, to cg, asf, jul , sub: disturbances among negro troops, with attached note initialed by gen marshall, wdcsa . ( jul ).] [footnote - : memo, j. j. mcc (john j. mccloy) for gen marshall, jul , with attached note signed "gcm," asw . nt.] the proposal to send black units into combat, rejected by marshall when raised by the advisory committee in , became the preeminent racial issue in the army during the next year.[ - ] it was vitally necessary, the advisory committee reasoned, that black troops not be wasted by leaving them to train endlessly in camps around the country, and that the war department begin making them a "military asset." in march it recommended to secretary stimson that black units be introduced into combat and that units and training schedules be reorganized if necessary to insure that this deployment be carried out as promptly as possible. elaborating on the committee's recommendation, chairman mccloy added: there has been a tendency to allow the situation to develop where selections are made on the basis of efficiency with the result that the colored units are discarded for combat service, but little is done by way of studying new means to put them in shape for combat service. with so large a portion of our population colored, with the example of the effective use of colored troops (of a much lower order of intelligence) by other nations, and with the many imponderables that are connected with the situation, we must, i think, be more affirmative about the use of our negro troops. if present methods do not bring them to combat efficiency, we should change those methods. that is what this resolution purports to recommend.[ - ] [footnote - : min of mtg of advisory cmte on negro troop policies, feb , asw . negro troops cmte; lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - .] [footnote - : memo, asw for sw, mar , inclosing formal recommendations, wdcsa . / negroes ( ).] stimson agreed, and on march the advisory committee met with members of the army staff to decide on combat assignments for regimental combat teams from the d and d divisions. in order that both handpicked soldiers and normal units might be tested, the team from the d would come from existing units of that division, and the one from the d would be a specially selected group of volunteers. general marshall and his associates continued to view the commitment of black combat troops as an experiment that might provide documentation for the future employment of negroes in combat.[ - ] in keeping with this experiment, the army staff suggested to field commanders how negroes might be employed and requested continuing reports on the units' progress. [footnote - : pogue, _organizer of victory_, p. .] the belated introduction of major black units into combat helped alleviate the army's racial problems. after elements of the d division were committed on bougainville in march and an advanced group of the d landed in italy in july, the army staff found it easier to ship smaller supporting units to combat theaters, either as separate units or as support for larger units, a course that reduced the glut of black soldiers stationed in the united states. recognizing that many of these units had poor leaders, lt. gen. lesley j. mcnair, head of the army ground forces, ordered that, "if practicable," all leaders of black units who had not received "excellent" or higher (p.  ) in their efficiency ratings would be replaced before the units were scheduled for overseas deployment.[ - ] given the "if practicable" loophole, there was little chance that all the units would go overseas with "excellent" commanders. [footnote - : memo, cg, agf, for cg's, second army, et al., n.d., sub: efficiency ratings of commanders of negro units scheduled for overseas shipment, gngap-l . / .] [illustration: d division troops in bougainville, april . _men, packing mortar shells, cross the west branch texas river._] a source of pride to the black community, the troop commitments also helped to reduce national racial tensions, but they did little for the average black soldier who remained stationed in the united states. he continued to suffer discrimination within and without the gates of the camp. the committee attributed that discrimination to the fact that war department policy was not being carried out in all commands. in some instances local commanders were unaware of the policy; in others they refused to pay sufficient attention to the seriousness of what was, after all, but one of many problems facing them. for some time committee members had been urging the war department to write special instructions, and finally in february the department issued a pamphlet designed to acquaint local commanders with an official definition of army racial policy and to improve methods of developing leaders in black units. _command of negro troops_ was a landmark (p.  ) publication.[ - ] its frank statement of the army's racial problems, its scholarly and objective discussion of the disadvantages that burdened the black soldier, and its outline of black rights and responsibilities clearly revealed the committee's intention to foster racial harmony by promoting greater command responsibility. the pamphlet represented a major departure from previous practice and served as a model for later army and navy statements on race.[ - ] [footnote - : wd pam - , _command of negro troops_, feb .] [footnote - : the army service forces published a major supplement to war department pamphlet - in october , see army service forces manual m- , _leadership and the negro soldier_.] but pamphlets alone would not put an end to racial discrimination; the committee had to go beyond its role of instructor. although the war department had issued a directive on march forbidding the assignment of any recreational facility, "including theaters and post exchanges," by race and requiring the removal of signs labeling facilities for "white" and "colored" soldiers, there had been little alteration in the recreational situation. the directive had allowed the separate use of existing facilities by designated units and camp areas, so that in many places segregation by unit had replaced separation by race, and inspectors and commanders reported that considerable confusion existed over the war department's intentions. on other posts the order to remove the racial labels from facilities was simply disregarded. on july the committee persuaded the war department to issue another directive clearly informing commanders that facilities could be allocated to specific areas or units, but that all post exchanges and theaters must be opened to all soldiers regardless of race. all government transportation, moreover, was to be available to all troops regardless of race. nor could soldiers be restricted to certain sections of government vehicles on or off base, regardless of local customs.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg, aaf, et al., jul , sub: recreational facilities, ag . ( jul ) ob-s-a-m.] little dramatic change ensued in day-to-day life on base. some commanders, emphasizing that part of the directive which allowed the designation of facilities for units and areas, limited the degree of the directive's application to post exchanges and theaters and ignored those provisions concerned with individual rights. this interpretation only added to the racial unrest that culminated in several incidents, of which the one at the officers' club at freeman field, indiana, was the most widely publicized.[ - ] after this incident the committee promptly asked for a revision of wd pamphlet - on the command of black troops that would clearly spell out the intention of the authors of the directive to apply its integration provisions explicitly to "officers' clubs, messes, or similar social organizations."[ - ] in effect the war department was declaring that racial separation applied to units only. for the first time it made a clear distinction (p.  ) between army race policy to be applied on federal military reservations and local civilian laws and customs to be observed by members of the armed forces when off post. in acting secretary patterson's words: the war department has maintained throughout the emergency and present war that it is not an appropriate medium for effecting social readjustments but has insisted that all soldiers, regardless of race, be afforded equal opportunity to enjoy the recreational facilities which are provided at posts, camps and stations. the thought has been that men who are fulfilling the same obligation, suffering the same dislocation of their private lives, and wearing the identical uniform should, within the confines of the military establishment, have the same privileges for rest and relaxation.[ - ] [footnote - : actually, the use of officers' clubs by black troops was clearly implied if not ordained in paragraph of army regulation - , december , which stated that any club operating on federal property must be open to all officers assigned to the post, camp, or station. for more on the freeman field incident, see chapter , below.] [footnote - : memo, secy, advisory cmte, for advisory cmte on special troop policies, jun , sub: minutes of meeting, asw . nt.] [footnote - : ltr, actg sw to gov. chauncey sparks of alabama, sep , wdcsa . ( aug ).] widely disseminated by the black press as the "anti-jim crow law," the directive and its interpretation by senior officials produced the desired result. although soldiers most often continued to frequent the facilities in their own base areas, in effect maintaining racial separation, they were free to use any facilities, and this knowledge gradually dispelled some of the tensions on posts where restrictions of movement had been a constant threat to good order. with some pride, assistant secretary mccloy claimed on his advisory committee's first birthday that the army had "largely eliminated discrimination against the negroes within its ranks, going further in this direction than the country itself."[ - ] he was a little premature. not until the end of did the advisory committee succeed in eliminating the most glaring examples of discrimination within the army. even then race remained an issue, and isolated racial incidents continued to occur. [footnote - : ltr, asw to herbert b. elliston, editor, washington _post_, aug , asw . nt (gen).] _two exceptions_ departmental policy notwithstanding, a certain amount of racial integration was inevitable during a war that mobilized a biracial army of eight million men. through administrative error or necessity, segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white soldiers often worked and lived together in hospitals,[ - ] rest camps, schools, and, more rarely, units. but these were isolated cases, touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on racial policy. of much more importance was the deliberate integration in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the european theater in . mccloy referred to these deviations from policy as experiments "too limited to afford general conclusions."[ - ] but if they set no precedents, they at least challenged the army's cherished assumptions on segregation and strengthened the postwar demands for change. [footnote - : ltr, usw to roane waring, national cmdr, american legion, may , sw . nt. integrated hospitals did not appear until . see robert j. parks, "the development of segregation in u.s. army hospitals, - ," _military affairs_ (december ): - .] [footnote - : ltr, asw to secnav, aug , asw . nt (gen).] the army integrated its officer candidate training in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the world war i program. in secretary of war newton d. baker had established a separate training school for (p.  ) black officer candidates at fort des moines, iowa, with disappointing results. to fill its quotas the school had been forced to lower its entrance standards, and each month an arbitrary number of black officer candidates were selected and graduated with little regard for their qualifications. many world war i commanders agreed that the black officers produced by the school proved inadequate as troop commanders, and postwar staff studies generally opposed the future use of black officers. should the army be forced to accept black officers in the future, these commanders generally agreed, they should be trained along with whites.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, william hastie to lee nichols, jul , in nichols collection, cmh; see also lee, _employment of negro troops_ pp. - ; army war college misc file - through - , amhrc.] [illustration: gun crew of battery b, th field artillery, _moving into position near the arno river, italy, september _.] despite these criticisms, mobilization plans between the wars all assumed that black officers would be trained and commissioned, although, as the mobilization plan put it, their numbers would be limited to those required to provide officers for organizations authorized to have black officers.[ - ] no detailed plans were drawn up on the nature of this training, but by the eve of world war ii a policy had become fixed: negroes were to be chosen and trained according to the same standards as white officers, preferably in the same schools.[ - ] the war department ignored the subject of race (p.  ) when it established the officer candidate schools in . "the basic and predominating consideration governing selections to ocs," the adjutant general announced, would be "outstanding qualities of leadership as demonstrated by actual services in the army."[ - ] general davis, who participated in the planning conferences, reasoned that integrated training would be vital for the cooperation that would be necessary in battle. he agreed with the war department's silence on race, adding, "you can't have negro, white, or jewish officers, you've got to have american officers."[ - ] [footnote - : as published in mobilization regulation - ( and may versions), par. d, and jul version, par. b.] [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, p. .] [footnote - : tag ltr, apr , ag ( - - ) m-m-c.] [footnote - : davis, "history of a special section office of the inspector general."] [illustration: tankers of the st medium tank battalion _prepare for action in the european theater, august _.] the army's policy failed to consider one practical problem: if race was ignored in war department directives, would black candidates ever be nominated and selected for officer training? early enrollment figures suggested they would not. between july , when the schools opened, and october , only seventeen out of the , students enrolled in candidate schools were negroes. only six more negroes entered during the next two months.[ - ] [footnote - : eleven of these were candidates at the infantry school, at the field artillery school, at the quartermaster school, and each at the cavalry, ordnance, and finance schools. memo, tag for admin asst, osw, sep , sub: request of the civ aide to the sw for data relative to negro soldiers, ag . ( - - ) m; memo, tag for civ aide to sw, nov , sub: request for data relative to negro soldiers admitted to ocs, ag . ( - - ) rb.] some civil rights spokesmen argued for the establishment of a (p.  ) quota system, and a few negroes even asked for a return to segregated schools to insure a more plentiful supply of black officers. even before the schools opened, judge hastie warned secretary stimson that any effective integration plan "required a directive to corps area commanders indicating that negroes are to be selected in numbers exactly or approximately indicated for particular schools."[ - ] but the planners had recommended the integrated schools precisely to avoid a quota system. they were haunted by the army's experience, although the chief of the army staff's organizations division did not allude to these misgivings when he answered judge hastie. he argued that a quota could not be defended on any grounds "except those of a political nature" and would be "race discrimination against the whites."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, hastie to sw, may , asw . nt.] [footnote - : memo, acofs, g- , for cofs, may , sub: negro officers; memo, acofs, g- , for acofs, g- (attn: col wharton), jun , same sub. both in wdgot . .] general marshall agreed that racial parity could not be achieved at the expense of commissioning unqualified men, but he was equally adamant about providing equal opportunity for all qualified candidates, black and white. he won support for his position from some of the civil rights advocates.[ - ] these arguments may not have swayed hastie, but in the end he dropped the idea of a regular quota system, judging it unworkable in the case of the officer candidate schools. he concluded that many commanders approached the selection of officer candidates with a bias against the negro, and he recommended that a directive or confidential memorandum be sent to commanders charged with the selection of officer candidates informing them that a certain minimum percentage of black candidates was to be chosen. hastie's recommendation was ignored, but the widespread refusal of local commanders to approve or transmit applications of negroes, or even to give them access to appropriate forms, halted when secretary stimson and the army staff made it plain that they expected substantial numbers of negroes to be sent to the schools.[ - ] [footnote - : pogue, _organizer of victory_, p. .] [footnote - : memo, hastie for asw, sep , g- / - ; ltr, hastie to nichols, jul ; tab c to ag . ( - - ).] the national association for the advancement of colored people meanwhile moved quickly to prove that the demand for a return to segregated schools, made by edgar g. brown, president of the united states government employees, and broadcaster fulton lewis, jr., enjoyed little backing in the black community. "we respectfully submit," walter white informed stimson and roosevelt, "that no leader considered responsible by intelligent negro or white americans would make such a request."[ - ] in support of its stand the naacp issued a statement signed by many influential black leaders. [footnote - : telg, walter white, naacp, to sw and president roosevelt, oct , ag . ( - - ) ( ); ltr, edgar w. brown to president roosevelt and sw, oct , ag . ( - - ) ( ). see also memo, acofs, g- , for cofs, oct , sub: negro officer candidate schools, g- / .] [illustration: waac replacements _training at fort huachuca, december _.] the segregationists attacked integration of the officer candidate (p.  ) schools for the obvious reasons. a group of florida congressmen, for example, protested to the army against the establishment of an integrated air corps school at miami beach. the war department received numerous complaints when living quarters at the schools were integrated. the president of the white supremacy league complained that young white candidates at fort benning "have to eat and sleep with negro candidates," calling it "the most damnable outrage that was ever perpetrated on the youth of the south." to all such complaints the war department answered that separation was not always possible because of the small number of negroes involved.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, horace wilkinson to rep. john j. sparkman (alabama), aug ; ltr, tag to rep. john starnes (alabama), sep . both in ag (wilkinson) ( aug ). see also interv, nichols with ulysses lee, .] in answering these complaints the army developed its ultimate justification for integrated officer schools: integration was necessary on the grounds of efficiency and economy. as one army spokesman put it, "our objection to separate schools is based (p.  ) primarily on the fact that black officer candidates are eligible from every branch of the army, including the armored force and tank destroyer battalions, and it would be decidedly uneconomical to attempt to gather in one school the materiel and instructor personnel necessary to give training in all these branches."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, sgs to sen. carl hayden (arizona), dec , ag ( - - ). see also memo, acofs, g- , for cofs, oct , sub: negro officer candidate schools, g- / .] officer candidate training was the army's first formal experiment with integration. many blacks and whites lived together with a minimum of friction, and, except in flight school, all candidates trained together.[ - ] yet in some schools the number of black officer candidates made racially separate rooms feasible, and negroes were usually billeted and messed together. in other instances army organizations were slow to integrate their officer training. the women's army auxiliary corps, for example, segregated black candidates until late when judge hastie brought the matter to mccloy's attention.[ - ] nevertheless, the army's experiment was far more important than its immediate results indicated. it proved that even in the face of considerable opposition the army was willing to abandon its segregation policy when the issues of economy and efficiency were made sufficiently clear and compelling. [footnote - : dollard and young, "in the armed forces."] [footnote - : memos, hastie for asw, nov and dec ; ltr, maj gen a. d. bruce, cmdr, tank destroyer center, to asw, dec . all in asw . nt ( - - ).] the army's second experiment with integration came in part from the need for infantry replacements during the allied advance across western europe in the summer and fall of .[ - ] the ground force replacement command had been for some time converting soldiers from service units to infantry, and even as the germans launched their counterattack in the ardennes the command was drawing up plans to release thousands of soldiers in lt. gen. john c. h. lee's communications zone and train them as infantrymen. these plans left the large reservoir of black manpower in the theater untapped until general lee suggested that general dwight d. eisenhower permit black service troops to volunteer for infantry training and eventual employment as individual replacements. general eisenhower agreed, and on december lee issued a call to the black troops for volunteers to share "the privilege of joining our veteran units at the front to deliver the knockout blow." the call was limited to privates in the upper four categories of the army general classification test who had had some infantry training. if noncommissioned officers wanted to apply, they had to accept a reduction in grade. although patronizing in tone, the plan was a bold departure from war department policy: "it is planned to assign you without regard to color or race to the units where assistance is most needed, and give you the opportunity of fighting shoulder to shoulder to bring about victory.... your relatives and friends everywhere have been urging that you be granted this privilege."[ - ] [footnote - : for a detailed discussion, see lee, _employment of negro troops_, chapter xxii.] [footnote - : ltr, lt gen john c. h. lee to commanders of colored troops, comz, dec , sub: volunteers for training and assignment as reinforcements, ag x xsgs.] the revolutionary nature of general lee's plan was not lost on (p.  ) supreme headquarters, allied expeditionary force. arguing that the circular promising integrated service would embarrass the army, lt. gen. walter bedell smith, the chief of staff, recommended that general eisenhower warn the war department that civil rights spokesmen might seize on this example to demand wider integration. to avoid future moves that might compromise army policy, smith wanted permission to review any communications zone statements on negroes before they were released. general eisenhower compromised. washington was not consulted, and eisenhower himself revised the circular, eliminating the special call for black volunteers and the promise of integration on an individual basis. he substituted instead a general appeal for volunteers, adding the further qualification that "in the event that the number of suitable negro volunteers exceeds the replacement needs of negro combat units, these men will be suitably incorporated in other organizations so that their service and their fighting spirit may be efficiently utilized."[ - ] this statement was disseminated throughout the european theater. [footnote - : revised version of above, same date. copies of both versions in cmh. later general eisenhower stated that he had decided to employ the men "as individuals," but the evidence is clear that he meant platoons in , see ltr, d.d.e. to gen bruce c. clarke, may , in cmh.] the eisenhower revision needed considerable clarification. it mentioned the replacement needs of black combat units, but there were no black infantry units in the theater;[ - ] and the replacement command was not equipped to retrain men for artillery, tank, and tank destroyer units, the types of combat units that did employ negroes in europe. the revision also called for volunteers in excess of these needs to be "suitably incorporated in other organizations," but it did not indicate how they would be organized. eisenhower later made it clear that he preferred to organize the volunteers in groups that could replace white units in the line, but again the replacement command was geared to train individual, not unit, replacements. after considerable discussion and compromise, eisenhower agreed to have negroes trained "as members of infantry rifle platoons familiar with the infantry rifle platoon weapons." the platoons would be sent for assignment to army commanders who would provide them with platoon leaders, platoon sergeants, and, if needed, squad leaders. [footnote - : the d division was assigned to the mediterranean theater.] unaware of how close they had come to being integrated as individuals, so many negroes volunteered for combat training and duty that the operations of some service units were threatened. to prevent disrupting these vital operations, the theater limited the number to , , turning down about , men. early in january the volunteers assembled for six weeks of standard infantry conversion training. after training, the new black infantrymen were organized into fifty-three platoons, each under a white platoon leader and sergeant, and were dispatched to the field, two to work with armored divisions and the rest with infantry divisions. sixteen were shipped to the th army group, the rest to the th army group, and all (p.  ) saw action with a total of eleven divisions in the first and seventh armies. [illustration: volunteers for combat in training, _ th reinforcement depot, february _.] in the first army the black platoons were usually assigned on the basis of three to a division, and the division receiving them normally placed one platoon in each regiment. at the company level, the black platoon generally served to augment the standard organization of three rifle platoons and one heavy weapons platoon. in the seventh army, the platoons were organized into provisional companies and attached to infantry battalions in armored divisions. general davis warned the seventh army commander, lt. gen. alexander m. patch, that the men had not been trained for employment as company units and were not being properly used. the performance of the provisional companies failed to match the performance of the platoons integrated into white companies and their morale was lower.[ - ] at the end of the war the theater made clear to the black volunteers that integration was over. although a large group was sent to the th infantry division to be returned home, most were reassigned to black combat or service units in the occupation army. [footnote - : davis, "history of a special section office of the inspector general," p. .] the experiment with integration of platoons was carefully scrutinized. in may and june , the research branch of the information and education division of eisenhower's theater headquarters made a (p.  ) survey solely to discover what white company-grade officers and platoon sergeants thought of the combat performance of the black rifle platoons. trained interviewers visited seven infantry divisions and asked the same question of men--all the available company officers and a representative sample of platoon sergeants in twenty-four companies that had had black platoons. in addition, a questionnaire, not to be signed, was submitted to approximately , white enlisted men in other field forces for the purpose of discovering what their attitudes were toward the use of black riflemen. no negro was asked his opinion. more than percent of the white officers and noncommissioned officers who were interviewed reported that the negroes had performed "very well" in combat; percent of the officers and percent of the noncommissioned officers saw no reason why black infantrymen should not perform as well as white infantrymen if both had the same training and experience. most reported getting along "very well" with the black volunteers; the heavier the combat shared, the closer and better the relationships. nearly all the officers questioned admitted that the camaraderie between white and black troops was far better than they had expected. most enlisted men reported that they had at first disliked and even been apprehensive at the prospect of having black troops in their companies, but three-quarters of them had changed their minds after serving with negroes in combat, their distrust turning into respect and friendliness. of the officers and noncommissioned officers, percent had more favorable feelings toward negroes after serving in close proximity to them, the others reported no change in attitude; not a single individual stated that he had developed a less favorable attitude. a majority of officers approved the idea of organizing negroes in platoons to serve in white companies; the practice, they said, would stimulate the spirit of competition between races, avoid friction with prejudiced whites, eliminate discrimination, and promote interracial understanding. familiarity with negroes dispersed fear of the unknown and bred respect for them among white troops; only those lacking experience with black soldiers were inclined to be suspicious and hostile.[ - ] [footnote - : eto i&e div rpt e- research br, the utilization of negro infantry platoons in white companies, jun ; asf i&e div rpt b- , opinions about negro infantry platoons in white companies of seven divisions, jul . for a general critique of black performance in world war ii, see chapter below.] general brehon b. somervell, commanding general of the army service forces, questioned the advisability of releasing the report. an experiment involving , volunteers--his figure was inaccurate, actually , were involved--was hardly, he believed, a conclusive test. furthermore, organizations such as the naacp might be encouraged to exert pressure for similar experiments among troops in training in the united states and even in the midst of active operations in the pacific theater--pressure, he believed, that might hamper training and operations. what mainly concerned somervell were the political implications. many members of congress, newspaper editors, and others who had given strong support to the war department were, he contended, "vigorously opposed" to integration under any conditions. a strong adverse reaction from this influential segment of the nation's (p.  ) opinion-makers might alienate public support for a postwar program of universal military training.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cg, asf, to asw, jul , asw . nt.] general omar n. bradley, the senior american field commander in europe, took a different tack. writing for the theater headquarters and drawing upon such sources of information as the personal observations of some officers, general bradley disparaged the significance of the experiment. most of the black platoons, he observed, had participated mainly in mopping-up operations or combat against a disorganized enemy. nor could the soldiers involved in the experiment be considered typical, in bradley's opinion. they were volunteers of above average intelligence according to their commanders.[ - ] finally, bradley contended that, while no racial trouble emerged during combat, the mutual friendship fostered by fighting a common enemy was threatened when the two races were closely associated in rest and recreational areas. nevertheless, he agreed that the performance of the platoons was satisfactory enough to warrant continuing the experiment but recommended the use of draftees with average qualifications. at the same time, he drew away from further integration by suggesting that the experiment be expanded to include employment of entire black rifle companies in white regiments to avoid some of the social difficulties encountered in rest areas.[ - ] [footnote - : the percentage of high school graduates and men scoring in agct categories i, ii, and iii among the black infantry volunteers was somewhat higher than that of all negroes in the european theater. as against percent high school graduates and percent in the first three test score categories for the volunteers, the percentages for all negroes in the theater were and percent. at the same time the averages for black volunteers were considerably below those for white riflemen, of whom percent were high school graduates and percent in the higher test categories--figures that tend to refute the general's argument. see asf i&e div rpt b- , jul .] [footnote - : msg, hq comz, eto, paris, france (signed bradley), to wd jul . for similar reports from the field see, for example, ltr, brig gen r. b. lovett, eto ag, to tag, sep , sub: the utilization of negro platoons in white companies; ltr, hq usfet to tag, oct , same sub. both in ag . ( ).] general marshall, the chief of staff, agreed with both somervell and bradley. although he thought that the possibility of integrating black units into white units should be "followed up," he believed that the survey should not be made public because "the conditions under which the [black] platoons were organized and employed were most unusual."[ - ] too many of the circumstances of the experiment were special--the voluntary recruitment of men for frontline duty, the relatively high number of noncommissioned officers among the volunteers, and the fact that the volunteers were slightly older and scored higher in achievement tests than the average black soldier. moreover, throughout the experiment some degree of segregation, with all its attendant psychological and morale problems, had been maintained. [footnote - : memo, cofs for asw, aug , wdcsa . negroes ( aug ).] the platoon experiment was illuminating in several respects. the fact that so late in the war thousands of negroes volunteered to trade the safety of the rear for duty at the front said something about black patriotism and perhaps something about the negro's passion for equality. it also demonstrated that, when properly trained and motivated and (p.  ) treated with fairness, blacks, like whites, performed with bravery and distinction in combat. finally, the experiment successfully attacked one of the traditionalists' shibboleths, that close association of the races in army units would cause social dissension. [illustration: road repairmen, _company a, th engineer battalion, near rimberg, germany, december _.] it is now apparent that world war ii had little immediate effect on the quest for racial equality in the army. the double v campaign against fascism abroad and racism at home achieved considerably less than the activists had hoped. although negroes shared in the prosperity brought by war industries and some , of them served in uniform, segregation remained the policy of the army throughout the war, just as jim crow still ruled in large areas of the country. probably the campaign's most important achievement was that during the war the civil rights groups, in organizing for the fight against discrimination, began to gather strength and develop techniques that would be useful in the decades to come. the army's experience with black units also convinced many that segregation was a questionable policy when the country needed to mobilize fully. for its part the army defended the separation of the races in the name of military efficiency and claimed that it had achieved a victory over racial discrimination by providing equal treatment and job opportunity for black soldiers. but the army's campaign had also been less than completely successful. true, the army had provided specialist training and opened job opportunities heretofore denied to thousands of negroes, and it had a cadre of potential leaders in the hundreds of experienced black officers. for the times, the army was a progressive minority employer. even so, as an institution it had defended the separate but equal doctrine and had failed to come to grips with segregation. under segregation the army was compelled to combine large numbers of undereducated and undertrained black soldiers in units that were often inefficient and sometimes surplus to its needs. this system in turn robbed the army of the full services of the educated and able black soldier, who had every reason to feel restless and rebellious. the army received no end of advice on its manpower policy during the war. civil rights spokesmen continually pointed out that segregation itself was discriminatory, and judge hastie in particular hammered on this proposition before the highest officials of the war (p.  ) department. in fact hastie's recommendations, criticisms, and arguments crystallized the demands of civil rights leaders. the army successfully resisted the proposition when its advisory committee on negro troop policies under john mccloy modified but did not appreciably alter the segregation policy. it was a predictable course. the army's racial policy was more than a century old, and leaders considered it dangerous if not impossible to revise traditional ways during a global war involving so many citizens with pronounced and different views on race. what both the civil rights activists and the army's leaders tended to ignore during the war was that segregation was inefficient. the myriad problems associated with segregated units, in contrast to the efficient operation of the integrated officer candidate schools and the integrated infantry platoons in europe, were overlooked in the atmosphere of charges and denials concerning segregation and discrimination. john mccloy was an exception. he had clearly become dissatisfied with the inefficiency of the army's policy, and in the week following the japanese surrender he questioned navy secretary james v. forrestal on the navy's experiments with integration. "it has always seemed to me," he concluded, "that we never put enough thought into the matter of making a real military asset out of the very large cadre of negro personnel we received from the country."[ - ] although segregation persisted, the fact that it hampered military efficiency was the hope of those who looked for a change in the army's policy. [footnote - : ltr, asw to secnav, aug , asw . nt (gen).] chapter (p.  ) world war ii: the navy the period between the world wars marked the nadir of the navy's relations with black america. although the exclusion of negroes that began with a clause introduced in enlistment regulations in lasted but a decade, black participation in the navy remained severely restricted during the rest of the inter-war period. in june the navy had , black personnel, . percent of its nearly , -man total.[ - ] all were enlisted men, and with the exception of six regular rated seamen, lone survivors of the exclusion clause, all were steward's mates, labeled by the black press "seagoing bellhops." [footnote - : all statistics in this chapter are taken from the files of the u.s. navy, bureau of naval personnel (hereafter cited as bupers).] the steward's branch, composed entirely of enlisted negroes and oriental aliens, mostly filipinos, was organized outside the navy's general service. its members carried ratings up to chief petty officer, but wore distinctive uniforms and insignia, and even chief stewards never exercised authority over men rated in the general naval service. stewards manned the officers' mess and maintained the officers' billets on board ship, and, in some instances, took care of the quarters of high officials in the shore establishment. some were also engaged in mess management, menu planning, and the purchase of supplies. despite the fact that their enlistment contracts restricted their training and duties, stewards, like everyone else aboard ship, were assigned battle stations, including positions at the guns and on the bridge. one of these stewards, dorie (doris) miller, became a hero on the first day of the war when he manned a machine gun on the burning deck of the uss _arizona_ and destroyed two enemy planes.[ - ] [footnote - : after some delay and considerable pressure from civil rights sources, the navy identified miller, awarded him the navy cross, and promoted him to mess attendant, first class. miller was later lost at sea. see dennis d. nelson, _the integration of the negro into the u.s. navy_ (new york: farrar, straus and young, ), pp. - . the navy further honored miller in by naming a destroyer escort (de ) after him.] by the end of december the number of negroes in the navy had increased by slightly more than a thousand men to , , or . percent of the whole, but they continued to be excluded from all positions except that of steward.[ - ] it was not surprising that civil rights organizations and their supporters in congress demanded a change in policy. [footnote - : there were exceptions to this generalization. the navy had black men with ratings in the general service in december : the regulars from the 's, others returned from retirement, and members of the fleet reserve. see u.s. navy, bureau of naval personnel, "the negro in the navy in world war ii" ( ) (hereafter "bupers hist"), p. . this study is part of the bureau's unpublished multivolume administrative history of world war ii. a copy is on file in the bureau's technical library. the work is particularly valuable for its references to documents that no longer exist.] _development of a wartime policy_ (p.  ) at first the new secretary, frank knox, and the navy's professional leaders resisted demands for a change. together with secretary of war stimson, knox had joined the cabinet in july when roosevelt was attempting to defuse a foreign policy debate that threatened to explode during the presidential campaign.[ - ] for a major cabinet officer, knox's powers were severely circumscribed. he had little knowledge of naval affairs, and the president, himself once an assistant secretary of the navy, often went over his head to deal directly with the naval bureaus on shipbuilding programs and manpower problems as well as the disposition of the fleet. but knox was a personable man and a forceful speaker, and he was particularly useful to the president in congressional liaison and public relations. roosevelt preferred to work through the secretary in dealing with the delicate question of black participation in the navy. knox himself was fortunate in his immediate official family. james v. forrestal became under secretary in august ; during the next year ralph a. bard, a chicago investment banker, joined the department as assistant secretary, and adlai e. stevenson became special assistant. [footnote - : one of theodore roosevelt's rough riders, a world war i field artillery officer, and later publisher of the chicago _daily news_, knox was an implacable foe of the new deal but an ardent internationalist, strongly sympathetic to president roosevelt's foreign policy.] able as these men were, frank knox, like most new secretaries unfamiliar with the operations and traditions of the vast department, was from the beginning heavily dependent on his naval advisers. these were the chiefs of the powerful bureaus and the prominent senior admirals of the general board, the navy's highest advisory body.[ - ] generally these men were ardent military traditionalists, and, despite the progressive attitude of the secretary's highest civilian advisers, changes in the racial policy of the navy were to be glacially slow. [footnote - : in the bureaus were answerable only to the secretary of the navy and the president, but after a reorganization of they began to lose some of their independence. in march president roosevelt merged the offices of the chief of naval operations and commander in chief, u.s. fleet, giving admiral ernest j. king, who held both titles, at least some direction over most of the bureaus. eventually the chief of naval operations would become a figure with powers comparable to those exercised by the army's chief of staff. see julius a. furer, _administration of the navy department in world war ii_ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - . this shift in power was readily apparent in the case of the administration of the navy's racial policy.] the bureau of navigation, which was charged with primary responsibility for all personnel matters, was opposed to change in the racial composition of the navy. less than two weeks after knox's appointment, it prepared for his signature a letter to lieutenant governor charles poletti of new york defending the navy's policy. the bureau reasoned that since segregation was impractical, exclusion was necessary. experience had proved, the bureau claimed, that when given supervisory responsibility the negro was unable to maintain discipline among white subordinates with the result that teamwork, harmony, and ship's efficiency suffered. the negro, therefore, had to be segregated from the white sailor. all-black units were impossible, the bureau argued, because the service's training and distribution system (p.  ) demanded that a man in any particular rating be available for any duty required of that rating in any ship or activity in the navy. the navy had experimented with segregated crews after world war i, manning one ship with an all-filipino crew and another with an all-samoan crew, but the bureau was not satisfied with the result and reasoned that ships with black crews would be no more satisfactory.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to lt. gov. charles poletti (new york), jul , nav- -at, genrecsnav.] [illustration: dorie miller.] during the next weeks secretary knox warmed to the subject, speaking of the difficulty faced by the navy when men had to live aboard ship together. he was convinced that "it is no kindness to negroes to thrust them upon men of the white race," and he suggested that the negro might make his major contribution to the armed forces in the army's black regimental organizations.[ - ] confronted with widespread criticism of this policy, however, knox asked the navy's general board in september to give him "some reasons why colored persons should not be enlisted for general service."[ - ] he accepted the board's reasons for continued exclusion of negroes--generally an extension of the ones advanced in the poletti letter--and during the next eighteen months these reasons, endorsed by the chief of naval operations and the bureau of navigation, were used as the department's standard answer to questions on race.[ - ] they were used at the white house conference on june when, in the presence of black leaders, knox told president roosevelt that the navy could do nothing about taking negroes into the general service "because men live in such intimacy aboard ship that we simply can't enlist negroes above the rank of messman."[ - ] [footnote - : idem to sen. arthur capper (kansas), aug , qn/p - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, rear adm w. r. sexton, chmn of gen bd, for capt morton l. deyo, sep , recs of gen bd, opnavarchives.] [footnote - : idem for secnav, sep , sub: enlistment of colored persons in the u.s. navy, recs of gen bd, opnavarchives. st ind to ltr, natl public relations comm of the universal negro improvement assn to secnav, oct ; memo, chief, bunav, for cno, oct , and d ind to same, cno to secnav (public relations). both in bupers qn/p - ( ), genrecsnav. for examples of the navy's response on race, see ltr, ens ross r. hirshfield, off of pub relations, to roberson county training school, oct ; ltr, ens william stucky to w. henry white, feb . both in qn/p - . bupersrecs.] [footnote - : quoted in white, _a man called white_, p. .] the white house conference revealed an interesting contrast between roosevelt and knox. whatever his personal feelings, roosevelt agreed with knox that integration of the navy was an impractical step in (p.  ) wartime, but where knox saw exclusion from general service as the alternative to integration roosevelt sought a compromise. he suggested that the navy "make a beginning" by putting some "good negro bands" aboard battleships. under such intimate living conditions white and black would learn to know and respect each other, and "then we can move on from there."[ - ] in effect the president was trying to lead the navy toward a policy similar to that announced by the army in . while his suggestion about musicians was ignored by secretary knox, the search for a middle way between exclusion and integration had begun. [footnote - : ibid.] [illustration: admiral king and secretary knox _on the uss augusta_.] the general public knew nothing of this search, and in the heightened atmosphere of early war days, charged with unending propaganda about the four freedoms and the forces of democracy against fascism, the administration's racial attitudes were being questioned daily by civil rights spokesmen and by some democratic politicians.[ - ] as protest against the navy's racial policy mounted, secretary knox turned once again to his staff for reassurance. in july he appointed a committee consisting of navy and marine corps personnel officers and including addison walker, a special assistant to assistant secretary bard, to conduct a general investigation of that policy. the committee took six months to complete its study and submitted both a majority and minority report. [footnote - : memo, w. a. allen, office of public relations, for lt cmdr smith, bupers, jan , bupers qn/p- , bupersrecs.] the majority report marshaled a long list of arguments to prove that exclusion of the negro was not discriminatory, but "a means of promoting efficiency, dependability, and flexibility of the navy as a whole." it concluded that no change in policy was necessary since "within the limitations of the characteristics of members of certain races, the enlisted personnel of the naval establishment is representative of all the citizens of the united states."[ - ] the majority invoked past experience, efficiency, and patriotism to support the _status quo_, but its chorus of reasons for excluding negroes sounded incongruous amid the patriotic din and call to colors that followed pearl harbor. [footnote - : ltr, chief, bunav, to chmn, gen bd, jan , sub: enlistment of men of colored race in other than messman branch, recs of gen bd, opnavarchives.] [illustration: crew members of uss argonaut _relax and read mail, pearl harbor, _.] demonstrating changing social attitudes and also reflecting the (p.  ) compromise solution suggested by the president in june, addison walker's minority report recommended that a limited number of negroes be enlisted for general duty "on some type of patrol or other small vessel assigned to a particular yard or station." while the enlistments could frankly be labeled experiments, walker argued that such a step would mute black criticism by promoting negroes out of the servant class. the program would also provide valuable data in case the navy was later directed to accept negroes through selective service. reasoning that a man's right to fight for his country was probably more fundamental than his right to vote, walker insisted that the drive for the rights and privileges of black citizens was a social force that could not be ignored by the navy. indeed, he added, "the reconciliation of social friction within our own country" should be a special concern of the armed forces in wartime.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid.] although the committee's majority won the day, its arguments were overtaken by events that followed pearl harbor. the naacp, viewing the navy's rejection of black volunteers in the midst of the intensive recruiting campaign, again took the issue to the white house. the president, in turn, asked the fair employment practices committee to consider the case.[ - ] committee chairman mark ethridge conferred with assistant secretary bard, pointing out that since negroes had been eligible for general duty in world war i, the navy had actually taken a step backward when it restricted them to the messman's branch. the committee was even willing to pay the price of segregation to insure the negro's return to general duty. ethridge recommended that the navy amend its policy and accept negroes for use at caribbean stations or on harbor craft.[ - ] criticism of navy policy, hitherto emanating almost exclusively from the civil rights organizations and a few (p.  ) congressmen, now broadened to include another government agency. as president roosevelt no doubt expected, the fair employment practices committee had come out in support of his compromise solution for the navy. [footnote - : the fepc was established june to carry out roosevelt's executive order against discrimination in employment in defense industries and in the federal government.] [footnote - : "bupers hist," pp. - ; ltr, mark ethridge to lee nichols. jul , in nichols collection, cmh.] but the committee had no jurisdiction over the armed services, and secretary knox continued to assert that with a war to win he could not risk "crews that are impaired in efficiency because of racial prejudice." he admitted to his friend, conservationist gifford pinchot, that the problem would have to be faced someday, but not during a war. seemingly in response to walker and ethridge, he declared that segregated general service was impossible since enough men with the skills necessary to operate a war vessel were unavailable even "if you had the entire negro population of the united states to choose from." as for limiting negroes to steward duties, he explained that this policy avoided the chance that negroes might rise to command whites, "a thing which instantly provokes serious trouble."[ - ] faced in wartime with these arguments for efficiency, assistant secretary bard could only promise ethridge that black enlistment would be taken under consideration. [footnote - : ltr, secnav to gifford pinchot, jan , - - , genrecsnav.] at this point the president again stepped in. on january he asked his beleaguered secretary to consider the whole problem once more and suggested a course of action: "i think that with all the navy activities, bunav might invent something that colored enlistees could do in addition to the rating of messman."[ - ] the secretary passed the task on to the general board, asking that it develop a plan for recruiting , negroes in the general service.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in "bupers hist," p. .] [footnote - : memo, secnav for chmn, gen bd, jan , sub: enlistment of men of colored race in other than messman branch, recs of gen bd, opnavarchives.] when the general board met on january to consider the secretary's request, it became apparent that the minority report on the role of negroes in the navy had gained at least one convert among the senior officers. one board member, the inspector general of the navy, rear adm. charles p. snyder, repeated the arguments lately advanced by addison walker. he suggested that the board consider employing negroes in some areas outside the servant class: in the musician's branch, for example, because "the colored race is very musical and they are versed in all forms of rhythm," in the aviation branch where the army had reported some success in employing negroes, and on auxiliaries and minor vessels, especially transports. snyder noted that these schemes would involve the creation of training schools, rigidly segregated at first, and that the whole program would be "troublesome and require tact, patience, and tolerance" on the part of those in charge. but, he added, "we have so many difficulties to surmount anyhow that one more possibly wouldn't swell the total very much." foreseeing that segregation would become the focal point of black protest, he argued that the navy had to begin accepting negroes somewhere, and it might as well begin with a segregated general service. adamant in its opposition to any change in the navy's policy, the (p.  ) bureau of navigation ignored admiral snyder's suggestions. the spokesman for the bureau warned that the , negroes under consideration were just an opening wedge. "the sponsors of the program," capt. kenneth whiting contended, "desire full equality on the part of the negro and will not rest content until they obtain it." in the end, he predicted, negroes would be on every man-of-war in direct proportion to their percentage of the population. the commandant of the marine corps, maj. gen. thomas holcomb, echoed the bureau's sentiments. he viewed the issue of black enlistments as crucial. if we are defeated we must not close our eyes to the fact that once in they [negroes] will be strengthened in their effort to force themselves into every activity we have. if they are not satisfied to be messmen, they will not be satisfied to go into the construction or labor battalions. don't forget the colleges are turning out a large number of well-educated negroes. i don't know how long we will be able to keep them out of the v- class. i think not very long. the commandant called the enlistment of negroes "absolutely tragic"; negroes had every opportunity, he added, "to satisfy their aspiration to serve in the army," and their desire to enter the naval service was largely an effort "to break into a club that doesn't want them." the board heard similar sentiments from representatives of the bureau of aeronautics, the bureau of yards and docks, and, with reservations, from the coast guard. confronted with such united opposition from the powerful bureaus, the general board capitulated. on february it reported to the secretary that it was unable to submit a plan and strongly recommended that the current policy be allowed to stand. the board stated that "if, in the opinion of higher authority, political pressure is such as to require the enlistment of these people for general service, let it be for that." if restriction of negroes to the messman's branch was discrimination, the board added, "it was but part and parcel of a similar discrimination throughout the united states."[ - ] [footnote - : enlistment of men of colored race ( ), jan , hearings before the general board of the navy, ; memo, chmn, gen bd, for secnav, feb , sub: enlistment of men of colored race in other than messman branch. both in recs of gen bd, opnavarchives.] secretary knox was certainly not one to dispute the board's findings, but it was a different story in the white house. president roosevelt refused to accept the argument that the only choice lay between exclusion in the messman's branch and total integration in the general service. his desire to avoid the race issue was understandable; the war was in its darkest days, and whatever his aspirations for american society, the president was convinced that, while some change was necessary, "to go the whole way at one fell swoop would seriously impair the general average efficiency of the navy."[ - ] he wanted the board to study the question further, noting that there were some additional tasks and some special assignments that could be worked (p.  ) out for the negro that "would not inject into the whole personnel of the navy the race question."[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in "bupers hist," p. .] [footnote - : memo, secnav for chmn, gen bd, feb , recs of gen bd, opnavarchives. the quotation is from the knox memo and is not necessarily in the exact words of the president.] [illustration: messmen volunteer as gunners, _pacific task force, july _.] the navy got the message. armed with these instructions from the white house, the general board called on the bureaus and other agencies to furnish lists of stations or assignments where negroes could be used in other than the messman's branch, adding that it was "unnecessary and inadvisable" to emphasize further the undesirability of recruiting negroes. freely interpreting the president's directive, the board decided that its proposals had to provide for segregation in order to prevent the injection of the race issue into the navy. it rejected the idea of enlisting negroes in such selected ratings as musician and carpenter's mate or designating a branch for negroes (the possibility of an all-black aviation department for a carrier was discussed). basing its decision on the plans quickly submitted by the bureaus, the general board recommended a course that it felt offered "least disadvantages and the least difficulty of accomplishment as a war measure": the formation of black units in the shore establishment, black crews for naval district local defense craft and selected coast (p.  ) guard cutters, black regiments in the seabees, and composite battalions in the marine corps. the board asked that the navy department be granted wide latitude in deciding the number of negroes to be accepted as well as their rate of enlistment and the method of recruiting, training, and assignment.[ - ] the president agreed to the plan, but balked at the board's last request. "i think this is a matter," he told secretary knox, "to be determined by you and me."[ - ] [footnote - : memos, chmn, gen bd, for chief, bunav, cmdt, cg, and cmdt, mc, feb , sub: enlistment of men of colored race in other than messman branch. for examples of responses, see ltr, cmdt, to chmn, gen bd, feb , same sub; memo, chief, bunav, for chmn, gen bd, mar , same sub; memo, cno for chief, bunav, feb , same sub, with st ind by cincusflt, feb , same sub. the final enlistment plan is found in memo, chmn, gen bd, for secnav, mar , same sub (g. b. no ). all in recs of gen bd, opnavarchives. it was transmitted to the president in ltr, secnav to president, mar , p - /mm, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, president for secy of navy, mar , franklin d. roosevelt library, hyde park, new york.] the two-year debate over the admission of negroes ended just in time, for the opposition to the navy's policy was enlisting new allies daily. the national press made the expected invidious comparisons when joe louis turned over his share of the purse from the louis-baer fight to navy relief, and wendell willkie in a well-publicized speech at new york's freedom house excoriated the navy's racial practices as a "mockery" of democracy.[ - ] but these were the last shots fired. on april secretary knox announced the navy's capitulation. the navy would accept black volunteers per week--it was not yet drafting anyone--for enlistment in all ratings of the general service of the reserve components of the navy, marine corps, and coast guard. their actual entry would have to await the construction of suitable, meaning segregated, facilities, but the navy's goal for the first year was , negroes in the general service.[ - ] [footnote - : new york _times_, january and march , .] [footnote - : office of secnav, press release, apr .] members of the black community received the news with mixed emotions. some reluctantly accepted the plan as a first step; the naacp's _crisis_ called it "progress toward a more enlightened point of view." others, like the national negro congress, complimented knox for his "bold, patriotic action."[ - ] but almost all were quick to point out that the black sailor would be segregated, limited to the rank of petty officer, and, except as a steward, barred from sea duty.[ - ] the navy's plan offered all the disadvantages of the army's system with none of the corresponding advantages for participation and advancement. the naacp hammered away at the segregation angle, informing its public that the old system, which had fathered inequalities and humiliations in the army and in civilian life, was now being followed by the navy. a. philip randolph complained that the change in navy policy merely "accepts and extends and consolidates the policy of jim-crowism in the navy as well as proclaims it as an accepted, recognized government (p.  ) ideology that the negro is inferior to the white man."[ - ] the editors of the national urban league's _opportunity_ concluded that, "faced with the great opportunity to strengthen the forces of democracy, the navy department chose to affirm the charge that japan is making against america to the brown people ... that the so-called four freedoms enunciated in the great 'atlantic charter' were for white men only."[ - ] [footnote - : "the navy makes a gesture," _crisis_ (may ): . the national negro congress quotation reprinted in dennis d. nelson's summary of reactions to the secretary of the navy's announcement. see nelson, "the integration of the negro in the united states navy, - " (navexos-p- ), p. . (this earlier and different version of nelson's published work, derived from his master's thesis, was sponsored by the u.s. navy.)] [footnote - : although essentially correct, the critics were technically inaccurate since some negroes would be assigned to coast guard cutters which qualified as sea duty.] [footnote - : quoted in nelson, "the integration of the negro," p. .] [footnote - : _opportunity_ (may ), p. .] _a segregated navy_ with considerable alacrity the navy set a practical course for the employment of its black volunteers. on april secretary knox approved a plan for training negroes at camp barry, an isolated section of the great lakes training center. later renamed camp robert smalls after a black naval hero of the civil war, the camp not only offered the possibility of practically unlimited expansion but, as the bureau of navigation put it, made segregation "less obvious" to recruits. the secretary also approved the use of facilities at hampton institute, the well-known black school in virginia, as an advanced training school for black recruits.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, bunav, for secnav, apr , sub: training facilities for negro recruits, nav- ; memo, secnav for rear adm randall jacobs, apr , - - . both in genrecsnav.] black enlistments began on june , and black volunteers started entering great lakes later that month in classes of men. at the same time the navy opened enlistments for an unlimited number of black seabees and messmen. lt. comdr. daniel armstrong commanded the recruit program at camp smalls. an annapolis graduate, son of the founder of hampton institute, armstrong first came to the attention of knox in march when he submitted a plan for the employment of black sailors that the secretary considered practical.[ - ] under armstrong's energetic leadership, black recruits received training that was in some respects superior to that afforded whites. for all his success, however, armstrong was strongly criticized, especially by educated negroes who resented his theories of education. imbued with the paternalistic attitude of tuskegee and hampton, armstrong saw the negro as possessing a separate culture more attuned to vocational training. he believed that negroes needed special treatment and discipline in a totally segregated environment free from white competition. educated negroes, on the other hand, saw in this special treatment another form of discrimination.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for chmn, gen bd, mar , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : for a discussion of armstrong's philosophy from the viewpoint of an educated black recruit, see nelson, "integration of the negro," pp. - . sec also ltr, nelson to author, feb , cmh files.] during the first six months of the new segregated training program, before the great influx of negroes from the draft, the navy set the training period at twelve weeks. later, when it had reluctantly abandoned the longer period, the navy discovered that the regular eight-week course was sufficient. approximately percent of those graduating from the recruit course were qualified for class a (p.  ) schools and entered advanced classes to receive training that would normally lead to petty officer rating for the top graduates and prepare men for assignment to naval stations and local defense and district craft. there they would serve in such class "a" specialties as radioman, signalman, and yeoman and the other occupational specialties such as machinist, mechanic, carpenter, electrician, cook, and baker.[ - ] some of these classes were held at hampton, but, as the number of black recruits increased, the majority remained at camp smalls for advanced training. [footnote - : with the exception of machinist school, where blacks were in training twice as long as whites, specialist training for negroes and whites was similar in length. see "bupers hist," pp. - , - .] [illustration: electrician mates _string power lines in the central pacific_.] the rest of the recruit graduates, those unqualified for advanced schooling, were divided. some went directly to naval stations and local defense and district craft where they relieved whites as seaman, second class, and fireman, third class, and as trainees in specialties that required no advanced schooling; the rest, approximately eighty men per week, went to naval ammunition depots as unskilled laborers.[ - ] [footnote - : bupers, "reports, schedules, and charts relating to enlistment, training, and assignment of negro personnel," jun , pers- , bupersrecs.] the navy proceeded to assimilate the black volunteers along these lines, suffering few of the personnel problems that plagued the army in the first months of the war. in contrast to the army's chaotic situation, caused by the thousands of black recruits streaming in from selective service, the navy's plans for its volunteers were disrupted only because qualified negroes showed little inclination to flock to the navy standard, and more than half of those who did were rejected. the bureau of naval personnel[ - ] reported that during the first three weeks of recruitment only , negroes volunteered for general service, and percent of these had to be rejected for physical and other reasons. the chief of naval personnel, rear adm. randall jacobs, was surprised at the small number of volunteers, a figure far below the planners' expectations, and his surprise turned to concern in the next months as the seventeen-year-old volunteer inductees, the primary target of the armed forces recruiters, continued to choose the army over the navy at a ratio of to .[ - ] the navy's personnel officials agreed that they had to attract their proper share of intelligent and able negroes but seemed unable to isolate the (p.  ) cause of the disinterest. admiral jacobs blamed it on a lack of publicity; the bureau's historians, perhaps unaware of the navy's nineteenth century experience with black seamen, later attributed it to negroes' "relative unfamiliarity with the sea or the large inland waters and their consequent fear of the water."[ - ] [footnote - : in may the name of the bureau of navigation was changed to the bureau of naval personnel to reflect more accurately the duties of the organization.] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for co, great lakes ntc, apr . p - , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : "bupers hist," p. .] the fact was, of course, that negroes shunned the navy because of its recent reputation as the exclusive preserve of white america. only when the navy began assigning black recruiting specialists to the numerous naval districts and using black chief petty officers, reservists from world war i general service, at recruiting centers to explain the new opportunities for negroes in the navy was the bureau able to overcome some of the young men's natural reluctance to volunteer. by february the navy had , negroes (still percent of the total enlisted): , in the general service; , in the seabees; and , , over two-thirds of the total, in the steward's branch.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] the smooth and efficient distribution of black recruits was short-lived. under pressure from the army, the war manpower commission, and in particular the white house, the navy was forced into a sudden and significant expansion of its black recruit program. the army had long objected to the navy's recruitment method, and as early as february secretary stimson was calling the volunteer recruitment system a waste of manpower.[ - ] he was even more direct when he complained to president roosevelt that through voluntary recruiting the navy had avoided acceptance of any considerable number of negroes. consequently, the army was now faced with the possibility of having to accept an even greater proportion of negroes "with adverse effect on its combat efficiency." the solution to this problem, as stimson saw it, was for the navy to take its recruits from selective service.[ - ] stimson failed to win his point. the president accepted the navy's argument that segregation would be difficult to maintain on board ship. "if the navy living conditions on board ship were similar to the army living conditions on land," he wrote stimson, "the problem would be easier but the circumstances ... being such as they are, i feel that it is best to continue the present system at this time."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, sw for secnav, feb , sub: continuing of voluntary recruiting by the navy, qn/p - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : idem for president, mar , copy in qn/p - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, president for sw, mar , copy in qn/p - , genrecsnav.] but the battle over racial quotas was only beginning. the question of the number of negroes in the navy was only part of the much broader considerations and conflicts over manpower policy that finally led the president, on december , to direct the discontinuance in all services of volunteer enlistment of men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight.[ - ] beginning in february all men in this age group would be obtained through selective service. the order also placed selective service under the war manpower commission. [footnote - : executive order , dec .] the navy issued its first call for inductees from selective (p.  ) service in february , adopting the army's policy of placing its requisition on a racial basis and specifying the number of whites and blacks needed for the navy, marine corps, and coast guard. the bureau of naval personnel planned to continue its old monthly quota of about , negroes for general service and , for the messman's branch. secretary knox explained to the president that it would be impossible for the navy to take more negroes without resorting to mixed crews in the fleet, which, knox reminded roosevelt, was a policy "contrary to the president's program." the president agreed with knox and told him so to advise maj. gen. lewis b. hershey, director of selective service.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for rear adm randall jacobs, feb , - - , genrecsnav.] the problem of drafting men by race was a major concern of the bureau of selective service and its parent organization, the war manpower commission. at a time when a general shortage of manpower was developing and industry was beginning to feel the effects of the draft, negroes still made up only percent of the armed forces, a little over half their percentage of the population, and almost all of these were in the army. the chairman of the war manpower commission, paul v. mcnutt, explained to secretary knox as he had to secretary stimson that the practice of placing separate calls for white and black registrants could not be justified. not only were there serious social and legal implications in the existing draft practices, he pointed out, but the selective service act itself prohibited racial discrimination. it was necessary, therefore, to draft men by order number and not by color.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, paul mcnutt to secnav, feb , wmc gen files, nars.] on top of this blow, the navy came under fire from another quarter. the president was evidently still thinking about negroes in the navy. he wrote to the secretary on february: i guess you were dreaming or maybe i was dreaming if randall jacobs is right in regard to what i am supposed to have said about employment of negroes in the navy. if i did say that such employment should be stopped, i must have been talking in my sleep. most decidedly we must continue the employment of negroes in the navy, and i do not think it the least bit necessary to put mixed crews on the ships. i can find a thousand ways of employing them without doing so. the point or the thing is this. there is going to be a great deal of feeling if the government in winning this war does not employ approximately % of negroes--their actual percentage to the total population. the army is nearly up to this percentage but the navy is so far below it that it will be deeply criticized by anybody who wants to check into the details. perhaps a check by you showing exactly where all white enlisted men are serving and where all colored enlisted men are serving will show you the great number of places where colored men could serve, where they are not serving now--shore duty of all kinds, together with the handling of many kinds of yard craft. you know the headache we have had about this and the reluctance of the navy to have any negroes. you and i have had to veto that navy reluctance and i think we have to do it again.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, president for secnav, feb , fdr library.] in an effort to save the quota concept, the bureau of naval (p.  ) personnel ground out new figures that would raise the current call of , negroes per month to , in april and , for each of the remaining months of . armed with these figures, secretary knox was able to promise commissioner mcnutt that percent of the men inducted for the rest of would be negroes, although separate calls had to be continued for the time being to permit adjusting the flow of negroes to the expansion of facilities.[ - ] in other words, the secretary promised to accept , black draftees in ; he did not promise to increase the black strength of the navy to percent of the total. [footnote - : ltr, knox to mcnutt, feb , wmc gen files.] commissioner mcnutt understood the distinction and found the navy's offer wanting for two reasons. the proposed schedule was inadequate to absorb the backlog of black registrants who should have been inducted into the armed services, and it did not raise the percentage of negroes in the navy to a figure comparable to their strength in the national population. mcnutt wanted the navy to draft at least , negroes before january , and he insisted that the practice of placing separate calls be terminated "as soon as feasible."[ - ] the navy finally struck a compromise with the commission, agreeing that up to , negroes a month would be inducted for the rest of to reach the , figure by january .[ - ] the issue of separate draft calls for negroes and whites remained in abeyance while the services made common cause against the commission by insisting that the orderly absorption of negroes demanded a regular program that could only be met by maintaining the quota system. [footnote - : ltr, mcnutt to knox, mar , wmc gen files.] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to paul mcnutt, apr ; ltr, mcnutt to knox, apr ; both in wmc gen files.] total black enlistments never reached percent of the navy's wartime enlisted strength but remained nearer the percent mark. but this figure masks the navy's racial picture in the later years of the war after it became dependent on selective service. the navy drafted , negroes during the war, . percent of all the men it drafted. in alone the navy placed calls with selective service for , black draftees. although selective service was unable to fill the monthly request completely, the navy received , black draftees (versus , whites) that year, a percent rise over the black enlistment rate.[ - ] [footnote - : selective service system, _special groups_, vol. ii, pp. - . see also memos, director of planning and control, bupers, for chief, bupers, feb , sub: increase in colored personnel for the navy; and apr , sub; increase in negro personnel in navy. both in p- , bupersrecs.] although it wrestled for several months with the problem of distributing the increased number of black draftees, the bureau of naval personnel could invent nothing new. the navy, knox told president roosevelt, would continue to segregate negroes and restrict their service to certain occupations. its increased black strength would be absorbed in twenty-seven new black seabee battalions, in which negroes would serve overseas as stevedores; in black crews for harbor craft and local defense forces; and in billets for cooks and port hands. the rest would be sent to shore stations for guard (p.  ) and miscellaneous duties in concentrations up to about percent of the total station strength. the president approved the navy's proposals, and the distribution of negroes followed these lines.[ - ] [footnote - : memos, secnav for president, feb and apr , quoted in "bupers hist," pp. - ; memo, actg chief, navpers, for secnav, feb , sub: employment of colored personnel in the navy, pers , genrecsnav. for roosevelt's approval see "bupers hist," p. .] to smooth the racial adjustments implicit in these plans, the bureau of naval personnel developed two operating rules: negroes would be assigned only where need existed, and, whenever possible, those from northern communities would not be used in the south. these rules caused some peculiar adjustments in administration. negroes were not assigned to naval districts for distribution according to the discretion of the commander, as were white recruits. rather, after conferring with local commanders, the bureau decided on the number of negroes to be included in station complements and the types of jobs they would fill. it then assigned the men to duty accordingly, and the districts were instructed not to change the orders without consulting the bureau. subsequently the bureau reinforced this rule by enjoining the commanders to use negroes in the ratings for which they had been trained and by sending bureau representatives to the various commands to check on compliance. some planners feared that the concentration of negroes at shore stations might prove detrimental to efficiency and morale. proposals were circulated in the bureau of naval personnel for the inclusion of negroes in small numbers in the crews of large combat ships--for example, they might be used as firemen and ordinary seamen on the new aircraft carriers--but admiral jacobs rejected the recommendations.[ - ] the navy was not yet ready to try integration, it seemed, even though racial disturbances were becoming a distinct possibility in . for as negroes became a larger part of the navy, they also became a greater source of tension. the reasons for the tension were readily apparent. negroes were restricted for the most part to shore duty, concentrated in large groups and assigned to jobs with little prestige and few chances of promotion. they were excluded from the waves (women accepted for volunteer emergency service), the nurse corps, and the commissioned ranks. and they were rigidly segregated. [footnote - : "bupershist," p. .] although the navy boasted that negroes served in every rating and at every task, in fact almost all were used in a limited range of occupations. denied general service assignments on warships, trained negroes were restricted to the relatively few billets open in the harbor defense, district, and small craft service. although assigning negroes to these duties met the president's request for variety of opportunity, the small craft could employ only , men at most, a minuscule part of the navy's black strength. most negroes performed humbler duties. by mid- over , black sailors were serving as mess stewards, cooks, and bakers. these jobs remained in the negro's eyes a symbol of his second-class citizenship in the naval establishment. under pressure to provide more (p.  ) stewards to serve the officers whose number multiplied in the early months of the war, recruiters had netted all the men they could for that separate duty. often recruiters took in many as stewards who were equipped by education and training for better jobs, and when these men were immediately put into uniforms and trained on the job at local naval stations the result was often dismaying. the navy thus received poor service as well as unwelcome publicity for maintaining a segregated servants' branch. in an effort to standardize the training of messmen, the bureau of naval personnel established a stewards school in the spring of at norfolk and later one at bainbridge, maryland. the change in training did little to improve the standards of the service and much to intensify the feeling of isolation among many stewards. [illustration: laborers at naval ammunition depot. _sailors passing -inch canisters, st. julien's creek, virginia._] another , negroes served as artisans and laborers at overseas bases. over , of these were seabees, who, with the exception of two regular construction battalions that served with distinction in the pacific, were relegated to "special" battalions stevedoring cargo and supplies. the rest were laborers in base companies assigned to the south pacific area. these units were commanded by white officers, and almost all the petty officers were white. approximately half the negroes in the navy were detailed to shore billets within the continental united states. most worked as laborers at ammunition or supply depots, at air stations, and at section (p.  ) bases,[ - ] concentrated in large all-black groups and sometimes commanded by incompetent white officers.[ - ] [footnote - : naval districts organized section bases during the war with responsibility, among other things, for guarding beaches, harbors, and installations and maintaining equipment.] [footnote - : see cno alnav, aug , quoted in nelson, "integration of the negro," p. .] [illustration: seabees in the south pacific _righting an undermined water tank_.] while some billets existed in practically every important rating for graduates of the segregated specialty schools, these jobs were so few that black specialists were often assigned instead to unskilled laboring jobs.[ - ] some of these men were among the best educated negroes in the navy, natural leaders capable of articulating their dissatisfaction. they resented being barred from the fighting, and their resentment, spreading through the thousands of negroes in the shore establishment, was a prime cause of racial tension. [footnote - : memo, actg chief, navpers, for cmdts, alnav districts et al., sep , sub: enlisted personnel--utilization of in field for which specifically trained, pers - /mm, bupersrecs.] no black women had been admitted to the navy. race was not mentioned in the legislation establishing the waves in , but neither was exclusion on account of color expressly forbidden. the waves and the women's reserve of both the coast guard (spars) and the marine corps therefore celebrated their second birthday exclusively white. the navy nurse corps was also totally white. in answer to protests passed to the service through eleanor roosevelt, the navy admitted in november that it had a shortage of nurses, but since another (p.  ) white nurses were under indoctrination and training, the bureau of medicine and surgery explained, "the question relative to the necessity for accepting colored personnel in this category is not apparent."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, eleanor roosevelt to secnav, nov ; ltr, secnav to mrs. roosevelt, nov ; both in bumed-s-ec, genrecsnav. well known for her interest in the cause of racial justice, the president's wife received many complaints during the war concerning discrimination in the armed forces. mrs. roosevelt often passed such protests along to the service secretaries for action. although there is no doubt where mrs. roosevelt's sympathies lay in these matters, her influence was slight on the policies and practices of the army or navy. her influence on the president's thinking is, of course, another matter. see white, _a man called white_, pp. - , .] another major cause of unrest among black seamen was the matter of rank and promotion. with the exception of the coast guard, the naval establishment had no black officers in , and none were contemplated. nor was there much opportunity for advancement in the ranks. barred from service in the fleet, the nonrated seamen faced strong competition for the limited number of petty officer positions in the shore establishment. in consequence, morale throughout the ranks deteriorated. the constant black complaint, and the root of the navy's racial problem, was segregation. it was especially hard on young black recruits who had never experienced legal segregation in civilian life and on the "talented tenth," the educated negroes, who were quickly frustrated by a policy that decided opportunity and assignment on the basis of color. they particularly resented segregation in housing, messing, and recreation. here segregation off the job, officially sanctioned, made manifest by signs distinguishing facilities for white and black, and enforced by military as well as civilian police, was a daily reminder for the negro of the navy's discrimination. such discrimination created tension in the ranks that periodically released itself in racial disorder. the first sign of serious unrest occurred in june when over half the negroes of the naval ammunition depot at st. julien's creek, virginia, rioted against alleged discrimination in segregated seating for a radio show. in july, negroes of the th construction battalion staged a protest over segregation on a transport in the caribbean. yet, naval investigators cited leadership problems as a major factor in these and subsequent incidents, and at least one commanding officer was relieved as a consequence.[ - ] [footnote - : for a discussion of these racial disturbances, see "bupers hist," pp. - .] _progressive experiments_ since the inception of black enlistment there had been those in the bureau of naval personnel who argued for the establishment of a group to coordinate plans and policies on the training and use of black sailors. various proposals were considered, but only in the wake of the racial disturbances of did the bureau set up a special programs unit in its planning and control activity to oversee the whole black enlistment program. in the end the size of the unit governed the scope of its program. originally the unit was to monitor all transactions involving negroes in the bureau's operating divisions, thus relieving the enlisted division of the critical task of (p.  ) distributing billets for negroes. it was also supposed to advise local commanders on race problems and interpret departmental policies for them. when finally established in august , the unit consisted of only three officers, a size which considerably limited its activities. still, the unit worked diligently to improve the lot of the black sailor, and eventually from this office would emerge the plans that brought about the integration of the navy. [illustration: commander sargent.] the special programs unit's patron saint and the guiding spirit of the navy's liberalizing race program was lt. comdr. christopher s. sargent. he never served in the unit himself, but helped find the two lieutenant commanders, donald o. vanness and charles e. dillon, who worked under capt. thomas f. darden in the plans and operations section of the bureau of naval personnel and acted as liaison between the special programs unit and its civilian superiors. a legendary figure in the bureau, the -year-old sargent arrived as a lieutenant, junior grade, from dean acheson's law firm, but his rank and official position were no measure of his influence in the navy department. by birth and training he was used to moving in the highest circles of american society and government, and he had wide-ranging interests and duties in the navy. described by a superior as "a philosopher who could not tolerate segregation,"[ - ] sargent waged something of a moral crusade to integrate the navy. he was convinced that a social change impossible in peacetime was practical in war. not only would integration build a more efficient navy, it might also lead the way to changes in american society that would bridge the gap between the races.[ - ] in effect, sargent sought to force the generally conservative bureau of naval personnel into making rapid and sweeping changes in the navy's racial policy. [footnote - : interv, lee nichols with rear adm. r. h. hillenkoetter, , in nichols collection, cmh.] [footnote - : nichols, _breakthrough on the color front_, pp. - . nichols supports his affectionate portrait of sargent, who died shortly after the war, with interviews of many wartime officials who worked in the bureau of naval personnel with sargent. see nichols collection, cmh. see also _christopher smith sargent, - _, a privately printed memorial prepared by the sargent family in , copy in cmh.] during its first months of existence the special programs unit tried to quiet racial unrest by a rigorous application of the separate but equal principle. it began attacking the concentration of negroes in large segregated groups in the naval districts by creating more overseas billets. toward the end of , negroes were being assigned in (p.  ) greater numbers to duty in the pacific at shore establishments and aboard small defense, district, and yard craft. the bureau of naval personnel also created new specialties for negroes in the general service. one important addition was the creation of black shore patrol units for which a school was started at great lakes. the special programs unit established a remedial training center for illiterate draftees at camp robert smalls, drawing the faculty from black servicemen who had been educators in civilian life. the twelve-week course gave the students the equivalent of a fifth grade education in addition to regular recruit training. approximately , negroes took this training before the school was consolidated with a similar organization for whites at bainbridge, maryland, in the last months of the war.[ - ] [footnote - : for further discussion, see nelson, "integration of the negro," pp. - .] at the other end of the spectrum, the special programs unit worked for the efficient use of black class a school graduates by renewing the attack on improper assignments. the bureau had long held that the proper assignment of black specialists was of fundamental importance to morale and efficiency, and in july it had ordered that all men must be used in the ratings and for the types of work for which they had been trained.[ - ] but the unit discovered considerable deviation from this policy in some districts, especially in the south, where there was a tendency to regard negroes as an extra labor source above the regular military complement. in december the special programs unit got the bureau to rule in the name of manpower efficiency that, with the exception of special units in the supply departments at south boston and norfolk, no black sailor could be assigned to such civilian jobs as maintenance work and stevedoring in the continental united states.[ - ] [footnote - : bupers ltr, pers -mbr, jul .] [footnote - : "bupers hist," p. .] these reforms were welcome, but they ignored the basic dilemma: the only way to abolish concentrations of shore-based negroes was to open up positions for them in the fleet. though many black sailors were best suited for unskilled or semiskilled billets, a significant number had technical skills that could be properly used only if these men were assigned to the fleet. to relieve the racial tension and to end the waste of skilled manpower engendered by the misuse of these men, the special programs unit pressed for a chance to test black seamanship. admiral king agreed, and in early the bureau of naval personnel assigned black enlisted men and white officers and petty officers to the uss _mason_, a newly commissioned destroyer escort, with the understanding that all enlisted billets would be filled by negroes as soon as those qualified to fill them had been trained. it also assigned black rated seamen and white officers and noncommissioned officers to a patrol craft, the pc .[ - ] both ships eventually replaced their white petty officers and some of their officers with negroes. among the latter was ens. samuel gravely, who was to become the navy's first black admiral. [footnote - : memo, chief, bupers, for cincusfleet, dec , sub: negro personnel, p /mm, bupersrecs. the latter experiment has been chronicled by its commanding officer, eric purdon, in _black company: the story of subchaser _ (washington: luce, ).] [illustration: uss mason. _sailors look over their new ship._] although both ships continued to operate with black crews well (p.  ) into , the _mason_ on escort duty in the atlantic, only four other segregated patrol craft were added to the fleet during the war.[ - ] the _mason_ passed its shakedown cruise test, but the bureau of naval personnel was not satisfied with the crew. the black petty officers had proved competent in their ratings and interested in their work, but bureau observers agreed that the rated men in general were unable to maintain discipline. the nonrated men tended to lack respect for the petty officers, who showed some disinclination to put their men on report. the special programs unit admitted the truth of these charges but argued that the experiment only proved what the navy already knew: black sailors did not respond well when assigned to all-black organizations under white officers.[ - ] on the other hand, the experiment demonstrated that the navy possessed a reservoir of able seamen who were not being efficiently employed, and--an unexpected dividend from the presence of white noncommissioned officers--that integration worked on board ship. the white petty officers messed, worked, and slept with their men in the close contact inevitable aboard small ships, with no sign of racial friction. [footnote - : memo, cno for cmdt, first and fifth naval districts, may , sub: assignment of negro personnel, p- - /mm, bupersrecs.] [footnote - : for an assessment of the performance of the _mason's_ crew. see "bupers hist," pp. - and .] opportunity for advancement was as important to morale as (p.  ) assignment according to training and skill, and the special programs unit encouraged the promotion of negroes according to their ability and in proportion to their number. although in july the bureau of naval personnel had warned commanders that it would continue to order white enlisted men to sea with the expectation that they would be replaced in shore jobs by negroes,[ - ] the special programs unit discovered that rating and promotion of negroes was still slow. at the unit's urging, the bureau advised all naval districts that it expected negroes to be rated upward "as rapidly as practicable" and asked them to report on their rating of negroes.[ - ] it also authorized stations to retain white petty officers for up to two weeks to break in their black replacements, but warned that this privilege must not be abused. the bureau further directed that all qualified general service candidates be advanced to ratings for which they were eligible regardless of whether their units were authorized enough spaces to take care of them. this last directive did little for black promotions at first because many local commanders ruled that no negroes could be "qualified" since none were allowed to perform sea duties. in january the bureau had to clarify the order to make sure that negroes were given the opportunity to advance.[ - ] [footnote - : bupers ltr, p - , jul , sub: the expanded use of negroes, bupersrecs.] [footnote - : ltr, chief, navpers, to cmdts, all naval districts, aug , sub: advancement in rating re: negro personnel, p - /mm, bupersrecs.] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , jan .] despite these evidences of command concern, black promotions continued to lag in the navy. again at the special programs unit's urging, the bureau of naval personnel began to limit the number of rated men turned out by the black training schools so that more nonrated men already on the job might have a better chance to win ratings. the bureau instituted a specialist leadership course for rated negroes at great lakes and recommended in january that two negroes so trained be included in each base company sent out of the country. it also selected twelve negroes with backgrounds in education and public relations and assigned them to recruiting duty around the country. the bureau expanded the black petty officer program because it was convinced by the end of that the presence of more black leaders, particularly in the large base companies, would improve discipline and raise morale. it was but a short step from this conviction to a realization that black commissioned officers were needed. despite its , enlisted negroes, the absence of black commissioned officers in the fall of forced the navy to answer an increasing number of queries from civil rights organizations and congress.[ - ] several times during suggestions were made within the bureau of naval personnel that the instructors at the hampton specialist school and seventy-five other negroes be commissioned (p.  ) for service with the large black units, but nothing happened. secretary knox himself thought that the navy would have to develop a considerable body of black sailors before it could even think about commissioning black officers.[ - ] but the secretary failed to appreciate the effect of the sheer number of black draftees that overwhelmed the service in the spring of , and he reckoned without the persuasive arguments of his special assistant, adlai stevenson.[ - ] [footnote - : news that the navy had inadvertently commissioned a black student at harvard university in the spring of produced the following reaction in one personnel office: "ltcmdr b ... [special activities branch, bupers] says this is true due to a slip by the officer who signed up medical students at harvard. cmdr. b. says this boy has a year to go in medical school and hopes they can get rid of him some how by then. he earnestly asks us to be judicious in handling this matter and prefers that nothing be said about it." quoted in a note, h. m. harvey to m mc (ca. jun ), copy on file in the dennis d. nelson collection, san diego, california.] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to sen. david i. walsh (massachusetts), may , - - ; see also idem to sen. william h. smathers (florida), feb , nav- -c. both in genrecsnav.] [footnote - : interv, lee nichols with lester granger, , in nichols collection, cmh.] secretary knox often referred to adlai stevenson as "my new dealer," and, as the expression suggested, the illinois lawyer was in an excellent position to influence the secretary's thinking.[ - ] although not so forceful an advocate as christopher sargent, stevenson lent his considerable intelligence and charm to the support of those in the department who sought equal opportunity for the negro. he was an invaluable and influential ally for the special programs unit. stevenson knew knox well and understood how to approach him. he was particularly effective in getting negroes commissioned. in september he pointed out that, with the induction of , negroes a month, the demand for black officers would be mounting in the black community and in the government as well. the navy could not and should not, he warned, postpone much longer the creation of some black officers. suspicion of discrimination was one reason the navy was failing to get the best qualified negroes, and stevenson believed it wise to act quickly. he recommended that the navy commission ten or twelve negroes from among "top notch civilians just as we procure white officers" and a few from the ranks. the commissioning should be treated as a matter of course without any special publicity. the news, he added wryly, would get out soon enough.[ - ] [footnote - : kenneth s. davis, _the politics of honor: a biography of adlai e. stevenson_ (new york: putnam, ), p. ; ltr, a. e. stevenson to dennis d. nelson, feb , nelson collection, san diego, california.] [footnote - : memo, stevenson for the secretary [knox], sep , - - , genrecsnav.] there were in fact three avenues to a navy commission: the naval academy, the v- program, and direct commission from civilian life or the enlisted ranks. but annapolis had no negroes enrolled at the time stevenson spoke, and only a dozen negroes were enrolled in v- programs at integrated civilian colleges throughout the country.[ - ] the lack of black students in the v- program could be attributed in part to the belief of many black trainees that the program barred negroes. actually, it never had, and in december the bureau publicized this fact. it issued a circular letter emphasizing to all commanders that enlisted men were entitled to consideration for transfer to the v- program regardless of race.[ - ] despite this effort (p.  ) it was soon apparent that the program would produce only a few black officers, and the bureau of naval personnel, at the urging of its special programs unit, agreed to follow stevenson's suggestion and concentrate on the direct commissioning of negroes. unlike stevenson the bureau preferred to obtain most of the men from the enlisted ranks, and only in the case of certain specially trained men did the navy commission civilians. [footnote - : the v- program was designed to prepare large numbers of educated men for the navy's reserve midshipmen schools and to increase the war-depleted student bodies of many colleges. the navy signed on eligible students as apprentice seamen and paid their academic expenses. eventually the v- program produced some , officers for the wartime navy. for an account of the experiences of a black recruit in the v- program, see carl t. rowan, "those navy boys changed my life," _reader's digest_ (january ): - . rowan, the celebrated columnist and onetime deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs, was one of the first negroes to complete the v- program. another was samuel gravely.] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , dec .] [illustration: first black officers in the navy. _from left to right_: (_top row_) _john w. reagan_, _jesse w. arbor_, _dalton l. baugh_; (_second row_) _graham e. martin_, _w. o. charles b. lear_, _frank c. sublett_; (_third row_) _phillip s. barnes_, _george cooper_, _reginald goodwin_; (_bottom row_) _james e. hare_, _samuel e. barnes_, _w. sylvester white_, _dennis d. nelson ii_.] the bureau of naval personnel concluded that, since many units were substantially or wholly manned by negroes, black officers could be used without undue difficulty, and when secretary knox, prodded by stevenson, turned to the bureau, it recommended that the navy (p.  ) commission twelve line and ten staff officers from a selected list of enlisted men.[ - ] admiral king endorsed the bureau's recommendation and on december knox approved it, although he conditioned his approval by saying: "after you have commissioned the twenty-two officers you suggest, i think this matter should again be reviewed before any additional colored officers are commissioned."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for chief, navpers, nov , - - ; memo, chief, navpers, for secnav, dec , sub: negro officers. both in genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, secnav for rear adm jacobs, dec , quoted in "bupers hist," p. .] on january the first sixteen black officer candidates, selected from among qualified enlisted applicants, entered great lakes for segregated training. all sixteen survived the course, but only twelve were commissioned. in the last week of the course, three candidates were returned to the ranks, not because they had failed but because the bureau of naval personnel had suddenly decided to limit the number of black officers in this first group to twelve. the twelve entered the u.s. naval reserve as line officers on march. a thirteenth man, the only candidate who lacked a college degree, was made a warrant officer because of his outstanding work in the course. two of the twelve new ensigns were assigned to the faculty at hampton training school, four others to yard and harbor craft duty, and the rest to training duty at great lakes. all carried the label "deck officers limited--only," a designation usually reserved for officers whose physical or educational deficiencies kept them from performing all the duties of a line officer. the bureau of naval personnel never explained why the men were placed in this category, but it was clear that none of them lacked the physical requirements of a line officer and all had had business or professional careers in civil life. operating duplicate training facilities for officer candidates was costly, and the bureau decided shortly after the first group of black candidates was trained that future candidates of both races would be trained together. by early summer ten more negroes, this time civilians with special professional qualifications, had been trained with whites and were commissioned as staff officers in the medical, dental, chaplain, civil engineer, and supply corps. these twenty-two men were the first of some sixty negroes to be commissioned during the war. since only a handful of the negroes in the navy were officers, the preponderance of the race problems concerned relations between black enlisted men and their white officers. the problem of selecting the proper officers to command black sailors was a formidable one never satisfactorily solved during the war. as in the army, most of the white officers routinely selected for such assignments were southerners, chosen by the bureau of naval personnel for their assumed "understanding" of negroes rather than for their general competency. the special programs unit tried to work with these officers, assembling them for conferences to discuss the best techniques and procedures for dealing with groups of black subordinates. members of the unit sought to disabuse the officers of preconceived biases, constantly reminding them that "our prejudices must be subordinated to our traditional (p.  ) unfailing obedience to orders."[ - ] although there was ample proof that many negroes actively resented the paternalism exhibited by many of even the best of these officers, this fact was slow to filter through the naval establishment. it was not until january that an officer who had compiled an enviable record in training seabee units described how his organization had come to see the light: we in the seabees no longer follow the precept that southern officers exclusively should be selected for colored battalions. a man may be from the north, south, east or west. if his attitude is to do the best possible job he knows how, regardless of what the color of his personnel is, that is the man we want as an officer for our colored seabees. we have learned to steer clear of the "i'm from the south--i know how to handle 'em variety." it follows with reference to white personnel, that deeply accented southern whites are not generally suited for negro battalions.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in record of "conference with regard to negro personnel," held at hq, fifth naval district, oct , incl to ltr, chief, navpers, to all sea frontier cmds et al., jan , sub: negro personnel--confidential report of conference with regard to the handling of, pers , bupers recs. the grotesque racial attitudes of some commanders, as well as the thoughtful questions and difficult experiences of others, were fully aired at this conference.] [footnote - : ibid.] further complicating the task of selecting suitable officers for black units was the fact that when the bureau of naval personnel asked unit commanders to recommend men for such duty many commanders used the occasion to rid themselves of their least desirable officers. the special programs unit then tried to develop its own source of officers for black units. it discovered a fine reservoir of talent among the white noncommissioned officers who ran the physical training and drill courses at great lakes. these were excellent instructors, mature and experienced in dealing with people. in january arrangements were made to commission them and to assign them to black units. improvement in the quality of officers in black units was especially important because the attitude of local commanders was directly related to the degree of segregation in living quarters and recreational facilities, and such segregation was the most common source of racial tension. although the navy's practice of segregating units clearly invited separate living and recreational facilities, the rules were unwritten, and local commanders had been left to decide the extent to which segregation was necessary. thus practices varied greatly and policy depended ultimately on the local commanders. rather than attack racial practices at particular bases, the unit decided to concentrate on the officers. it explained to these leaders the navy's policy of equal treatment and opportunity, a concept basically incompatible with many of their practices. this conclusion was embodied in a pamphlet entitled _guide to the command of negro naval personnel_ and published by the bureau of naval personnel in february .[ - ] the special programs unit had to overcome much opposition within the bureau to get the pamphlet published. some thought the subject of racial tension was best ignored; others objected to the "sociological" content of the work, considering this approach outside the navy's province. the unit (p.  ) argued that racial tension in the navy was a serious problem that could not be ignored, and since human relations affected the navy's mission the navy should deal with social matters objectively and frankly.[ - ] [footnote - : navpers , feb .] [footnote - : "bupers hist," pt. ii, pp. - .] scholarly and objective, the pamphlet was an important document in the history of race relations in the navy. in language similar to that used in the war department's pamphlet on race, the bureau of naval personnel stated officially for the first time that discrimination flowed of necessity out of the doctrine of segregation: the idea of compulsory racial segregation is disliked by almost all negroes, and literally hated by many. this antagonism is in part a result of the fact that as a principle it embodies a doctrine of racial inferiority. it is also a result of the lesson taught the negro by experience that in spite of the legal formula of "separate but equal" facilities, the facilities open to him under segregation are in fact usually inferior as to location or quality to those available to others.[ - ] [footnote - : navpers , feb , p. .] the guide also foreshadowed the end of the old order of things: "the navy accepts no theories of racial differences in inborn ability, but expects that every man wearing its uniform be trained and used in accordance with his maximum individual capacity determined on the basis of individual performance."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] _forrestal takes the helm_ the navy got a leader sympathetic to the proposition of equal treatment and opportunity for negroes, and possessed of the bureaucratic skills to achieve reforms, when president roosevelt appointed under secretary james forrestal to replace frank knox, who died suddenly on april . during the next five years forrestal, a brilliant, complex product of wall street, would assume more and more responsibility for directing the integration effort in the defense establishment. although no racial crusader, forrestal had been for many years a member of the national urban league, itself a pillar of the civil rights establishment. he saw the problem of employing negroes as one of efficiency and simple fair play, and as the months went by he assumed an active role in experimenting with changes in the navy's policy.[ - ] [footnote - : see columbia university oral hist interv with granger; usaf oral history program, interview with james c. evans, apr .] his first experiment was with sea duty for negroes. after the experience of the _mason_ and the other segregated ships which actually proved very little, sentiment for a partial integration of the fleet continued to grow in the bureau of naval personnel. as early as april , officers in the planning and control activity recommended that negroes be included in small numbers in the crews of the larger combat ships. admiral jacobs, however, was convinced that "you couldn't dump colored boys on a crew in battle,"[ - ] so this and similar proposals later in the year never survived passage through the bureau. [footnote - : interv, lee nichols with vice adm randall jacobs, mar , in nichols collection, cmh.] forrestal accepted jacob's argument that as long as the war (p.  ) continued any move toward integrating the fighting ships was impractical. at the same time, he agreed with the special programs unit that large concentrations of negroes in shore duties lowered efficiency and morale. forrestal compromised by ordering the bureau to prepare as an experiment a plan for the integration of some fleet auxiliary ships. on may he outlined the problem for the president: "from a morale standpoint, the negroes resent the fact that they are not assigned to general service billets at sea, and white personnel resent the fact that negroes have been given less hazardous assignments." he explained that at first negroes would be used only on the large auxiliaries, and their number would be limited to not more than percent of the ship's complement. if this step proved workable, he planned to use negroes in small numbers on other types of ships "as necessity indicates." the white house answered: "ok, fdr."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for president, may , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] secretary forrestal also won the support of the chief of naval operations for the move, but admiral king still considered integration in the fleet experimental and was determined to keep strict control until the results were known. on august king informed the commanding officers of twenty-five large fleet auxiliaries that negroes would be assigned to them in the near future. as forrestal had suggested, king set the maximum number of negroes at percent of the ship's general service. of this number, percent would be third-class petty officers from shore activities, selected as far as possible from volunteers and, in any case, from those who had served the longest periods of shore duty. of the remainder, percent would be from class a schools and percent from recruit training. the basic percent figure proved to be a theoretical maximum; no ship received that many negroes. admiral king insisted that equal treatment in matters of training, promotion, and duty assignments must be accorded all hands, but he left the matter of berthing to the commanding officers, noting that experience had proved that in the shore establishment, when the percentage of blacks to whites was small, the two groups could be successfully mingled in the same compartments. he also pointed out that a thorough indoctrination of white sailors before the arrival of the negroes had been useful in preventing racial friction ashore.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, cno to co, uss _antaeus_ et al., aug , sub: negro enlisted personnel--assignment of to ships of the fleet, p - /mm, opnavarchives.] king asked all commanders concerned in the experiment to report their experiences.[ - ] their judgment: integration in the auxiliary fleet worked. as one typical report related after several months of integrated duty: the crew was carefully indoctrinated in the fact that negro personnel should not be subjected to discrimination of any sort and should be treated in the same manner as other members of the crew. the negro personnel when they came aboard were berthed indiscriminately throughout the crew's compartments in the same manner as if they had been white. it is felt that the assimilation of the general service negro personnel aboard this ship has been remarkably successful. to the present date (p.  ) there has been no report of any difficulty which could be laid to their color. it is felt that this is due in part, at least, to the high calibre of negroes assigned to this ship.[ - ] [footnote - : idem to cmdr, _antaeus_ et al., jan , p - , opnavarchives.] [footnote - : ltr, co, uss _antaeus_, to chief, navpers, jan , sub: negro enlisted personnel--assignment of to ships of the fleet, ag /p - /mm; see also memo, cmdr d. armstrong for comserforpac, dec , sub: negro enlisted personnel (general service ratings) assignment of to ships of the fleet; ltr, comserforpac to chief, navpers, jan , with cincpac&poa end thereto, same sub; ltrs to chief, navpers, from co, uss _laramie_, jan , uss _mattole_, jan , with comserforlant end, and uss _ariel_, feb . all incl to memo, chief, navpers, for cincusfleet, mar , sub: negro personnel--expanded use of, pers fb. all in opnavarchives.] the comments of his commanders convinced king that the auxiliary vessels in the fleet could be integrated without incident. he approved a plan submitted by the chief of naval personnel on march for the gradual assignment of negroes to all auxiliary vessels, again in numbers not to exceed percent of the general service billets in any ship's complement.[ - ] a month later negroes were being so assigned in an administratively routine manner.[ - ] the bureau of naval personnel then began assigning black officers to sea duty on the integrated vessels. the first one went to the _mason_ in march, and in succeeding months others were sent in a routine manner to auxiliary vessels throughout the fleet.[ - ] these assignments were not always carried out according to the bureau's formula. the commander of the uss _chemung_, for example, told a young black ensign: i'm a navy man, and we're in a war. to me, it's that stripe that counts--and the training and leadership that it is supposed to symbolize. that's why i never called a meeting of the crew to prepare them, to explain their obligation to respect you, or anything like that. i didn't want anyone to think you were different from any other officer coming aboard.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for cincusfleet, mar , sub: negro personnel--expanded use of, with st ind, from fleet adm, usn, for vice cno, mar , same sub, ffi/p - /mm, opnavarchives.] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , apr , sub: negro general-service personnel, assignment of to auxiliary vessels of the fleet.] [footnote - : ltr, chief, navpers, to co, uss _mason_, mar , sub: negro officer--assignment of, pers -fb; see also idem to co, uss _kaweah_, jul , sub: negro officer--assignment of to auxiliary vessel of the fleet, ao /p - ; idem to co, uss _laramie_, aug , same sub, ao /p - . all in opnavarchives.] [footnote - : quoted in rowan, "those navy boys changed my life." pp - .] admitting negroes to the waves was another matter considered by the new secretary in his first days in office. in fact, the subject had been under discussion in the navy department for some two years. soon after the organization of the women's auxiliary, its director, capt. mildred h. mcafee, had recommended that negroes be accepted, arguing that their recruitment would help to temper the widespread criticism of the navy's restrictive racial policy. but the traditionalists in the bureau of naval personnel had opposed the move on the grounds that waves were organized to replace men, and since there were more than enough black sailors to fill all billets open to negroes there was no need to recruit black women. actually, both arguments served to mask other motives, as did knox's rejection of recruitment on the grounds that integrating women into the navy was difficult enough without taking on the race (p.  ) problem.[ - ] in april knox "tentatively" approved the "tentative" outline of a bureau plan for the induction of up to , black waves, but nothing came of it.[ - ] given the secretary's frequent protestation that the subject was under constant review,[ - ] and his statement to captain mcafee that black waves would be enlisted "over his dead body,"[ - ] the tentative outline and approval seems to have been an attempt to defer the decision indefinitely. [footnote - : ltr, mildred m. horton to author, mar , cmh files.] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for secnav, apr , pers md, bupersrecs, memo, secnav for adm jacobs, apr , - - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : see, for example, ltr, secnav to algernon d. black, city-wide citizen's cmte on harlem, apr , - - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : quoted in ltr, horton to author, mar .] secretary knox's delay merely attracted more attention to the problem and enabled the protestors to enlist powerful allies. at the time of his death, knox was under siege by a delegation from the congress of industrial organizations (cio) demanding a reassessment of the navy's policy on the women's reserve.[ - ] his successor turned for advice to captain mcafee and to the bureau of naval personnel where, despite knox's "positive and direct orders" against recruiting black waves, the special programs unit had continued to study the problem.[ - ] convinced that the step was just and inevitable, the unit also agreed that the waves should be integrated. forrestal approved, and on july he recommended to the president that negroes be trained in the waves on an integrated basis and assigned "wherever needed within the continental limits of the united states, preferably to stations where there are already negro men." he concluded by reiterating a special programs unit warning: "i consider it advisable to start obtaining negro waves before we are forced to take them."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, ralph bard for forrestal, may , sub: navy policy on recruitment of negro females as waves; ltr, nathan cowan, cio, to forrestal, may , - - . both in genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, j. v. f. (forrestal) for adm denfeld (ca. jun ); memo, capt mildred mcafee for adm denfeld, jun ; both in - - , genrecsnav. see also memo, chief, navpers, for secnav, may , sub: navy policy on recruitment of negro females as waves, pers , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, forrestal for president, jul , - - , genrecsnav.] to avoid the shoals of racial controversy in the midst of an election year, secretary forrestal did trim his recommendations to the extent that he retained the doctrine of separate but equal living quarters and mess facilities for the black waves. despite this offer of compromise, president roosevelt directed forrestal to withhold action on the proposal.[ - ] here the matter would probably have stood until after the election but for thomas e. dewey's charge in a chicago speech during the presidential campaign that the white house was discriminating against black women. the president quickly instructed the navy to admit negroes into the waves.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, lt cmdr john tyree (white house aide) for forrestal, aug , - - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : navy dept press release, oct .] the first two black wave officers graduated from training at smith college on december, and the enlistment of black women began a week later. the program turned out to be more racially progressive than initially outlined by forrestal. he had explained to the president that the women would be quartered separately, a provision (p.  ) interpreted in the bureau of naval personnel to mean that black recruits would be organized into separate companies. since a recruit company numbered women, and since it quickly became apparent that such a large group of black volunteers would not soon be forthcoming, some of the bureau staff decided that the navy would continue to bar black women. in this they reckoned without captain mcafee who insisted on a personal ruling by forrestal. she warned the secretary that his order was necessary because the concept "was so strange to navy practice."[ - ] he agreed with her that the negroes would be integrated along with the rest of the incoming recruits, and the bureau of naval personnel subsequently ordered that the waves be assimilated without making either special or separate arrangements.[ - ] [footnote - : oral history interview, mildred mcafee horton, aug , center of naval history.] [footnote - : ltr, asst chief, navpers, to co, navtrascol (wr), bronx, n.y., dec , sub: colored wave recruits, pers- , bupersrecs.] [illustration: lieutenant pickens and ensign wills. _first black wave officers, members of the final graduating class at naval reserve midshipmen's school (wr), northhampton, massachusetts._] by july the navy had trained seventy-two black waves at hunter college naval training school in a fully integrated and routine manner. although black waves were restricted somewhat in specialty assignments and a certain amount of separate quartering within integrated barracks prevailed at some duty stations, the special programs unit came to consider the wave program, which established a forceful precedent for the integration of male recruit training, its most important wartime breakthrough, crediting captain mcafee and her unbending insistence on equal treatment for the achievement. forrestal won the day in these early experiments, but he was a skillful administrator and knew that there was little hope for any fundamental social change in the naval service without the active cooperation of the navy's high-ranking officers. his meeting with admiral king on the subject of integration in the summer of has been reported by several people. lester granger, who later became forrestal's special representative on racial matters, recalled: he [forrestal] said he spoke to admiral king, who was then chief of staff, and said, "admiral king, i'm not satisfied with the situation here--i don't think that our navy negro personnel are getting a square break. i want to do something about it, but i can't do anything about it unless the officers are behind me. i want your help. what do you say?" he said that admiral king sat for a moment, and looked out (p.  ) the window and then said reflectively, "you know, we say that we are a democracy and a democracy ought to have a democratic navy. i don't think you can do it, but if you want to try, i'm behind you all the way." and he told me, "and admiral king was behind me, all the way, not only he but all of the bureau of personnel, bupers. they've been bricks."[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in the columbia university oral history interview with granger. granger's incorrect reference to admiral king as "chief of staff" is interesting because it illustrates the continuing evolution of that office during world war ii.] [illustration: sailors in the general service move ammunition.] admiral jacobs, the chief of naval personnel, also pledged his support.[ - ] [footnote - : james v. forrestal, "remarks for dinner meeting at national urban league," feb , box , misc file, forrestal papers, princeton library. forrestal's truncated version of the king meeting agreed substantially with granger's lengthier remembrance.] as news of the king-forrestal conversation filtered through the department, many of the programs long suggested by the special programs unit and heretofore treated with indifference or disapproval suddenly received respectful attention.[ - ] with the high-ranking officers cooperating, the navy under forrestal began to attack some of the more obvious forms of discrimination and causes of racial tension. admiral king led the attack, personally directing in august that all elements give close attention to the proper selection of officers to command black sailors. as he put it: "certain officers will be temperamentally better suited for such commands than others."[ - ] the qualifications of these officers were to be kept under constant (p.  ) review. in december he singled out the commands in the pacific area, which had a heavy concentration of all-black base companies, calling for a reform in their employment and advancement of negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : intervs, lee nichols with adm louis e. denfeld (deputy chief of naval personnel, later cno) and with cmdr charles dillon (formerly of bupers special unit), ; both in nichols collection, cmh.] [footnote - : alnav, aug , quoted in nelson, "integration of the negro," p. .] [footnote - : dir, cno, to forward areas, dec , quoted in nelson's "integration of the negro," p. .] [illustration: security watch in the marianas. _ratings of these men guarding an ammunition depot include boatswain, second class, seaman, first class, and fireman, first class._] the bureau of naval personnel also stepped up the tempo of its reforms. in march it had already made black cooks and bakers eligible for duty in all commissary branches of the navy.[ - ] in june it got forrestal's approval for putting all rated cooks and stewards in chief petty officer uniforms.[ - ] (while providing finally for the proper uniforming of the chief cooks and stewards, this reform set their subordinates, the rated cooks and stewards, even further apart from their counterparts in the general service who of course continued to wear the familiar bell bottoms.) the bureau also began to attack the concentration of negroes in ammunition depots and base companies. on february it ordered that all naval magazines and ammunition depots in the united states and, wherever practical, overseas limit their black seamen to percent of the total employed.[ - ] it (p.  ) also organized twenty logistic support companies to replace the formless base companies sent to the pacific in the early months of the recruitment program. organized to perform supply functions, each company consisted of enlisted men and five officers, with a flexible range of petty officer billets. [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , mar , sub: negro personnel of the commissary branch, assignment to duty of.] [footnote - : idem, - , jun , "uniform for chief cooks and chief stewards and cooks and stewards."] [footnote - : idem, - , feb , and - , may , sub: negro enlisted personnel--limitation on assignment of to naval ammunition depots and naval magazines.] in the reform atmosphere slowly permeating the bureau of naval personnel, the special programs unit found it relatively easy to end segregation in the specialist training program.[ - ] from the first, the number of negroes eligible for specialist training had been too small to make costly duplication of equipment and services practical. in , for example, the black aviation metalsmith school at great lakes had an average enrollment of eight students. the school was quietly closed and its students integrated with white students. thus, when the _mason's_ complement was assembled in early , negroes were put into the destroyer school at norfolk side by side with whites, and the black and white petty officers were quartered together. as a natural consequence of the decision to place negroes in the auxiliary fleet, the bureau of naval personnel opened training in seagoing rates to negroes on an integrated basis. citing the practicality of the move, the bureau closed the last of the black schools in june .[ - ] [footnote - : there is some indication that integration was already going on unofficially in some specialist schools; see ltr, dr. m. a. f. ritchie to james c. evans, aug , cmh files.] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , sub: advanced schools, nondiscrimination in selection of personnel for training in; ltr, chief, navpers, to co, adcomd, navtracen, jun , sub: selection of negro personnel for instruction in class "a" schools, - - , genrecsnav.] despite these reforms, the months following forrestal's talk with king saw many important recommendations of the special programs unit wandering uncertainly through the bureaucratic desert. for example, a proposal to make the logistic support companies interracial, or at least to create comparable white companies to remove the stigma of segregated manual labor, failed to survive the objections of the enlisted personnel section. the bureau of naval personnel rejected a suggestion that negroes be assigned to repair units on board ships and to lst's, lci's, and lct's during the expansion of the amphibious program. on august admiral king rejected a bureau recommendation that the crews of net tenders and mine ships be integrated. he reasoned that these vessels were being kept in readiness for overseas assignment and required "the highest degree of experienced seamanship and precision work" by the crews. he also cited the crowded living quarters and less experienced officers as further reasons for banning negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cno for chief, navpers, aug , sub: negro personnel--assignment to ans and yms, p -/mm, bupersrecs.] there were other examples of backsliding in the navy's racial practices. use of negroes in general service had created a shortage of messmen, and in august the bureau of naval personnel authorized commanders to recruit among black seamen for men to transfer to the steward's branch. the bureau suggested as a talking point the fact (p.  ) that stewards enjoyed more rapid advancement, shorter hours, and easier work than men in the general service.[ - ] and, illustrating that a move toward integration was sometimes followed by a step backward, a bureau representative reported in july that whereas a few black trainees at the bainbridge naval training center had been integrated in the past, many now arriving were segregated in all-black companies.[ - ] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , aug , sub: steward's branch, procurement of from general-service negroes.] [footnote - : memo, lt william h. robertson, jr., for rear adm william m. fechteler, asst chief, navpers, jul , sub: conditions existing at ntc, bainbridge, md., regarding negro personnel, reported on by lt wm. h. robertson, jr., pers- -fb, bupersrecs.] there were reasons for the inconsistent stance in washington. the special programs unit had for some time been convinced that only full integration would eliminate discrimination and dissolve racial tensions in the navy, and it had understood forrestal's desire "to do something" for the negro to mean just that. some senior commanders and their colleagues in the bureau of naval personnel, on the other hand, while accepting the need for reform and willing to accept some racial mixing, nevertheless rejected any substantial change in the policy of restricted employment of negroes on the grounds that it might disrupt the wartime fleet. both sides could argue with assurance since forrestal and king had not made their positions completely clear. whatever the secretary's ultimate intention, the reforms carried out in were too little and too late. perhaps nothing would have been sufficient, for the racial incidents visited upon the navy during the last year of the war were symptomatic of the overwhelming dissatisfaction negroes felt with their lot in the armed forces. there had been incidents during the knox period, but investigation had failed to isolate any "single, simple cause," and troubles continued to occur during .[ - ] [footnote - : "bupers hist," p. .] three of these incidents gained national prominence.[ - ] the first was a mutiny at mare island, california, after an explosion destroyed two ammunition ships loading at nearby port chicago on july . the explosion killed over persons, including black seamen who had toiled in large, segregated labor battalions. the survivors refused to return to work, and fifty of them were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to prison. the incident became a _cause celebre_. finally, through the intervention of the black press and black organizations and the efforts of thurgood marshall and lester granger, the convictions were set aside and the men restored to active duty. [footnote - : nelson, "integration of the negro," ch. viii.] a riot on guam in december was the climax of months of friction between black seamen and white marines. a series of shootings in and around the town of agana on christmas eve left a black and a white marine dead. believing one of the killed a member of their group, black sailors from the naval supply depot drove into town to confront the outnumbered military police. no violence ensued, but the next day two truckloads of armed negroes went to the white marine camp. a riot followed and forty-three negroes were arrested, charged with rioting and theft of the trucks, and sentenced to up to four years in prison. the authorities also recommended that several of the white marines (p.  ) involved be court-martialed. these men too were convicted of various offenses and sentenced.[ - ] walter white went to guam to investigate the matter and appeared as a principal witness before the marine court of inquiry. there he pieced together for officials the long history of discrimination suffered by men of the base company. this situation, combined with poor leadership in the unit, he believed, caused the trouble. his efforts and those of other civil rights advocates led to the release of the black sailors in early .[ - ] [footnote - : henry i. shaw, jr., and ralph w. donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - .] [footnote - : white's testimony before the court of inquiry was attached to a report by maj gen henry l. larsen to cmc (ca. jan ), ser. no. , copy in cmh.] [illustration: specialists repair aircraft, _naval air station, seattle, washington, _.] a hunger strike developed as a protest against discrimination in a seabee battalion at port hueneme, california, in march . there was no violence. the thousand strikers continued to work but refused to eat for two days. the resulting publicity forced the navy to investigate the charges; as a result, the commanding officer, the focus of the grievance, was replaced and the outfit sent overseas. the riots, mutinies, and other incidents increased the pressure for further modifications of policy. some senior officers became convinced that the only way to avoid mass rebellion was to avert the (p.  ) possibility of collective action, and collective action was less likely if negroes were dispersed among whites. as admiral chester w. nimitz, commander of the pacific fleet and an eloquent proponent of the theory that integration was a practical means of avoiding trouble, explained to the captain of an attack cargo ship who had just received a group of black crewmen and was segregating their sleeping quarters: "if you put all the negroes together they'll have a chance to share grievances and to plot among themselves, and this will damage discipline and morale. if they are distributed among other members of the crew, there will be less chance of trouble. and when we say we want integration, we mean _integration_."[ - ] thus integration grew out of both idealism and realism. [footnote - : as quoted in white, _a man called white_, p. . for a variation on this theme, see interv, nichols with hillenkoetter.] if racial incidents convinced the admirals that further reforms were necessary, they also seem to have strengthened forrestal's resolve to introduce a still greater change in his department's policy. for months he had listened to the arguments of senior officials and naval experts that integration of the fleet, though desirable, was impossible during the war. yet forrestal had seen integration work on the small patrol craft, on fleet auxiliaries, and in the waves. in fact, integration was working smoothly wherever it had been tried. although hard to substantiate, the evidence suggests that it was in the weeks after the guam incident that the secretary and admiral king agreed on a policy of total integration in the general service. the change would be gradual, but the progress would be evident and the end assured--negroes were going to be assigned as individuals to all branches and billets in the general service.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, rear adm hillenkoetter to nichols, may ; see also intervs, nichols with granger, hillenkoetter, jacobs, thomas darden, dillon, and other bupers officials. in contrast to the knox period, where the files are replete with secretary of the navy memos, bupers letters, and general board reports on the development of the navy's racial policy, there is scant documentation on the same subject during the early months of the forrestal administration. this is understandable because the subject of integration was extremely delicate and not readily susceptible to the usual staffing needed for most policy decisions. furthermore, forrestal's laconic manner of expressing himself, famous in bureaucratic washington, inhibited the usual flow of letters and memos.] forrestal and king received no end of advice. in december a group of black publicists called upon the secretary to appoint a civilian aide to consider the problems of the negro in the navy. the group also added its voice to those within the navy who were suggesting the appointment of a black public relations officer to disseminate news of particular interest to the black press and to improve the navy's relations with the black community.[ - ] one of forrestal's assistants proposed that an intradepartmental committee be organized to standardize the disparate approaches to racial problems throughout the naval establishment; another recommended the appointment of a black civilian to advise the bureau of naval personnel; and still another recommended a white assistant on racial affairs in the office of the under secretary.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, john h. sengstacke to forrestal, dec , - - , genrecsnav; interv, nichols with granger.] [footnote - : memo, under sec bard for secnav, jan ; memo, h struve hensel (off of gen counsel) for forrestal, jan ; both in - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] these ideas had merit. the special programs unit had for some time been urging a public relations effort, pointing to the existence of an influential black press as well as to the desirability of (p.  ) fostering among whites a greater knowledge of the role of negroes in the war. forrestal brought two black officers to washington for possible assignment to public relations work, and he asked the director of public relations to arrange for black newsmen to visit vessels manned by black crewmen. finally, in june , a black officer was added to the staff of the navy's office of public relations.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for eugene duffield (asst to under sec), jan , - - ; idem for rear adm a. stanton merrill (dir of pub relations), mar and may , - - . all in forrestal file, genrecsnav.] appointment of a civilian aide on racial affairs was under consideration for some time, but when no agreement could be reached on where best to assign the official, forrestal, who wanted someone he could "casually talk to about race relations,"[ - ] invited the executive secretary of the national urban league to "give us some of your time for a period."[ - ] thus in march lester b. granger began his long association with the department of defense, an association that would span the military's integration effort.[ - ] granger's assignment was straightforward. from time to time he would make extensive trips representing the secretary and his special interest in racial problems at various naval stations. [footnote - : quoted in forrestal, "remarks for dinner of urban league."] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to lester granger, feb , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : ltrs, granger to forrestal, mar and apr , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav. granger and forrestal had attended dartmouth college, but not together as forrestal thought. for a detailed and affectionate account of their relationship, see columbia university oral history interview with granger.] forrestal was sympathetic to the urban league's approach to racial justice, and in granger he had a man who had developed this approach into a social philosophy. granger believed in relating the navy's racial problems not to questions of fairness but to questions of survival, comfort, and security for all concerned. he assumed that if leadership in any field came to understand that its privilege or its security were threatened by denial of fairness to the less privileged, then a meeting of minds was possible between the two groups. they would begin to seek a way to eliminate insecurity, and from the process of eliminating insecurity would come fairness. as granger explained it, talk to the commander about his loss of efficient production, not the shame of denying a negro a man's right to a job. talk about the social costs that come from denial of opportunity and talk about the penalty that the privileged pay almost in equal measure to what the negro pays, but in different coin. only then would one begin to get a hearing. on the other hand, talk to negroes not about achieving their rights but about making good on an opportunity. this would lead to a discussion of training, of ways to override barriers "by maintaining themselves whole."[ - ] the navy was going to get a lesson in race relations, urban league style. [footnote - : columbia university oral hist interv with granger.] at forrestal's request, granger explained how he viewed the special adviser's role. he thought he could help the secretary by smoothing the integration process in the general service through consultations with local commanders and their men in a series of field visits. he could also act as an intermediary between the department and the civil rights organizations and black press. granger urged the formation (p.  ) of an advisory council, which would consist of ranking representatives from the various branches, to interpret and administer the navy's racial policy. the need for such intradepartmental coordination seemed fairly obvious. although in the bureau of naval personnel had increased the resources of its special programs unit, still the only specialized organization dealing with race problems, that group was always too swamped with administrative detail to police race problems outside washington. furthermore, the seabees and the medical and surgery department were in some ways independent of the bureau, and their employment of black sailors was different from that of other branches--a situation that created further confusion and conflict in the application of race policy.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for cmdr richard m. paget (exec office of the secnav), apr , sub: organization of advisory cmte, pers , genrecsnav. see also "bupers hist," pt. ii, p. .] assuming that the advisory council would require an executive agent, granger suggested that the secretary have a full-time assistant for race relations in addition to his own part-time services. he wanted the man to be black and he wanted him in the secretary's office, which would give him prestige in the black community and increase his power to deal with the bureaus. forrestal rejected the idea of a council and a full-time assistant, pleading that he must avoid creating another formal organization. instead he decided to assemble an informal committee, which he invited granger to join, to standardize the navy's handling of negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, mar ; ltrs, secnav to granger, mar and apr . all in - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav. the activities of the intradepartmental committee will be discussed in chapter .] it was obvious that forrestal, convinced that the navy's senior officials had made a fundamental shift in their thinking on equal treatment and opportunity for negroes in the navy, was content to let specific reforms percolate slowly throughout the department. he would later call the navy's wartime reforms "a start down a long road."[ - ] in these last months of the war, however, more barriers to equal treatment of negroes were quietly falling. in march , after months of prodding by forrestal, the surgeon general announced that the navy would accept a "reasonable" number of qualified black nurses and was now recruiting for them.[ - ] in june the bureau of naval personnel ordered the integration of recruit training, assigning black general service recruits to the nearest recruit training command "to obtain the maximum utilization of naval training and housing facilities."[ - ] noting that this integration was at variance with some individual attitudes, the bureau justified the change on the grounds of administrative efficiency. again at the secretary's urging, plans were set in motion in july for the assignment of negroes to submarine and aviation pilot training.[ - ] at the same time lester granger, acting as the secretary's personal representative, was visiting the (p.  ) navy's continental installations, prodding commanders and converting them to the new policy.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, forrestal to marshall field iii (publisher of _pm_), jul , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, secnav for rear adm w. j. c. agnew, asst surg gen, jan ; memo, surg gen for eugene duffield, mar ; both in - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav. by v-j day the navy had four black nurses on active duty.] [footnote - : ltr, chief, navpers, to cmdts, all naval districts, jun , sub: negro recruit training--discontinuance of special program and camps for, p - /mm, bupersrecs.] [footnote - : memo, secnav for artemus l. gates, asst sec for air, et al. jul ; ltr, secnav to granger, jul ; both in - - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : ltr, granger to forrestal, aug , - - , genrecsnav.] [illustration: the d special construction battalion celebrates v-j day.] the navy's wartime progress in race relations was the product of several forces. at first negroes were restricted to service as messmen, but political pressure forced the navy to open general service billets to them. in this the influence of the civil rights spokesmen was paramount. they and their allies in congress and the national political parties led president roosevelt to demand an end to exclusion and the navy to accept negroes for segregated general service. the presence of large numbers of black inductees and the limited number of assignments for them in segregated units prevented the bureau of naval personnel from providing even a semblance of separate but equal conditions. deteriorating black morale and the specter of racial disturbance drove the bureau to experiment with all-black crews, but the experiment led nowhere. the navy could never operate a separate but equal fleet. finally in forrestal began to experiment with integration in seagoing assignments. the influence of the civil rights forces can be overstated. their attention tended to focus on the army, especially in the later years of the war; their attacks on the navy were mostly sporadic and uncoordinated and easily deflected by naval spokesmen. equally important to race reform was the fact that the navy was developing its own group of civil rights advocates during the war, influential men in key positions who had been dissatisfied with the prewar status of the negro and who pressed for racial change in the name of military efficiency. under the leadership of a sympathetic secretary, (p.  ) himself aided and abetted by stevenson and other advisers in his office and in the bureau of naval personnel, the navy was laying plans for a racially integrated general service when japan capitulated. to achieve equality of treatment and opportunity, however, takes more than the development of an integration policy. for one thing, the liberalization of policy and practices affected only a relatively small percentage of the negroes in the navy. on v-j day the navy could count , enlisted negroes, . percent of its total enlisted strength.[ - ] more than double the prewar percentage, this figure was still less than half the national ratio of blacks to whites. in august the navy had black officers, of whom were women ( nurses and waves), and enlisted waves who were not segregated. the integration of the navy officer corps, the waves, and the nurses had an immediate effect on only people. figures for black enlisted men show that they were employed in some sixty-seven ratings by the end of the war, but steward and steward's mate ratings accounted for some , men, about percent of the total black enlistment. approximately , others were ordinary seamen, some were recruits in training or specialists striking for ratings, but most were assigned to the large segregated labor units and base companies.[ - ] here again integrated service affected only a small portion of the navy's black recruits during world war ii. [footnote - : pers -bl, "enlisted strength--u.s. navy," jul , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : pers - -el, "number of negro enlisted personnel on active duty," nov (statistics as of oct ), bupersrecs.] furthermore, a real chance existed that even this limited progress might prove to be temporary. on v-j day the regular navy had , negroes, just . percent of its total.[ - ] many of these men could be expected to stay in the postwar navy, but the overwhelming majority of them were in the separate steward's branch and would remain there after the war. black reservists in the wartime general service would have to compete with white regulars and reservists for the severely reduced number of postwar billets and commissions in a navy in which almost all members would have to be regulars. although lester granger had stressed this point in conversations with james forrestal, neither the secretary nor the bureau of naval personnel took the matter up before the end of the war. in short, after setting in motion a number of far-reaching reforms during the war, the navy seemed in some danger of settling back into its old prewar pattern. [footnote - : pers- -bl, "enlisted strength--u.s. navy," jul .] still, the fact that reforms had been attempted in a service that had so recently excluded negroes was evidence of progress. secretary forrestal was convinced that the navy's hierarchy had swung behind the principle of equal treatment and opportunity, but the real test was yet to come. hope for a permanent change in the navy's racial practices lay in convincing its tradition-minded officers that an integrated general service with a representative share of black officers and men was a matter of military efficiency. chapter (p.  ) world war ii: the marine corps and the coast guard the racial policies of both the marine corps and the coast guard were substantially the same as the navy policy from which they were derived, but all three differed markedly from each other in their practical application. the differences arose partly from the particular mission and size of these components of the wartime navy, but they were also governed by the peculiar legal relationship that existed in time of war between the navy and the other two services. by law the marine corps was a component of the department of the navy, its commandant subordinate to the secretary of the navy in such matters as manpower and budget and to the chief of naval operations in specified areas of military operations. in the conduct of ordinary business, however, the commandant was independent of the navy's bureaus, including the bureau of naval personnel. the marine corps had its own staff personnel officer, similar to the army's g- , and, more important for the development of racial policy, it had a division of plans and policies that was immediately responsible to the commandant for manpower planning. in practical terms, the marine corps of world war ii was subject to the dictates of the secretary of the navy for general policy, and the secretary's order to enlist negroes applied equally to the marine corps, which had no negroes in its ranks, and to the navy, which did. at the same time, the letters and directives of the chief of naval operations and the chief of naval personnel implementing the secretary's order did not apply to the corps. in effect, the navy department imposed a racial policy on the corps, but left it to the commandant to carry out that policy as he saw fit. these legal distinctions would become more important as the navy's racial policy evolved in the postwar period. the coast guard's administrative position had early in the war become roughly analogous to that of the marine corps. at all times a branch of the armed forces, the coast guard was normally a part of the treasury department. a statute of , however, provided that during wartime or "whenever the president may so direct" the coast guard would operate as part of the navy, subject to the orders of the secretary of the navy.[ - ] at the direction of the president, the coast guard passed to the control of the secretary of the navy on november and so remained until january .[ - ] [footnote - : _u.s. stat. at l_ ( ), - . since the coast guard has been a part of the department of transportation.] [footnote - : executive order , nov . a similar transfer under provisions of the law was effected during world war i. the service's predecessor organizations, the revenue marine, revenue service, revenue-marine service, and the revenue cutter service, had also provided the navy with certain specified ships and men during all wars since the revolution.] at first a division under the chief of naval operations, the (p.  ) headquarters of the coast guard was later granted considerably more administrative autonomy. in march secretary knox carefully delineated the navy's control over the coast guard, making the chief of naval operations responsible for the operation of those coast guard ships, planes, and stations assigned to the naval commands for the "proper conduct of the war," but specifying that assignments be made with "due regard for the needs of the coast guard," which must continue to carry out its regular functions. such duties as providing port security, icebreaking services, and navigational aid remained under the direct control and supervision of the commandant, the local naval district commander exercising only "general military control" of these activities in his area.[ - ] important to the development of racial policy was the fact that the coast guard also retained administrative control of the recruitment, training, and assignment of personnel. like the marine corps, it also had a staff agency for manpower planning, the commandant's advisory board, and one for administration, the personnel division, independent of the navy's bureaus.[ - ] in theory, the coast guard's manpower policy, at least in regard to those segments of the service that operated directly under navy control, had to be compatible with the racial directives of the navy's bureau of naval personnel. in practice, the commandant of the coast guard, like his colleague in the marine corps, was left free to develop his own racial policy in accordance with the general directives of the secretary of the navy and the chief of naval operations. [footnote - : ltr, secnav to cominch-cno, mar , sub: administration of coast guard when operating under navy department, quoted in furer, _administration of the navy department in world war ii_, pp. - .] [footnote - : for a survey of the organization and functions of the u.s. coast guard personnel division, see uscg historical section, _personnel_, the coast guard at war, : - .] _the first black marines_ these legal distinctions had no bearing on the marine corps' prewar racial policy, which was designed to continue its tradition of excluding negroes. the views of the commandant, maj. gen. thomas holcomb, on the subject of race were well known in the navy. negroes did not have the "right" to demand a place in the corps, general holcomb told the navy's general board when that body was considering the expansion of the corps in april . "if it were a question of having a marine corps of , whites or , negroes, i would rather have the whites."[ - ] he was more circumspect but no more reasonable when he explained the racial exclusion publicly. black enlistment was impractical, he told one civil rights group, because the marine corps was too small to form racially separate units.[ - ] and, if some negroes persisted in trying to volunteer after pearl harbor, there was another deterrent, described by at least one senior recruiter: the medical examiner was cautioned to disqualify the black applicant during the enlistment physical.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in navy general board, "plan for the expansion of the usmc," apr (no. ), recs of gen bd, opnavarchives.] [footnote - : ltr, cmc to harold e. thompson, northern phila. voters league, aug , aq- , central files, headquarters, usmc (hereafter mc files).] [footnote - : memo, off in charge, eastern recruiting div, for cmc, jan , sub: colored applicants for enlistment in the marine corps, wp , mc files.] such evasions could no longer be practiced after president (p.  ) roosevelt decided to admit negroes to the general service of the naval establishment. according to secretary knox the president wanted the navy to handle the matter "in a way that would not inject into the whole personnel of the navy the race question."[ - ] under pressure to make some move, general holcomb proposed the enlistment of , negroes in the volunteer marine corps reserve for duty in the general service in a segregated composite defense battalion. the battalion would consist primarily of seacoast and antiaircraft artillery, a rifle company with a light tank platoon, and other weapons units and components necessary to make it a self-sustaining unit.[ - ] to inject the subject of race "to a less degree than any other known scheme," the commandant planned to train the unit in an isolated camp and assign it to a remote station.[ - ] the general board accepted this proposal, explaining to secretary knox that negroes could not be used in the marine corps' amphibious units because the inevitable replacement and redistribution of men in combat would "prevent the maintenance of necessary segregation." the board also mentioned that experienced noncommissioned officers were at a premium and that diverting them to train a black unit would be militarily inefficient.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for adm w. r. sexton, feb , p - , recs of gen bd, opnavarchives. the quotation is from the knox memo and is not necessarily in the president's exact words.] [footnote - : in devising plans for the composite battalion the director of plans and policies rejected a proposal to organize a black raider battalion. the author of the proposal had explained that negroes would make ideal night raiders "as no camouflage of faces and hands would be necessary." memo, col thomas gale for exec off, div of plans and policies, feb , ao- , mc files.] [footnote - : memo, cmc for chmn of gen bd, feb , sub: enlistment of men of the colored race in other than messman branch, ao- , mc files.] [footnote - : memo, chmn of gen bd for secnav, mar , sub: enlistment of men of the colored race in other than messman branch (g.b. no. ), recs of gen bd, opnavarchives.] although the enlistment of black marines began on june , the corps placed the reservists on inactive status until a training-size unit could be enlisted and segregated facilities built at montford point on the vast training reservation at marine barracks, new river (later renamed camp lejeune), north carolina.[ - ] on august the first contingent of negroes began recruit training as the st composite defense battalion at montford point under the command of col. samuel a. woods, jr. the corps had wanted to avoid having to train men as typists, truck drivers, and the like--specialist skills needed in the black composite unit. instead, the commandant established black quotas for three of the four recruiting divisions, specifying that more than half the recruits qualify in the needed skills.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmc for district cmdrs, all reserve districts except th, th, th, and th, may , sub: enlistment of colored personnel in the marine corps, historical and museum division, headquarters, u.s. marine corps (hereafter hist div, hqmc). for further discussion of the training of black marines and other matters pertaining to negroes in the marine corps, see shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_. this volume by the corps' chief historian and the former chief of its history division's reference branch is the official account.] [footnote - : memo, cmc for off in charge, eastern, central, and southern recruiting divs, may , sub: enlistment of colored personnel in the marine corps, ap- ( ), mc files. the country was divided into four recruiting divisions, but black enlistment was not opened in the west coast division on the theory that there would be few volunteers and sending them to north carolina would be unjustifiably expensive. only white marines were trained in california. this circumstance brought complaints from civil rights groups. see, for example, telg, walter white to secnav, jul , ap- , mc files.] [illustration: marines of the st defense battalion _await turn on rifle range, montford point, _.] the enlistment process proved difficult. the commandant reported (p.  ) that despite predictions of black educators to the contrary the corps had netted only sixty-three black recruits capable of passing the entrance examinations during the first three weeks of recruitment.[ - ] as late as october the director of plans and policies was reporting that only of the scheduled , men (the final strength figure decided upon for the all-black unit) had been enlisted. he blamed the occupational qualifications for the delay, adding that it was doubtful "if even white recruits" could be procured under such strictures. the commandant approved his plan for enlisting negroes without specific qualifications and instituting a modified form of specialist training. black marines would not be sent to specialist schools "unless there is a colored school available," but instead marine instructors would be sent to teach in the black camp.[ - ] in the end many of these first black specialists received their training in nearby army installations. [footnote - : memo, cmc for secnav, jun , ap- ( - ), mc files.] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, oct , sub: enlistment of colored personnel in the marine corps reserve, ao- , mc files.] segregation was the common practice in all the services in , (p.  ) as indeed it was throughout much of american society. if this practice appeared somehow more restrictive in the marine corps than it did in the other services, it was because of the corps' size and traditions. the illusion of equal treatment and opportunity could be kept alive in the massive army and navy with their myriad units and military occupations; it was much more difficult to preserve in the small and specialized marine corps. given segregation, the marine corps was obliged to put its few black marines in its few black units, whose small size limited the variety of occupations and training opportunities. yet the size of the corps would undergo considerable change, and on balance it was the marine corps' tradition of an all-white service, not its restrictive size, that proved to be the most significant factor influencing racial policy. again unlike the army and navy, the marine corps lacked the practical experience with black recruits that might have countered many of the alarums and prejudices concerning negroes that circulated within the corps during the war. the importance of this experience factor comes out in the reminiscences of a senior official in the division of plans and policies who looked back on his experiences: it just scared us to death when the colored were put on it. i went over to selective service and saw gen. hershey, and he turned me over to a lieutenant colonel [campbell c. johnson]--that was in april--and he was one grand person. i told him, "eleanor [mrs. roosevelt] says we gotta take in negroes, and we are just scared to death, we've never had any in, we don't know how to handle them, we are afraid of them." he said, "i'll do my best to help you get good ones. i'll get the word around that if you want to die young, join the marines. so anybody that joins is got to be pretty good!" and it was the truth. we got some awfully good negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : usmc oral history interview, general ray a. robinson (usmc ret.), - mar , p. , hist div, hqmc.] unfortunately for the peace of mind of the marine corps' personnel planner, the conception of a carefully limited and isolated black contingent was quickly overtaken by events. the president's decision to abolish volunteer enlistments for the armed forces in december and the subsequent establishment of a black quota for each component of the naval establishment meant that in the next year some , more negroes, percent of all marine corps inductees, would be added to the corps.[ - ] as it turned out the monthly draft calls were never completely filled, and by december only , of the scheduled black inductions had been completed, but by the time the corps stopped drafting men in it had received over , negroes through the selective service. including the , black volunteers, the number of negroes in the marine corps during world war ii totaled , , approximately percent of the corps' enlisted men. [footnote - : memo, cmc for chief, navpers, apr , sub: negro registrants to be inducted into the marine corps, ao- - - , mc files.] the immediate problem of what to do with this sudden influx of negroes was complicated by the fact that many of the draftees, the product of vastly inferior schooling, were incompetent. where black volunteers had to pass the corps' rigid entrance requirements, draftees had (p.  ) only to meet the lowest selective service standards. an exact breakdown of black marine corps draftees by general classification test category is unavailable for the war period. a breakdown of some , black enlisted men, however, was compiled ten weeks after v-j day and included many of those drafted during the war. category i represents the most gifted men:[ - ] category: i ii iii iv v percentage: . . . . . [footnote - : memo, dir, pers, for dir, div of plans and policies, jul , sub: gct percentile equivalents for colored enlisted marines in november and in march , sub file: negro marines--test and testing, ref br, hist div, hqmc.] if these figures are used as a base, slightly more than percent of all black enlisted men, more than , , scored in the two lowest categories, a meaningless racial statistic in terms of actual numbers because the smaller percentage of the much larger group of white draftees in these categories gave the corps more whites than blacks in groups iv and v. yet the statistic was important because low-scoring negroes, unlike the low-scoring whites who could be scattered throughout the corps' units, had to be concentrated in a small number of segregated units to the detriment of those units. conversely, the corps had thousands of negroes with the mental aptitude to serve in regular combat units and a small but significant number capable of becoming officers. yet these men were denied the opportunity to serve in combat or as officers because the segregation policy dictated that negroes could not be assigned to a regular combat unit unless all the billets in that unit as well as all replacements were black--a practical impossibility during world war ii. segregation, not the draft, forced the marine corps to devise new jobs and units to absorb the black inductees. a plan circulated in the division of plans and policies called for more defense battalions, a branch for messmen, and the assignment of large black units to local bases to serve as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and janitors. referring to the janitor assignment, one division official admitted that "i don't think we can get away with this type duty."[ - ] in the end the negroes were not used as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and janitors. instead the corps placed a "maximum practical number" in defense battalions. the number of these units, however, was limited, as maj. gen. harry schmidt, the acting commandant, explained in march , by the number of black noncommissioned officers available. black noncommissioned officers were necessary, he continued, because in the army's experience "in nearly all cases to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same organization" led to "trouble and disorder."[ - ] demonstrating his own and the marine corps' lack of experience with black troops, the acting commandant went on to provide his commanders with some rather dubious advice based on what he perceived as the army's experience: black units should be commanded by men "who thoroughly knew their [negroes'] individual and racial (p.  ) characteristics and temperaments," and negroes should be assigned to work they preferred. [footnote - : unsigned memo for dir, plans and policies div, dec , sub: colored personnel, with attached handwritten note, ao- , mc files.] [footnote - : ltr, actg cmc to major cmdrs, mar , sub: colored personnel, ap- , mc files.] [illustration: shore party in training, camp lejeune, .] the points emphasized in general schmidt's letter to marine commanders--a rigid insistence on racial separation and a willingness to work for equal treatment of black troops--along with an acknowledgement of the marine corps' lack of experience with racial problems were reflected in commandant holcomb's basic instruction on the subject of negroes two months later: "all marines are entitled to the same rights and privileges under navy regulations," and black marines could be expected "to conduct themselves with propriety and become a credit to the marine corps." general holcomb was aware of the adverse effect of white noncommissioned officers on black morale, and he wanted them removed from black units as soon as possible. since the employment of black marines was in itself a "new departure," he wanted to be informed periodically on how negroes adapted to marine corps life, what their off-duty experience was with recreational facilities, and what their attitude was toward other marines.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr of instruction no. , cmc to all co's, may , sub: colored personnel, mc files.] [illustration: d-day on peleliu. _support troops participate in the landing of st marine division._] these were generally progressive sentiments, evidence of the commandant's desire to provide for the peaceful assimilation and advancement of negroes in the corps. unfortunately for his reputation among the civil rights advocates, general holcomb seemed overly concerned with certain social implications of rank and color. (p.  ) undeterred by a lack of personal experience with interracial command, he was led in the name of racial harmony to an unpopular conclusion. "it is essential," he told his commanders, "that in no case shall there be colored noncommissioned officers senior to white men in the same unit, and desirable that few, if any be of the same rank."[ - ] he was particularly concerned with the period when white instructors and noncommissioned officers were being phased out of black units. he wanted negroes up for promotion to corporal transferred, before promotion, out of any unit that contained white corporals. [footnote - : ibid. the subject of widespread public complaint when its existence became known after the war, the instruction was rescinded. see memo, j. a. stuart, div of plans and policies, for cmc, feb , sub: ltr of inst # revocation of, ao- , copy in ref br, hist div, hqmc.] [illustration: medical attendants at rest, peleliu, october, .] the division of plans and policies tried to follow these strictures as it set about organizing the new black units. job preference had already figured in the organization of the new messman's branch established in january . at that time secretary knox had approved the reconstitution of the corps' all-white mess branch as the commissary branch and the organization of an all-black messman's branch along the lines of the navy's steward's branch.[ - ] in (p.  ) authorizing the new branch, which was quickly redesignated the steward's branch to conform to the navy model, secretary knox specified that the members must volunteer for such duty. yet the corps, under pressure to produce large numbers of stewards in the early months of the war, showed so little faith in the volunteer system that marine recruiters were urged to induce half of all black recruits to sign on as stewards.[ - ] original plans called for the assignment of one steward for every six officers, but the lack of volunteers and the needs of the corps quickly caused this estimate to be scaled down.[ - ] by july the steward's branch numbered (p.  ) , men, roughly percent of the total black strength of the marine corps.[ - ] it remained approximately this size for the rest of the war. [footnote - : memo, cmc for secnav, dec , sub: change of present mess branch in the marine corps to commissary branch and establishment of a messman's branch and ranks therein, with secnav approval indicated, ao- - . see also memo, cmc for chief, navpers, dec , sub: request for allotment to mc..., a- ; memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, nov , sub: organization of mess branch (colored), ao- . all in mc files.] [footnote - : memo, dir of recruiting for off in charge, eastern recruiting div et al., feb , sub: messman branch, ap- - ; memo, cmc for secnav, apr , sub: change in designation..., ao- - . both in mc files.] [footnote - : memo, dir, plans and policies, for cmc, may , sub: assignment of steward's branch personnel, ao- , mc files.] [footnote - : memo, h. e. dunkelberger, m- sec, div of plans and policies, for asst cmc, jul , sub: steward's branch personnel, ao- , mc files.] the admonition to employ black marines to the maximum extent practical in defense battalions was based on the mobilization planners' belief that each of these battalions, with its varied artillery, infantry, and armor units, would provide close to a thousand black marines with varied assignments in a self-contained, segregated unit. but the realities of the pacific war and the draft quickly rendered these plans obsolete. as the united states gained the ascendancy, the need for defense battalions rapidly declined, just as the need for special logistical units to move supplies in the forward areas increased. the corps had originally depended on its replacement battalions to move the mountains of supply involved in amphibious assaults, but the constant flow of replacements to battlefield units and the need for men with special logistical skill had led in the middle of the war to the organization of pioneer battalions. to supplement the work of these shore party units and to absorb the rapidly growing number of black draftees, the division of plans and policies eventually created fifty-one separate depot companies and twelve separate ammunition companies manned by negroes. the majority of these new units served in base and service depots, handling ammunition and hauling supplies, but a significant number of them also served as part of the shore parties attached to the divisional assault units. these units often worked under enemy fire and on occasion joined in the battle as they moved supplies, evacuated the wounded, and secured the operation's supply dumps.[ - ] nearly , men, about percent of the corps' black enlistment, served in this sometimes hazardous combat support duty. the experience of these depot and ammunition companies provided the marine corps with an interesting irony. in contrast to negroes in the other services, black marines trained for combat were never so used. those trained for the humdrum labor tasks, however, found themselves in the thick of the fighting on saipan, peleliu, iwo jima, and elsewhere, suffering combat casualties and winning combat citations for their units. [footnote - : shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, pp. - . see also, hqmc div of public information, "the negro marine, - ," ref br, hist div, hqmc.] the increased allotment of black troops entering the corps and the commandant's call for replacing all white noncommissioned officers with blacks as quickly as they could be sufficiently trained caused problems for the black combat units. the st defense battalion in particular suffered many vicissitudes in its training and deployment. the st was the first black unit in the marine corps, a doubtful advantage considering the frequent reorganization and rapid troop turnover that proved its lot. at first the reception and training of all black inductees fell to the battalion, but in march a separate headquarters company, recruit depot battalion, was organized at montford point.[ - ] its cadre was drawn from the st, as (p.  ) were the noncommissioned officers and key personnel of the newly organized ammunition and depot companies and the black security detachments organized at montford point and assigned to the naval ammunition depot, mcalester, oklahoma, and the philadelphia depot of supplies. [footnote - : memo, co, st def bn, for dir, plans and policies, jan , sub: colored personnel, ref br, hist div, hqmc.] in effect, the st served as a specialist training school for the black combat units. when the second black defense battalion, the d, was organized in december its cadre, too, was drawn from the st. by the time the st was actually deployed, it had been reorganized several times and many of its best men had been siphoned off as leaders for new units. to compound these losses of experienced men, the battalion was constantly receiving large influxes of inexperienced and educationally deficient draftees and sometimes there was infighting among its officers.[ - ] [footnote - : for charges and countercharges on the part of the st's commanders, see hq, st defense bn, "record of proceedings of an investigation," jun ; memo, lt col floyd a. stephenson for cmc, may , sub: fifty-first defense battalion, fleet marine force, with indorsements and attachments; memo, co, st def bn, for cmc, jul , sub: combat efficiency, fifty-first defense battalion. all in ref br, hist div, hqmc.] training for black units only emphasized the rigid segregation enforced in the marine corps. after their segregated eight-week recruit training, the men were formed into companies at montford point; those assigned to the defense battalions were sent for specialist training in the weapons and equipment employed in such units, including radar, motor transport, communications, and artillery fire direction. each of the ammunition companies sent sixty of its men to special ammunition and camouflage schools where they would be promoted to corporal when they completed the course. in contrast to the depot companies and elements of the defense battalions, the ammunition units would have white staff sergeants as ordnance specialists throughout the war. this exception to the rule of black noncommissioned officers for black units was later justified on the grounds that such units required experienced supervisors to emphasize and enforce safety regulations.[ - ] on the whole specialist training was segregated; whenever possible even the white instructors were rapidly replaced by blacks. [footnote - : shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, p. .] before being sent overseas, black units underwent segregated field training, although the length of this training varied considerably according to the type of unit. depot companies, for example, were labor units pure and simple, organized to perform simple tasks, and many of them were sent to the pacific less than two weeks after activation. in contrast, the st defense battalion spent two months in hard field training, scarcely enough considering the number of raw recruits, totally unfamiliar with gunnery, that were being fed regularly into what was essentially an artillery battalion. [illustration: gun crew of the d defense battalion _on duty, central pacific, _.] the experience of the two defense battalions demonstrates that racial consideration governed their eventual deployment just as it had decided their organization. with no further strategic need for defense battalions, the marine corps began to dismantle them in , just as the two black units became operational and were about to be sent to the central and south pacific. the eighteen white defense (p.  ) battalions were subsequently reorganized as antiaircraft artillery battalions for use with amphibious groups in the forward areas. while the two black units were similarly reorganized, only they and one of the white units retained the title of defense battalion. their deployment was also different. the policy of self-contained, segregated service was, in the case of a large combat unit, best followed in the rear areas, and the two black battalions were assigned to routine garrison duties in the backwaters of the theater, the st at eniwetok in the marshalls, the d at guam. the latter unit saw nearly half its combat-trained men detailed to work as stevedores. it was not surprising that the morale in both units suffered.[ - ] [footnote - : for a discussion of black morale in the combat-trained units, see usmc oral history interview, obie hall, aug , ref br, and john h. griffin, "my life in the marine corps," personal papers collection, museums br. both in hist div, hqmc.] even more explicitly racial was the warning of a senior combat commander to the effect that the deployment of black depot units to the polynesian areas of the pacific should be avoided. the polynesians, he explained, were delightful people, and their "primitively romantic" women shared their intimate favors with one and all. mixture with the white race had produced "a very high-class half-caste," mixture with the chinese a "very desirable type," but the union of black and "melanesian types ... produces a very undesirable citizen." the (p.  ) marine corps, maj. gen. charles f. b. price continued, had a special moral obligation and a selfish interest in protecting the population of american samoa, especially, from intimacy with negroes; he strongly urged therefore that any black units deployed to the pacific should be sent to micronesia where they "can do no racial harm."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen charles f. b. price to brig gen keller e. rockey, apr ; , ref br, hist div, hqmc.] general price must have been entertaining second thoughts, since two depot companies were already en route to samoa at his request. nevertheless, because of the "importance" of his reservations the matter was brought to the attention of the director of plans and policies.[ - ] as a result, the assignment of the th and th depot companies to samoa proved short-lived. arriving on october , they were redeployed to the ellice islands in the micronesia group the next day. [footnote - : brig gen rockey for s-c files, jun , memo, g. f. good, div of plans and policies, to dir, div of plans and policies, sep . both attached to price ltr, see n. above.] thanks to the operations of the ammunition and depot companies, a large number of black marines, serving in small, efficient labor units, often exposed to enemy fire, made a valuable contribution. that so many black marines participated, at least from time to time, in the fighting may explain in part the fact that relatively few racial incidents took place in the corps during the war. but if many negroes served in forward areas, they were all nevertheless severely restricted in opportunity. black marines were excluded from the corps' celebrated combat divisions and its air arm. they were also excluded from the women's reserve, and not until the last months of the war did the corps accept its first black officer candidates. marine spokesmen justified the latter exclusion on the grounds that the corps lacked facilities--that is, segregated facilities--for training black officers.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, phillips d. carleton, asst to dir, mc reserve, to welford wilson, u.s. employment service, mar , af- , mc files. for more on black officers in the marine corps, see chapter .] these exclusions did not escape the attention of the civil rights spokesmen who took their demands to secretary knox and the white house.[ - ] it was to little avail. with the exception of the officer candidates in , the separation of the races remained absolute, and negroes continued to be excluded from the main combat units of the marine corps. [footnote - : see, for example, ltr, mary findley allen, interracial cmte of federation of churches, to mrs. roosevelt (ca. mar ); memo, secnav for rear adm jacobs, mar , p- ; memo, r. c. kilmartin, jr., div of plans and policies, for dir, div of plans and policies, sep , ao- . all in hist div, hqmc.] personal prejudices aside, the desire for social harmony and the fear of the unknown go far toward explaining the marine corps' wartime racial policy. a small, specialized, and racially exclusive organization, the marine corps reacted to the directives of the secretary of the navy and the necessities of wartime operation with a rigid segregation policy, its black troops restricted to about percent of its enlisted strength. a large part of this black strength was assigned to labor units where negroes performed valuable and sometimes dangerous service in the pacific war. complaints from civil rights advocates abounded, but neither protests nor the cost to military efficiency of duplicating training facilities were of (p.  ) sufficient moment to overcome the sentiment against significant racial change, which was kept to a minimum. judged strictly in terms of keeping racial harmony, the corps policy must be considered a success. ironically this very success prevented any modification of that policy during the war. [illustration: crewmen of uscg lifeboat station, pea island, north carolina, _ready surf boat for launching_.] _new roles for black coast guardsmen_ the coast guard's pre-world war ii experience with negroes differed from that of the other branches of the naval establishment. unlike the marine corps, the coast guard could boast a tradition of black enlistment stretching far back into the previous century. although it shared this tradition with the navy, the coast guard, unlike the navy, had always severely restricted negroes both in terms of numbers enlisted and jobs assigned. a small group of negroes manned a lifesaving station at pea island on north carolina's outer banks. negroes also served as crewmen at several lighthouses and on tenders in the mississippi river basin; all were survivors of the transfer of the lighthouse service to the coast guard in . these guardsmen were almost always segregated, although a few served in integrated crews or even commanded large coast guard vessels and small harbor (p.  ) craft.[ - ] they also served in the separate steward's branch, although it might be argued that the small size of most coast guard vessels integrated in fact men who were segregated in theory. [footnote - : capt. michael healy, who was of irish and afro-american heritage, served as commanding officer of the _bear_ and other major coast guard vessels. at his retirement in healy was the third ranking officer in the u.s. revenue cutter service. see robert e. greene, _black defenders of america, - _ (chicago: johnson publishing company, ), p. . for pre-world war ii service of negroes in the coast guard, see truman r. strobridge, _blacks and lights: a brief historical survey of blacks and the old u.s. lighthouse service_ (office of the uscg historian, ); h. kaplan and j. hunt, _this is the united states coast guard_ (cambridge, md.: cornell maritime press, ); rodney h. benson, "romance and story of pea island station," _u.s. coast guard magazine_ (november ): ; george reasons and sam patrick, "richard etheridge--saved sailors," washington _star_, november , . for the position of negroes on the eve of world war ii induction, see enlistment of men of colored race ( ), jan , hearings before the general board of the navy, .] [illustration: coast guard recruits _at manhattan beach training station, new york_.] the lot of the black coast guardsman on a small cutter was not necessarily a happy one. to a surprising extent the enlisted men of the prewar coast guard were drawn from the eastern shore and outer banks region of the atlantic coast where service in the coast guard had become a strong family tradition among a people whose attitude toward race was rarely progressive. although these men tolerated an occasional small black coast guard crew or station, they might well resist close service with individual negroes. one commander reported that racial harassment drove the solitary black in the prewar (p.  ) crew of the cutter _calypso_ out of the service.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with capt w. c. capron, uscgr, feb , cmh files.] coast guard officials were obviously mindful of such potential troubles when, at secretary knox's bidding, they joined in the general board's discussion of the expanded use of negroes in the general service in january . in the name of the coast guard, commander lyndon spencer agreed with the objections voiced by the navy and the marine corps, adding that the coast guard problem was "enhanced somewhat by the fact that our units are small and contacts between the men are bound to be closer." he added that while the coast guard was not "anxious to take on any additional problems at this time, if we have to we will take some of them [negroes]."[ - ] [footnote - : enlistment of men of colored race ( ), jan , hearings before the general board of the navy, .] when president roosevelt made it clear that negroes were to be enlisted, coast guard commandant rear adm. russell r. waesche had a plan ready. the coast guard would enlist approximately five hundred negroes in the general service, he explained to the chairman of the general board, vice adm. walton r. sexton. some three hundred of these men would be trained for duty on small vessels, the rest for shore duty under the captain of the port of six cities throughout the united states. although his plan made no provision for the training of black petty officers, the commandant warned admiral sexton that to percent of the crew in these small cutters and miscellaneous craft held such ratings, and it followed that negroes would eventually be allowed to try for such ratings.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmdt, cg, for adm sexton, chmn of gen bd, feb , sub: enlistment of men of the colored race in other than messman branch, attached to enlistment of men of colored race ( ), jan , hearings before the general board of the navy, .] further refining the plan for the general board on february, admiral waesche listed eighteen vessels, mostly buoy tenders and patrol boats, that would be assigned black crews. all black enlistees would be sent to the manhattan beach training station, new york, for a basic training "longer and more extensive" than the usual recruit training. after recruit training the men would be divided into groups according to aptitude and experience and would undergo advanced instruction before assignment. those trained for ship duty would be grouped into units of a size to enable them to go aboard and assume all but the petty officer ratings of the designated ships. the commandant wanted to initiate this program with a group of men. no other negroes would be enlisted until the first group had been trained and assigned to duty for a period long enough to permit a survey of its performance. admiral waesche warned that the whole program was frankly new and untried and was therefore subject to modification as it evolved.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmdt, cg, for chmn of gen bd, feb . sub: enlistment of men of the colored race in other than messman branch, p- , attached to recs of gen bd, no (serial -x), opnavarchives.] the plan was a major innovation in the coast guard's manpower policy. for the first time a number of negroes, approximately . percent of the guard's total enlisted complement, would undergo regular (p.  ) recruit and specialized training.[ - ] more than half would serve aboard ship at close quarters with their white petty officers. the rest would be assigned to port duty with no special provision for segregated service. if the provision for segregating nonrated coast guardsmen when they were at sea was intended to prevent the development of racial antagonism, the lack of a similar provision for negroes ashore was puzzling; but whatever the coast guard's reasoning in the matter, the general board was obviously concerned with the provisions for segregation in the plan. its chairman told secretary knox that the assignment of negroes to the captains of the ports was a practical use of negroes in wartime, since these men could be segregated in service units. but their assignment to small vessels, admiral sexton added, meant that "the necessary segregation and limitation of authority would be increasingly difficult to maintain" and "opportunities for advancement would be few." for that reason, he concluded, the employment of such black crews was practical but not desirable.[ - ] [footnote - : unless otherwise noted, all statistics on coast guard personnel are derived from memo, chief, statistical services div, for chief, pub information div, mar , sub: negro personnel, officers and enlisted; number of, office of the uscg historian; and "coast guard personnel growth chart," _report of the secretary of the navy-fiscal _, p. a- .] [footnote - : memo, chmn of gen bd for secnav, mar , sub: enlistment of men of the colored race in other than messman branch, g.b. no. (serial ), opnavarchives.] the general board was overruled, and the coast guard proceeded to recruit its first group of black volunteers, sending them to manhattan beach for basic training in the spring of . the small size of the black general service program precluded the establishment of a separate training station, but the negroes were formed into a separate training company at manhattan beach. while training classes and other duty activities were integrated, sleeping and messing facilities were segregated. although not geographically separated as were the black sailors at camp smalls or the marines at montford point, the black recruits of the separate training company at manhattan beach were effectively impressed with the reality of segregation in the armed forces.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with ira h. coakley, feb , cmh files. coakley was a recruit in one of the first black training companies at manhattan beach.] after taking a four-week basic course, those who qualified were trained as radiomen, pharmacists, yeomen, coxswains, fire controlmen, or in other skills in the seaman branch.[ - ] those who did not so qualify were transferred for further training in preparation for their assignment to the captains of the ports. groups of black coast guardsmen, for example, were sent to the pea island station after their recruit training for several weeks' training in beach duties. similar groups of white recruits were also sent to the pea island station for training under the black chief boatswain's mate in charge.[ - ] by august some three hundred negroes had been recruited, trained, and assigned to general service duties under the new program. at the same time the coast guard continued to recruit hundreds of negroes for its separate steward's branch. [footnote - : for a brief account of the coast guard recruit training program, see nelson, "integration of the negro," pp. - , and "a black history in world war ii," _octagon_ (february ): - .] [footnote - : log of pea island station, , berry collection, uscg headquarters.] the commandant's program for the orderly induction and assignment (p.  ) of a limited number of black volunteers was, as in the case of the navy and marine corps, abruptly terminated in december when the president ended volunteer enlistment for most military personnel. for the rest of the war the coast guard, along with the navy and marine corps, came under the strictures of the selective service act, including its racial quota system. the coast guard, however, drafted relatively few men, issuing calls for a mere , and eventually inducting only , . but more than percent of its calls ( , men between february and november ) and percent of all those drafted ( , ) were negro. on the average, negroes and , whites were inducted each month during .[ - ] just over , negroes served as coast guardsmen in world war ii.[ - ] [footnote - : selective service system, _special groups_, : - .] [footnote - : testimony of coast guard representatives before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, mar , p. .] as it did for the navy and marine corps, the sudden influx of negroes from selective service necessitated a revision of the coast guard's personnel planning. many of the new men could be assigned to steward duties, but by january the coast guard already had some , stewards and the branch could absorb only half of the expected black draftees. the rest would have to be assigned to the general service.[ - ] and here the organization and mission of the coast guard, far more so than those of the navy and marine corps, militated against the formation of large segregated units. the coast guard had no use for the amorphous ammunition and depot companies and the large seabee battalions of the rest of the naval establishment. for that reason the large percentage of its black seamen in the general service (approximately percent of all black coast guardsmen) made a considerable amount of integration inevitable; the small number of negroes in the general service ( , men, less than percent of the total enlisted strength of the coast guard) made integration socially acceptable. [footnote - : uscg public relations div, negroes in the u.s. coast guard, july , office of the uscg historian.] the majority of black coast guardsmen were only peripherally concerned with this wartime evolution of racial policy. some , negroes served in the racially separate steward's branch, performing the same duties in officer messes and quarters as stewards in the navy and marine corps. but not quite, for the size of coast guard vessels and their crews necessitated the use of stewards at more important battle stations. for example, a group of stewards under the leadership of a black gun captain manned the three-inch gun on the afterdeck of the cutter _campbell_ and won a citation for helping to destroy an enemy submarine in february .[ - ] the personnel division worked to make the separate steward's branch equal to the rest of the service in terms of promotion and emoluments, and there were instances when individual stewards successfully applied for ratings in general service.[ - ] again, the close quarters aboard coast guard (p.  ) vessels made the talents of stewards for general service duties more noticeable to officers.[ - ] the evidence suggests, however, that the majority of the black stewards, about percent of all the negroes in the coast guard, continued to function as servants throughout the war. as in the rest of the naval establishment, the stewards in the coast guard were set apart not only by their limited service but also by different uniforms and the fact that chief stewards were not regarded as chief petty officers. in fact, the rank of chief steward was not introduced until the war led to an enlargement of the coast guard.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, cmdt, uscg, to cmdr, third cg district, jan , sub: etheridge, louis c; ... award of the bronze star medal, p , bupersrecs; uscg pub rel div, negroes in the u.s. coast guard, jul .] [footnote - : uscg pers bull - , mar , sub: apprentice seamen and mess attendants, third class, advancement of, uscg cen files a .] [footnote - : intervs, author with cmdt carlton skinner, uscgr, feb , and with capron, cmh files.] [footnote - : for discussion of limited service of coast guard stewards, see testimony of coast guard representatives before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, mar , pp. - .] [illustration: stewards at battle station _on the afterdeck of the cutter campbell_.] the majority of black guardsmen in general service served ashore under the captains of the ports, local district commanders, or at headquarters establishments. men in these assignments included hundreds in security and labor details, but more and more served as yeomen, radio operators, storekeepers, and the like. other negroes were assigned to local coast guard stations, and a second all-black station was organized during the war at tiana beach, new york. still others participated in the coast guard's widespread beach patrol (p.  ) operations. organized in as outposts and lookouts against possible enemy infiltration of the nation's extensive coastlines, the patrols employed more than percent of all the coast guard's enlisted men. this large group included a number of horse and dog patrols employing only black guardsmen.[ - ] in all, some , black coast guardsmen served in the shore establishment. [footnote - : uscg historical section, the coast guard at war, : - , .] [illustration: shore leave in scotland. (_the distinctive uniform of the coast guard steward is shown_.)] the assignment of so many negroes to shore duties created potential problems for the manpower planners, who were under orders to rotate sea and shore assignments periodically.[ - ] given the many black general duty seamen denied sea duty because of the coast guard's segregation policy but promoted into the more desirable shore-based jobs to the detriment of whites waiting for rotation to such assignments, the possibility of serious racial trouble was obvious. [footnote - : uscg pers bull - , jun , sub: relief of personnel assigned to seagoing units, uscg cen files a .] at least one officer in coast guard headquarters was concerned enough to recommend that the policy be revised. with two years' service in greenland waters, the last year as executive officer of the uscgc _northland_, lt. carlton skinner had firsthand experience with the limitations of the coast guard's racial policy. while on the _northland_ skinner had recommended that a skilled black mechanic, (p.  ) then serving as a steward's mate, be awarded a motor mechanic petty officer rating only to find his recommendation rejected on racial grounds. the rating was later awarded after an appeal by skinner, but the incident set the stage for the young officer's later involvement with the coast guard's racial traditions. on shore duty at coast guard headquarters in june , skinner recommended to the commandant that a group of black seamen be provided with some practical seagoing experience under a sympathetic commander in a completely integrated operation. he emphasized practical experience in an integrated setting, he later revealed, because he was convinced that men with high test scores and specialized training did not necessarily make the best sailors, especially when their training was segregated. skinner envisioned a widespread distribution of negroes throughout the coast guard's seagoing vessels. his recommendation was no "experiment in social democracy," he later stressed, but was a design for "an efficient use of manpower to help win a war."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with skinner; ltr, skinner to author, jun , in cmh files. the skinner memorandum to admiral waesche, like so many of the personnel policy papers of the u.s. coast guard from the world war ii period, cannot be located. for a detailed discussion of skinner's motives and experiences, see his testimony before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, apr , pp. - .] although skinner's immediate superior forwarded the recommendation as "disapproved," admiral waesche accepted the idea. in november skinner found himself transferred to the uss _sea cloud_ (ix ), a patrol ship operating in the north atlantic as part of task force reporting on weather conditions from four remote locations in northern waters.[ - ] the commandant also arranged for the transfer of black apprentice seamen, mostly from manhattan beach, to the _sea cloud_ in groups of about twenty men, gradually increasing the number of black seamen in the ship's complement every time it returned to home station. skinner, promoted to lieutenant commander and made captain of the _sea cloud_ on his second patrol, later decided that the commandant had "figured he could take a chance on me and the _sea cloud_."[ - ] [footnote - : a unique vessel, the _sea cloud_ was on loan to the government for the duration of the war by its owner, the former ambassador to russia, joseph davies. davies charged a nominal sum and extracted the promise that the vessel would be restored to its prewar condition as one of the world's most famous private yachts.] [footnote - : interv, author with skinner.] it was a chance well taken. before decommissioning in november , the _sea cloud_ served on ocean weather stations off the coasts of greenland, newfoundland, and france. it received no special treatment and was subject to the same tactical, operating, and engineering requirements as any other unit in the navy's atlantic fleet. it passed two atlantic fleet inspections with no deficiencies and was officially credited with helping to sink a german submarine in june . the _sea cloud_ boasted a completely integrated operation, its black officers and some black petty officers and seamen serving throughout the ship's -man complement.[ - ] no problems of a racial nature arose on the ship, although its captain reported that his crew experienced some hostility in the various departments of the boston navy yard from time to time. skinner was determined to provide truly integrated conditions. he personally introduced his black officers (p.  ) into the local white officers' club, and he saw to it that when his men were temporarily detached for shore patrol duty they would go in integrated teams. again, all these arrangements were without sign of racial incident.[ - ] [footnote - : log of the _sea cloud_ (ix ), aug-nov , nars, suitland.] [footnote - : interv, author with skinner.] [illustration: commander skinner and crew of the uss sea cloud. _skinner officiates at awards ceremony._] it is difficult to assess the reasons for the commandant's decision to organize an integrated crew. one senior personnel officer later suggested that the _sea cloud_ was merely a public relations device designed to still the mounting criticism by civil rights spokesmen of the lack of sea duty for black coast guardsmen.[ - ] the public relations advantage of an integrated ship operating in the war zone must have been obvious to admiral waesche, although the coast guard made no effort to publicize the _sea cloud_. in fact, this absence of special attention had been recommended by skinner in his original proposal to the commandant. such publicity, he felt, would disrupt the military experiment and make it more difficult to apply generally the experience gained. [footnote - : interv, author with rear adm r. t. mcelligott, feb , cmh files. for an example of the coast guard reaction to civil rights criticism, see ltr, uscg public relations officer to douglas hall, washington _afro-american_, july , , cg , office of the uscg historian.] the success of the _sea cloud_ experiment did not lead to the widespread integration implied in commander skinner's recommendation. the only other extensively integrated coast guard vessel assigned to a war zone was the destroyer escort _hoquim_, operating in out (p.  ) of adak in the aleutian islands, convoying shipping along the aleutian chain. again, the commander of the ship was skinner. nevertheless the practical reasons for skinner's first recommendation must also have been obvious to the commandant, and the evidence suggests that the _sea cloud_ project was but one of a series of liberalizing moves the coast guard made during the war, not only to still the criticism in the black community but also to solve the problems created by the presence of a growing number of black seamen in the general service. there is also reason to believe that the coast guard's limited use of racially mixed crews influenced the navy's decision to integrate the auxiliary fleet in . senior naval officials studied a report on the _sea cloud_, and one of secretary forrestal's assistants consulted skinner on his experiences and their relation to greater manpower efficiency.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, skinner to author, jun .] [illustration: ensign jenkins and lieutenant samuels, _first black coast guard officers, on board the sea cloud_.] throughout the war the coast guard never exhibited the concern shown by the other services for the possible disruptive effects if blacks outranked whites. as the war progressed, more and more blacks advanced into petty officer ranks; by august some negroes, almost a third of their total number, were petty or warrant officers, many of them in the general service. places for these trained specialists in any kind of segregated general service were extremely limited, and by the last year of the war many black petty officers could be found serving in mostly white crews and station complements. for example, a black pharmacist, second class, and a signalman, third class, served on the cutter _spencer_, a black coxswain served on a cutter in the greenland patrol, and other black petty officers were assigned to recruiting stations, to the loran program, and as instructors at the manhattan beach training station.[ - ] [footnote - : uscg historical section, the coast guard at war, : ; intervs, author with lt harvey c. russell, uscgr, feb , and with capron, cmh files.] the position of instructor at manhattan beach became the usual avenue to a commission for a negro. joseph c. jenkins went from manhattan beach to the officer candidate school at the coast guard academy, graduating as an ensign in the coast guard reserve in april , almost a full year before negroes were commissioned in the navy. clarence samuels, a warrant officer and instructor at manhattan (p.  ) beach, was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) and assigned to the _sea cloud_ in . harvey c. russell was a signal instructor at manhattan beach in when all instructors were declared eligible to apply for commissions. at first rejected by the officer training school, russell was finally admitted at the insistence of his commanding officer, graduated as an ensign, and was assigned to the _sea cloud_.[ - ] [footnote - : "a black history in wwii," pp. - . for an account of samuels' long career in the coast guard, see joseph greco and truman r. strobridge, "black trailblazer has colorful past," _fifth dimension_ ( d quarter, ); see also interv, author with russell.] these men commanded integrated enlisted seamen throughout the rest of the war. samuels became the first negro in this century to command a coast guard vessel in wartime, first as captain of lightship no. and later of the uscgc _sweetgum_ in the panama sea frontier. russell was transferred from the integrated _hoquim_ to serve as executive officer on a cutter operating out of the philippines in the western pacific, assuming command of the racially mixed crew shortly after the war. at the behest of the white house, the coast guard also joined with the navy in integrating its women's reserve. in the fall of it recruited five black women for the spars. only token representation, but understandable since the spars ceased all recruitment except for replacements on november , just weeks after the decision to recruit negroes was announced. nevertheless the five women trained at manhattan beach and were assigned to various coast guard district offices without regard to race.[ - ] [footnote - : uscg historical section, the coast guard at war, : . see also oral history interview, dorothy c. stratton, sep , center of naval history.] this very real progress toward equal treatment and opportunity for negroes in the coast guard must be assessed with the knowledge that the progress was experienced by only a minuscule group. negroes never rose above . percent of the coast guard's wartime population, well below the figures for the other services. this was because the other services were forced to obtain draft-age men, including a significant number of black inductees from selective service, whereas the coast guard ceased all inductions in early . despite their small numbers, however, the black coast guardsmen enjoyed a variety of assignments. the different reception accorded this small group of negroes might, at least to some extent, be explained by the coast guard's tradition of some black participation for well over a century. to a certain extent this progress could also be attributed to the ease with which the directors of a small organization can reorder its policies.[ - ] but above all, the different reception accorded negroes in the coast guard was a small organization's practical reaction to a pressing assimilation problem dictated by the manpower policies common throughout the naval establishment. [footnote - : for discussion of this point, see testimony of coast guard representatives before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, mar , pp. - .] chapter (p.  ) a postwar search the nation's military leaders and the leaders of the civil rights movement were in rare accord at the end of world war ii. they agreed that despite considerable wartime improvement the racial policies of the services had proved inadequate for the development of the full military potential of the country's largest minority as well as the efficient operation and management of the nation's armed forces. dissatisfaction with the current policy of the armed forces was a spearpoint of the increasingly militant and powerful civil rights movement, and this dissatisfaction was echoed to a great extent by the services themselves. intimate association with minority problems had convinced the army's advisory committee on negro troop policies and the navy's special programs unit that new policies had to be devised and new directions sought. confronted with the incessant demands of the civil rights advocates and presented by their own staffs with evidence of trouble, civilian leaders of the services agreed to review the status of the negro. as the postwar era opened, both the army and the navy were beginning the interminable investigations that augured a change in policy. unfortunately, the services and the civil rights leaders had somewhat different ends in mind. concerned chiefly with military efficiency but also accustomed to racial segregation or exclusion, most military leaders insisted on a rigid appraisal of the performance of segregated units in the war and ignored the effects of segregation on that performance. civil rights advocates, on the other hand, seeing an opportunity to use the military as a vehicle for the extension of social justice, stressed the baneful effects of segregation on the black serviceman's morale. they were inclined to ignore the performance of the large segregated units and took issue with the premise that desegregation of the armed forces in advance of the rest of american society would threaten the efficient execution of the services' military mission. neither group seemed able to appreciate the other's real concerns, and their contradictory conclusions promised a renewal of the discord in their wartime relationship. _black demands_ world war ii marked the beginning of an important step in the evolution of the civil rights movement. until then the struggle for racial equality had been sustained chiefly by the "talented tenth," the educated, middle-class black citizens who formed an economic and political alliance with white supporters. together they fought to (p.  ) improve the racial situation with some success in the courts, but with little progress in the executive branch and still less in the legislative. the efforts of men like w. e. b. dubois, walter white, and thurgood marshall of the naacp and lester granger of the national urban league were in the mainstream of the american reform movement, which stressed an orderly petitioning of government for a redress of grievances. but there was another facet to the american reform tradition, one that stressed mass action and civil disobedience, and the period between the march on washington movement in and the threat of a black boycott of the draft in witnessed the beginnings of a shift in the civil rights movement to this kind of reform tactic. the articulate leaders of the prewar struggle were still active, and in fact would make their greatest contribution in the fight that led to the supreme court's pronouncement on school segregation in . but their quiet methods were already being challenged by a. philip randolph and others who launched a sustained demand for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces during the early postwar period. randolph and leaders of his persuasion relied not so much on legal eloquence in their representations to the federal government as on an understanding of bloc voting in key districts and the implicit threat of civil disobedience. the civil rights campaign, at least in the effort to end segregation in the armed forces, had the appearance of a mass movement a full decade before a weary rosa parks boarded a montgomery bus and set off the all-embracing crusade of martin luther king, jr. the growing political power of the negro and the threat of mass action in the 's were important reasons for the breakthrough on the color front that began in the armed forces in the postwar period. for despite the measure of good will and political acumen that characterized his social programs, harry s. truman might never have made the effort to achieve racial equality in the services without the constant pressure of civil rights activists. the reasons for the transformation that was beginning in the civil rights struggle were varied and complex.[ - ] fundamental was the growing urbanization of the negro. by almost half the black population lived in cities. as the labor shortage became more acute during the next five years, movement toward the cities continued, not only in the south but in the north and west. attracted by economic opportunities in los angeles war industries, for example, over , negroes moved to that city each month during the war. detroit, seattle, and san francisco, among others, reported similar migrations. the balance finally shifted during the war, and the census showed that percent of the black population resided in metropolitan (p.  ) areas, percent in cities of the north and west.[ - ] [footnote - : this discussion is based in great part on arnold m. rose, "the american negro problem in the context of social change," _annals of the academy of political science_ (january ): - ; rustin, _strategies for freedom_, pp. - ; leonard broom and norval glenn, _transformation of the negro american_ (new york: harper and row, ); st. clair drake and horace cayton, _black metropolis: a study of negro life in a northern city_ (new york: harcourt brace, ); john hope franklin, _from slavery to freedom: a history of negro america_, d ed. (new york: knopf, ); woodward's _the strange career of jim crow_; seymour wolfbein, "postwar trends in negro employment," a report by the occupational outlook division, bureau of labor statistics, in cmh; oscar handlin, "the goals of integration," and kenneth b. clark, "the civil rights movement: momentum and organization," both in _daedalus_ (winter ).] [footnote - : for a discussion of this trend, see bureau of labor statistics, "social and economic conditions of negroes in the united states" (current population reports p , october ); see also charles s. johnson, "the negro minority," _annals of the academy of political science_ (september ): - .] this mass migration, especially to cities outside the south, was of profound importance to the future of american race relations. it meant first that the black masses were separating themselves from the archaic social patterns that had ruled their lives for generations. despite virulent discrimination and prejudice in northern and western cities, negroes could vote freely and enjoy some protection of the law and law-enforcement machinery. they were free of the burden of jim crow. along with white citizens they were given better schooling, a major factor in improving status. the mass migration also meant that this part of america's peasantry was rapidly joining america's proletariat. the wartime shortage of workers, coupled with the efforts of the fair employment practices committee and other government agencies, opened up thousands of jobs previously denied black americans. the number of skilled craftsmen, foremen, and semiskilled workers among black americans rose from , to over , , during the war, while the number of negroes working for the federal government increased from , to , .[ - ] [footnote - : selective service system, _special groups_, vol. i, pp. - ; see also robert c. weaver, "negro labor since ," _the journal of negro history_ (january ): - .] though much of the increase in black employment was the result of temporarily expanded wartime industries, black workers gained valuable training and experience that enabled them to compete more effectively for postwar jobs. employment in unionized industries strengthened their position in the postwar labor movement. the severity of inevitable postwar cuts in black employment was mitigated by continued prosperity and the sustained growth of american industry. postwar industrial development created thousands of new upper-level jobs, allowing many black workers to continue their economic advance without replacing white workers and without the attendant development of racial tensions. the armed forces played their part in this change. along with better food, pay, and living conditions provided by the services, many negroes were given new work experiences. along with many of their white fellows, they acquired new skills and a new sophistication that prepared them for the different life of the postwar industrial world. most important, military service in world war ii divorced many negroes from a society whose traditions had carefully defined their place, and exposed them for the first time to a community where racial equality, although imperfectly realized, was an ideal. out of this experience many negroes came to understand that their economic and political position could be changed. ironically, the services themselves became an early target of this rising self-awareness. the integration of the armed forces, immediate and total, was a popular goal of the newly franchised voting group, which was turning away from leaders of both races who preached a philosophy of gradual change. the black press was spokesman for the widespread demand for (p.  ) equality in the armed forces; just as the growth of the black press was dramatically stimulated by urbanization of the negro, so was the civil rights movement stimulated by the press. the pittsburgh _courier_ was but one of many black papers and journals that developed a national circulation and featured countless articles on the subject of discrimination in the services. one black sociologist observed that it was "no exaggeration to say that the negro press was the major influence in mobilizing negroes in the struggle for their rights during world war ii."[ - ] sometimes inaccurate, often inflammatory, and always to the consternation of the military, the black press rallied the opposition to segregation during and after the war. [footnote - : e. franklin frazier, _the negro in the united states_ (new york: macmillan, ), p. .] much of the black unrest and dissatisfaction dramatized by the press continued to be mobilized through the efforts of such organizations as the national association for the advancement of colored people, the national urban league, and the congress of racial equality. the naacp, for example, revitalized by a new and broadened appeal to the black masses, had some , branches in forty-three states by and boasted a membership of more than half a million. while the association continued to fight for minority rights in the courts, to stimulate black political participation, and to improve the conditions of negroes generally, its most popular activity during the 's was its effort to eliminate discrimination in the armed forces. the files of the services and the white house are replete with naacp complaints, requests, demands, and charges that involved the military departments in innumerable investigations and justifications. if the complaints effected little immediate change in policy, they at least dramatized the plight of black servicemen and mobilized demands for reform.[ - ] [footnote - : clark, "the civil rights movement," pp. - .] not all racial unrest was so constructively channeled during the war. riots and mutinies in the armed services were echoed around the country. in detroit competition between blacks and whites, many recently arrived from the south seeking jobs, culminated in june in the most serious riot of the decade. the president was forced to declare a state of emergency and dispatch , troops to patrol the city. the detroit riot was only the most noticeable of a number of racial incidents that inevitably provoked an ugly reaction, and the postwar period witnessed an increase in antiblack sentiment and violence in the united states.[ - ] testifying to the black community's economic and political progress during the war as well as a corresponding increase in white awareness of and protest against the mistreatment of black citizens, this antiblack sentiment was only the pale ghost of a similar phenomenon after world war i. [footnote - : _report of the national advisory commission on civil disorders, march _, kerner report (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - ; see also dalfiume, _desegregation of the u.s. armed forces_, pp. - . for a detailed account of the major riot, see r. shogan and t. craig, _the detroit race riot: a study in violence_ (new york: chilton books, ).] [illustration: president truman addressing the naacp convention, _lincoln memorial, washington, d.c., june . seated at the president's left are walter white, eleanor roosevelt, and senator wayne morse; visible in the rear row are admiral of the fleet chester w. nimitz, attorney general tom c. clark, and chief justice fred m. vinson_.] nevertheless, the sentiment was widespread. traveling cross-country in a train during christmastime, , the celebrated american essayist bernard de voto was astonished to hear expressions of antiblack (p.  ) sentiment. in wisconsin, "a state where i think i had never before heard the word 'nigger,' that [dining] car was full of talk about niggers and what had to be done about them."[ - ] a white veteran bore out the observation. "anti-negro talk ... is cropping up in many places ... the assumption [being] that there is more prejudice, never less.... throughout the war the whites were segregated from the negroes (why not say it this way for a change?) so that there were almost no occasions for white soldiers to get any kind of an impression of negroes, favorable or otherwise." there had been some race prejudice among servicemen, but, the veteran asked, "what has caused this anti-negro talk among those who stayed at home?"[ - ] about the same time, a u.s. senator was complaining to the secretary of war that white and black civilians at kelly field, texas, (p.  ) shared the same cafeterias and other facilities. he hoped the secretary would look into the matter to prevent disturbances that might grow out of a policy of this sort.[ - ] [footnote - : bernard de voto, "the easy chair" _harper's_ (january ): - .] [footnote - : ltr, john h. caldwell (hartsdale, new york) to the editor, _harper's_ (march ): unnumbered front pages.] [footnote - : ltr, sen. w. lee o'daniel of texas to sw, feb , asw . ( ).] nor did the armed forces escape the rise in racial tension. for example, the war department received many letters from the public and members of congress when black officers, nearly the base's entire contingent of four hundred, demonstrated against the segregation of the officers' club at freeman field, indiana, in april . the question at issue was whether a post commander had the authority to exclude individuals on grounds of race from recreational facilities on an army post. the army air forces supported the post commander and suggested a return to a policy of separate and equal facilities for whites and blacks, primarily because a club for officers was a social center for the entire family. since it was hardly an accepted custom in the country for the races to intermingle, officials argued, the army had to follow rather than depart from custom, and, further, the wishes of white officers as well as those of negroes deserved consideration.[ - ] [footnote - : this important incident in the air force's racial history has been well documented. see aaf summary sheet, may , sub: racial incidents at freeman field and ft. huachuca, arizona, and memo, maj gen h. r. harmon, acofs, aaf, for dcofs, may , both in wdgap . . see also memo, the inspector general for dcofs, may , sub: investigation at freeman field, wdsig . freeman field, and memo, truman gibson for asw, may , asw . nt. for a critical contemporary analysis, see hq air defense command, "the training of negro combat units by the first air force" (monograph iii, may ), vol. ; ch. iii, afshrc. the incident is also discussed in osur, _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii_, ch. vi, and in alan l. gropman's _the air force integrates, - _ (washington: government printing office, ). gropman's work is the major source for the history of negroes in the postwar air force.] the controversy reached the desk of john mccloy, the assistant secretary of war, who considered the position taken by the army air forces a backward step, a reversal of the war department position in an earlier and similar case at selfridge field, michigan. mccloy's contention prevailed--that the commander's administrative discretion in these matters fell short of authority to exclude individuals from the right to enjoy recreational facilities provided by the federal government or maintained with its funds. secretary of war stimson agreed to amend the basic policy to reflect this clarification.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asw for sw, jun ; memo, sgs for dcofs, jun , sub: report of advisory committee on special troop policies, both in asw . (nt).] in december the press reported and the war and navy departments investigated an incident at le havre, france, where soldiers were embarking for the united states for demobilization. officers of a navy escort carrier objected to the inclusion of black enlisted men on the grounds that the ship was unable to provide separate accommodations for negroes. army port authorities then substituted another group that included only one black officer and five black enlisted men who were placed aboard over the protests of the ship's officers.[ - ] the secretary of the navy had already declared that the navy did not differentiate between men on account of race, and on (p.  ) december he reiterated his statement, adding that it applied to members of all the armed forces.[ - ] demonstrating the frequent gap between policy and practice, forrestal's order was ignored six months later by port officials when a group of black officers and men was withdrawn from a shipping list at bremerhaven, germany, on the grounds that "segregation is a war department policy."[ - ] [footnote - : opd summary sheet to cofs, apr , cs . negroes; memo, wd bureau of public relations for press, jan ; ltr, exec to actg asw to p. bernard young, jr., norfolk _journal and guide_, dec , asw . .] [footnote - : alnav - , dec .] [footnote - : memo, marcus h. ray, civ aide to sw, for asw, jun , asw . (nt).] overt antiblack behavior and social turbulence in the civilian community also reached into the services. in february issac woodard, jr., who had served in the army for fifteen months in the pacific, was ejected from a commercial bus and beaten by civilian police. sergeant woodard had recently been discharged from the army at camp gordon, georgia, and was still in uniform at the time of the brutal attack that blinded him. his case was quickly taken up by the naacp and became the centerpiece of a national protest.[ - ] not only did the civil rights spokesmen protest the sadistic blinding, they also charged that the army was incapable of protecting its own members in the community. [footnote - : see ltr, walter white, secy, naacp, to sw, may , and a host of letters in sw . file. see also copies of naacp press releases on the subject in cmh files.] while service responsibility for countering off-base discrimination against servicemen was still highly debatable in , the right of men on a military base to protection was uncontestable. yet even service practices on military bases were under attack as racial conflicts and threats of violence multiplied. "dear mother," one soldier stationed at sheppard field, texas, felt compelled to write in early , "i don't know how long i'll stay whole because when those whites come over to start [trouble] again i'll be right with the rest of the fellows. nothing to worry about. love,..."[ - ] if the soldier's letter revealed continuing racial conflict in the service, it also testified to a growing racial unity among black servicemen that paralleled the trend in the black community. when negroes could resolve with a new self-consciousness to "be right with the rest of the fellows," their cause was immeasurably strengthened and their goals brought appreciably nearer. [footnote - : ltr, feb , copy in sw . .] civil rights spokesmen had several points to make regarding the use of negroes in the postwar armed forces. referring to the fact that world war ii began with negroes fighting for the right to fight, they demanded that the services guarantee a fair representation of negroes in the postwar forces. furthermore, to avoid the frustration suffered by negroes trained for combat and then converted into service troops, they demanded that negroes be trained and employed in all military specialties. they particularly stressed the correlation between poor leaders and poor units. the services' command practices, they charged, had frequently led to the appointment of the wrong men, either black or white, to command black units. their principal solution was to provide for the promotion and proper employment of a proportionate share of competent black officers and noncommissioned officers. above all, they pointed to the humiliations black soldiers suffered in (p.  ) the community outside the limits of the base.[ - ] one particularly telling example of such discrimination that circulated in the black press in described german prisoners of war being fed in a railroad restaurant while their black army guards were forced to eat outside. but such discrimination toward black servicemen was hardly unique, and the civil rights advocates were quick to point to the connection between such practices and low morale and performance. for them there was but one answer to such discrimination: all men must be treated as individuals and guaranteed equal treatment and opportunity in the services. in a word, the armed forces must integrate. they pointed with pride to the success of those black soldiers who served in integrated units in the last months of the european war, and they repeatedly urged the complete abolition of segregation in the peacetime army and navy.[ - ] [footnote - : for a summary of these views, see warman welliver, "report on the negro soldier," _harper's_ (april ): - and back pages.] [footnote - : murray, _negro handbook, - _, pp. - .] [illustration: assistant secretary mccloy.] when an executive of the national urban league summed up these demands for president truman at the end of the war, he clearly indicated that the changes in military policy that had brought about the gradual improvement in the lot of black servicemen during the war were now beside the point.[ - ] the military might try to ignore this fact for a little while longer; a politically sensitive president was not about to make such an error. [footnote - : ltr, exec secy, national urban league, to president truman, aug , copy in forrestal file, genrecsnav.] _the army's grand review_ in the midst of this intensifying sentiment for integration, in fact a full year before the war ended, the army began to search for a new racial policy. the invasion of normandy and the extraordinary advance to paris during the summer of had led many to believe that the war in europe would soon be over, perhaps by fall. as the allied leaders at the quebec conference in september discussed arrangements to be imposed on a defeated germany, american officials in washington began to consider plans for the postwar period. among them was assistant secretary of war mccloy. dissatisfied with the manner in which the army was using black troops, mccloy believed it was time to start planning how best to employ them in the postwar army, which (p.  ) according to current assumptions, would be small and professional and would depend upon a citizen reserve to augment it in an emergency. [illustration: truman gibson.] mccloy concluded that despite a host of prewar studies by the general staff, the army war college, and other military agencies, the army was unprepared during world war ii to deal with and make the most efficient use of the large numbers of negroes furnished by selective service. policies for training and employing black troops had developed in response to specific problems rather than in accordance with a well thought out and comprehensive plan. because of "inadequate preparation prior to the period of sudden expansion," mccloy believed a great many sources of racial irritation persisted. to develop a "definite, workable policy, for the inclusion and utilization in the army of minority racial groups" before postwar planning crystallized and solidified, mccloy suggested to his assistants that the war department general staff review existing practices and experiences at home and abroad and recommend changes.[ - ] [footnote - : memos, mccloy for advisory committee on special troop policies, jul and sep , sub: participation of negro troops in the post-war military establishment; memo, asw for sw, jan , same sub, all in asw . (nt).] the chief of staff, general marshall, continued to insist that the army's racial problem was but part of a larger national problem and, as mccloy later recalled, had no strong views on a solution.[ - ] whatever his personal feelings, marshall, like most army staff officers, always emphasized efficiency and performance to the exclusion of social concerns. while he believed that the limited scope of the experiment with integrated platoons toward the end of the war in europe made the results inconclusive, marshall still wanted the platoons' performance considered in the general staff study.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, john j. mccloy to author, sep , cmh files.] [footnote - : memo, cofs for mccloy, aug , wdcsa . negroes ( aug ).] the idea of a staff study on the postwar use of black troops also found favor with secretary stimson, and a series of conferences and informal discussions on the best way to go about it took place in the highest echelons of the army during the early months of . the upshot was a decision to ask the senior commanders at home and overseas for their comments. how did they train and use their black troops? what irritations, frictions, and disorders arising from racial conflicts had hampered their operations? what were their (p.  ) recommendations on how best to use black troops after the war? two weeks after the war ended in europe, a letter with an attached questionnaire was sent to senior commanders.[ - ] the questionnaire asked for such information as: "to what extent have you maintained segregation beyond the actual unit level, and what is your recommendation on this subject? if you have employed negro platoons in the same company with white platoons, what is your opinion of the practicability of this arrangement?" [footnote - : ltr, tag to cinc, southwest pacific area, et al., may , sub: participation of negro troops in post-war military establishment, ag . ( may ). on the high-level discussions, see memo, maj gen w. f. tompkins, dir, special planning div, for acofs, g- , and personnel officers of the air, ground, and service forces, feb , same sub; df, g- , wdgs (col o. g. haywood, exec), mar , same sub; memo, col g. e. textor, dep dir, wdssp, for acofs, g- , mar , same sub; memo for the file (col lawrence westbrook), mar ; memo, maj bell i. wiley for col mathews, apr , all in ag . .] not everyone agreed that the questionnaire was the best way to review the performance of negroes in world war ii. truman gibson, for one, doubted the value of soliciting information from senior commanders, feeling that these officers would offer much subjective material of little real assistance. referring to the letter to the major senior commanders, he said: mere injunctions of objectivity do not work in the racial field where more often than not decisions are made on a basis of emotion, prejudice or pre-existing opinion.... much of the difficulty in the army has arisen from improper racial attitudes on both sides. indeed, the army's basic policy of segregation is said to be based principally on the individual attitudes and desires of the soldiers. but who knew what soldiers' attitudes were? why not, he suggested, make some scientific inquiries? why not try to determine, for example, how far public opinion and pressure would permit the army to go in developing policies for black troops?[ - ] [footnote - : memo, gibson for asw, may , asw . (nt).] gibson had become, perforce, an expert on public opinion. during the last several months he had suffered the slings and arrows of an outraged black press for his widely publicized analysis of the performance of black troops. visiting black units and commanders in the mediterranean and european theaters to observe, in mccloy's words, "the performance of negro troops, their attitudes, and the attitudes of their officers toward them,"[ - ] gibson had arrived in italy at the end of february to find theater officials concerned over the poor combat record of the d infantry division, the only black division in the theater and one of three activated by the war department. after a series of discussions with senior commanders and a visit to the division, gibson participated in a press conference in rome during which he spoke candidly of the problems of the division's infantry units.[ - ] subsequent news reports of the conference stressed gibson's confirmation of the division's disappointing performance, but neglected the reasons he advanced to explain its failure. the reports earned a swift and angry retort from the black community. many (p.  ) organizations and journals condemned gibson's evaluation of the d outright. some seemed less concerned with the possible accuracy of his statement than with the effects it might have on the development of future military policy. the naacp's _crisis_, for example, charged that gibson had "carried the ball for the war department," and that "probably no more unfortunate words, affecting the representatives of the entire race, were ever spoken by a negro in a key position in such a critical hour. we seem destined to bear the burden of mr. gibson's rome adventure for many years to come."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, gibson to gen john c. h. lee, cg, comz, etousa, mar , asw . (nt).] [footnote - : memo, truman gibson for maj gen o. l. nelson, mar , sub: report on visit to d division (negro troops), asw . .] [footnote - : "negro soldier betrayed," _crisis_ (april ): ; "gibson echo," ibid. (july ): .] other black journals took a more detached view of the situation, asserting that gibson's remarks revealed nothing new and that the problem was segregation, of which the d was a notable victim. gibson took this tack in his own defense, pointing to the irony of a situation in which "some people can, on the one hand, argue that segregation is wrong, and on the other ... blindly defend the product of that segregation."[ - ] [footnote - : washington _afro-american_, april , , quoted in lee, _employment of negro troops_, p. . for details of the gibson controversy, see lee, pp. - .] gibson had defenders in the army whose comments might well apply to all the large black units in the war. at one extreme stood the allied commander in italy, general mark w. clark, who attributed the d's shortcomings to "our handling of minority problems at home." most of all, general clark thought, black soldiers needed the incentive of feeling that they were fighting for home and country as equals. but his conclusion--"only the proper environment in his own country can provide such an incentive"--neatly played down army responsibility for the division's problems.[ - ] [footnote - : mark w. clark, _a calculated risk_ (new york: harper & brothers, ), pp. - .] another officer, who as commander of a divisional artillery unit was intimately acquainted with the division's shortcomings, delineated an entirely different set of causes. the division was doomed to mediocrity and worse, lt. col. marcus h. ray concluded, from the moment of its activation. undercurrents of racial antipathy as well as distrust and prejudice, he believed, infected the organization from the outset and created an unhealthy beginning. the practice of withholding promotion from deserving black officers along with preferential assignments for white officers prolonged the malady. the basic misconception was that southern white officers understood negroes; under such officers negroes who conformed with the southern stereotype were promoted regardless of their abilities, while those who exhibited self-reliance and self-respect--necessary attributes of leadership--were humiliated and discouraged for their uppityness. "i was astounded," he said, "by the willingness of the white officers who preceded us to place their own lives in a hazardous position in order to have tractable negroes around them."[ - ] in short, the men of the d who fought and died bravely should be honored, but their unit, which on balance did not perform well, should be considered a (p.  ) failure of white leadership. [footnote - : ltr, ray to gibson, may , wdgap . . ray later succeeded gibson as civilian aide to the secretary of war.] [illustration: company i, th infantry, d division, _advances through cascina, italy_.] lt. gen. lucian k. truscott, jr., then fifth army commander in italy, disagreed. submitting the proceedings of a board of review that had investigated the effectiveness of black officers and enlisted men in the d division, he was sympathetic to the frustrations encountered by the division commander, maj. gen. edward m. almond. "in justice to those splendid officers"--a reference to the white senior commanders and staff members of the division--"who have devoted themselves without stint in an endeavor to produce a combat division with negro personnel and who have approached this problem without prejudice," truscott endorsed the board's hard view that many infantrymen in the division "would not fight."[ - ] this conclusion was in direct conflict with the widely held and respected truism that competent leadership solved all problems, from which it followed that the answer to the problem of negroes in combat was command. good commanders prevented friction, performed their mission effectively, and achieved success no matter what the obstacles--a view put forth in a typical report from world war ii that "the efficiency of negro units depends entirely on the leadership of officers and nco's."[ - ] [footnote - : st ind, hq fifth army (signed l. k. truscott, jr.), jul , to proceedings and board of review, d inf div, fifth army files.] [footnote - : wd file . (negro troop policy), - , is full of statements to this effect. the quote is from d ind, hq usastaf, jul , attached to aaf summary sheets to cofs, sep , sub: participation of negro troops in the post-war military establishment, ag . ( may ).] in fact, general truscott's analysis of the d division's problems seemed at variance with his analysis of command problems in other units, as illustrated by his later attention to problems in the all-white th infantry division.[ - ] the habit of viewing unit problems as command problems was also demonstrated by general jacob l. devers, who was deputy allied commander in the mediterranean when the d arrived in italy. reflecting later upon the d division, general devers agreed that its engineer and armor unit performed well, but the infantry did not "because their commanders weren't good enough."[ - ] [footnote - : l. k. truscott, jr., _command missions: a personal story_ (new york: dutton, ), see pages - and - for comparison of truscott's critical analysis of problems of the th and d infantry divisions.] [footnote - : interv, author with general jacob devers, mar , cmh files.] years later general almond, the division's commander, was to claim (p.  ) that the d division had done "many things well and some things poorly." it fought in extremely rugged terrain against a determined enemy over an exceptionally broad front. the division's artillery as well as its technical and administrative units performed well. negroes also excelled in intelligence work and in dealing with the italian partisans. on the other hand, general almond reported, infantry elements were unable to close with the enemy and destroy him. rifle squads, platoons, and companies tended "to melt away" when confronted by determined opposition. almond blamed this on "a lack of dedication to purpose, pride of accomplishment and devotion to duty and teammates by the majority of black riflemen assigned to infantry units."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, lt gen edward m. almond to brig gen james l. collins, jr., apr , cmh files. general almond's views are thoroughly explored in paul goodman, _a fragment of victory_ (army war college, ). for an objective and detailed treatment of the d division, see lee, _employment of negro troops_, chapter xix, and ernest f. fisher, jr., _cassino to the alps_, united states army in world war ii (washington: government printing office, ), chapter xxiii.] similar judgments were expressed concerning the combat capability of the other major black unit, the d infantry division.[ - ] when elements of the d, the th regimental combat team in particular, participated in the bougainville campaign in the solomon islands, their performance was the subject of constant scrutiny by order of the chief of staff.[ - ] the combat record of the th included enough examples of command and individual failure to reinforce the war department's decision in mid- to use the individual units of the division in security, laboring, and training duties in quiet areas of the theater, leaving combat to more seasoned units.[ - ] during the last year of the war the d performed missions that were essential but not typical for combat divisions. [footnote - : a third black division, the d cavalry, never saw combat because it was disbanded upon arrival in the mediterranean theater.] [footnote - : rad, marshall to lt gen millard harmon, cg, usafispa, mar , cm-out ( mar ).] [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - . lee discusses here the record of the d infantry division and war department decisions concerning its use.] analyses of the division's performance ran along familiar lines. the xiv corps commander, under whom the division served, rated the performance of the th regimental combat team infantry as fair and artillery as good, but found the unit, at least those parts commanded by black officers, lacking in initiative, inadequately trained, and poorly disciplined. other reports tended to agree. all of them, along with reports on the th infantry, another black unit serving in the area, were assembled in washington for assistant secretary mccloy. while he admitted important limitations in the performance of the units, mccloy nevertheless remained encouraged. not so the secretary of war. "i do not believe," he told mccloy, "they can be turned into really effective combat troops without all officers being white."[ - ] [footnote - : the above digested reports and quotations are from lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - .] black officers of the d, however, entertained a different view. they generally cited command and staff inefficiencies as the major cause of the division's discipline and morale problems. one respondent, a company commander in the th infantry, singled out the "continuous (p.  ) dissension and suspicion characterizing the relations between white and colored officers of the division." all tended to stress what they considered inadequate jungle training, and, like many white observers, they all agreed the combat period was too brief to demonstrate the division's developing ability.[ - ] [footnote - : usaffe board reports no. , jan , and , feb , sub: information on colored troops. these reports were prepared at the behest of the commanding general of the army ground forces during the preparation of bell i. wiley's _the training of negro troops_ (agf study no. , ). the quotation is from exhibit k of usaffe board report no. .] [illustration: d division engineers prepare a ford for arno river traffic.] despite the performance of some individuals and units praised by all, the combat performance of the d and d infantry divisions was generally considered less than satisfactory by most observers. a much smaller group of commentators, mostly black journalists, never accepted the prevailing view. pointing to the decorations and honors received by individuals in the two divisions, they charged that the adverse reports were untrue, reflections of the prejudices of white officers. such an assertion presupposed that hundreds of officers and war department officials were so consumed with prejudice that they falsified the record. and the argument from decorations, as one expert later pointed out, faltered once it was understood that the d (p.  ) and d infantry divisions combined a relatively high number of decorations with relatively few casualties.[ - ] [footnote - : e. w. kenworthy, "the case against army segregation," _annals of the american academy of political science_ (may ): - . a low decoration to casualty ratio is traditionally used as one measure of good unit performance. however, so many different unit attitudes and standards for decorations existed during world war ii that any argument over ratios can only be self-defeating no matter what the approach.] actually, there was little doubt that the performance of the black divisions in world war ii was generally unacceptable. beyond that common conclusion, opinions diverged widely. commanders tended to blame undisciplined troops and lack of initiative and control by black officers and noncommissioned officers as the primary cause of the difficulty. others, particularly black observers, cited the white officers and their lack of racial sensitivity. in fact, as ulysses lee points out with careful documentation, all these factors were involved, but the underlying problem usually overlooked by observers was segregation. large, all-black combat units submerged able soldiers in a sea of men with low aptitude and inadequate training. segregation also created special psychological problems for junior black officers. carefully assigned so that they never commanded white officers or men, they were often derided by white officers whose attitudes were quickly sensed by the men to the detriment of good discipline. segregation was also a factor in the rapid transfer of men in and out of the divisions, thus negating the possible benefits of lengthy training. furthermore, the divisions were natural repositories for many dissatisfied or inadequate white officers, who introduced a host of other problems. truman gibson was quick to point out how segregation had intensified the problem of turning civilians into soldiers and groups into units. the "dissimilarity in the learning profiles" between black and white soldiers as reflected in their agct scores was, he explained to mccloy, primarily a result of inferior black schooling, yet its practical effect on the army was to burden it with several large units of inferior combat ability (_table _). in addition to the fact that large black units had a preponderance of slow learners, gibson emphasized that nearly all black soldiers were trained near "exceedingly hostile" communities. this hostile atmosphere, he believed, had played a decisive role in their adjustment to army life and adversely affected individual motivation. gibson also charged the army with promoting some black officers who lacked leadership qualifications and whose performance, consequently, was under par. he recommended a single measure of performance for officers and a single system for promotion, even if this system reduced promotions for black officers. promotions on any basis other than merit, he concluded, deprived the army of the best leadership and inflicted weak commanders on black units. table --agct percentages in selected world war ii divisions unit i ii iii iv v total ( +) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) th armored division....... . . . . . th infantry division....... . . . . . d infantry division (negro) . . . . . d infantry division (negro) . . . . . th infantry division........ . . . . . _source_: tables submitted by the adjutant general to the gillem board, . gibson was not trying to magnify the efficiency of segregated (p.  ) units. he made a special effort to compare the performance of the d division with that of the integrated black platoons in germany because such a comparison would demonstrate, he believed, that the army's segregation policy was in need of critical reexamination. he cited "many officers" who believed that the problems connected with large segregated combat units justified their abolition in favor of the integration of black platoons into larger white units. although such unit integration would not abolish segregation completely, gibson concluded, it would permit the army to use men and small units on the basis of ability alone.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, gibson for asw, apr , sub: report of visit to mto and eto, asw . (nt); see also interv, bell i. wiley with truman k. gibson, civilian aide to secretary of war, may , cmh files.] the flexibility gibson detected among many army officers was not apparent in the answers to the mccloy questionnaire that flowed into the war department during the summer and fall of . with few exceptions, the senior officers queried expressed uniform reactions. they reiterated a story of frustration and difficulty in training and employing black units, characterized black soldiers as unreliable and inefficient, and criticized the performance of black officers and noncommissioned officers. they were particularly concerned with racial disturbances, which, they believed, were not only the work of racial agitators but also the result of poor morale and a sense of discrimination among black troops. yet they wanted to retain segregation, albeit in units of smaller size, and they wanted to depend, for the most part, on white officers to command these black units. concerned with performance, pragmatic rather than reflective in their habits, the commanders showed little interest in or understanding of the factors responsible for the conditions of which they complained. many believed that segregation actually enhanced black pride.[ - ] [footnote - : eventually over thirty-five commands responded to the mccloy questionnaire. for examples of the attitudes mentioned above, see ltr, hq, u.s. forces, european theater (main) to tag, oct , sub: study of participation of negro troops in the postwar establishment; ltr, hq, u.s. forces, india, burma theater, to tag, aug , same sub; ltr, ghq usarpac to tag, sep , same sub. all in ag . ( may ). some of these and many others are also located in wdssp . ( ).] these responses were summarized by the commanding generals of the major force commands at the request of the war department's special planning division.[ - ] for example, the study prepared by the army service forces, which had employed a high proportion of black troops in its technical services during the war, passed on the recommendations made by these far-flung commands and touched incidentally on several of the points raised by gibson.[ - ] like gibson, the army service forces recommended that negroes of little (p.  ) or no education be denied induction or enlistment and that no deviation from normal standards for the sake of maintaining racial quotas in the officer corps be tolerated. the army service forces also wanted negroes employed in all major forces, participating proportionately in all phases of the army's mission, including overseas and combat assignments, but not in every occupation. for the army service forces had decided that negroes performed best as truck drivers, ammunition handlers, stevedores, cooks, bakers, and the like and should be trained in these specialties rather than more highly skilled jobs such as armorer or machinist. even in the occupations they were best suited to, negroes should be given from a third more to twice as much training as whites, and black units should have to percent more officers than white units. at the same time, the army service forces wanted to retain segregated units, although it recommended limiting black service units to company size. stating in conclusion that it sought only "to insure the most efficient training and utilization of negro manpower" and would ignore the question of racial equality or the "wisdom of segregation in the social sense," the army service forces overlooked the possibility that the former could not be attained without consideration of the latter. [footnote - : memo, dir, wdssp, for cg's, asf et al., may , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, ag . ( may ).] [footnote - : memo, cofs, asf, for dir, special planning division, wdss, oct , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, wdssp . ( oct ). on the use of negroes in the signal corps, see the following volumes in the united states army in world war ii series: dulany terrett, _the signal corps: the emergency_ (washington: government printing office, ); george raynor thompson et al., _the signal corps: the test_ (washington: government printing office, ); george raynor thompson and dixie r. harris, _the signal corps: the outcome_ (washington: government printing office, ).] the army ground forces, which trained black units for all major branches of the field forces, also wanted to retain black units, but its report concluded that these units could be of battalion size. the organization of black soldiers in division-size units, it claimed, only complicated the problem of training because of the difficulty in developing the qualified black technicians, noncommissioned officers, and field grade officers necessary for such large units and finding training locations as well as assignment areas with sufficient off-base recreational facilities for large groups of black soldiers. the army ground forces considered the problem of finding and training field grade officers particularly acute since black units employing black officers, at least in the case of infantry, had proved ineffective. yet white officers put in command of black troops felt they were being punished, and their presence added to the frustration of the blacks. the army ground forces was also particularly concerned with racial disturbances, which, it believed, stemmed from conflicting white and black concepts of the negro's place in the social pattern. the army ground forces saw no military solution for a problem that transcended the contemporary national emergency, and its conclusion--that the solution lay in society at large and not primarily in the armed forces--had the effect, whether or not so intended, of neatly exonerating the army. in fact, the detailed conclusions and recommendations of the army ground forces were remarkably similar to those of the army service forces, but the ground forces study, more than any other, was shot full with blatant racism. the study quoted a war college study to the effect that the black officer was (p.  ) "still a negro with all the faults and weaknesses of character inherent in the negro race." it also discussed the "average negro" and his "inherent characteristics" at great length, dwelling on his supposed inferior mentality and weakness of character, and raising other racial shibboleths. burdened with these prejudices, the army ground forces study concluded that the conception that negroes should serve in the military forces, or in particular parts of the military forces, or sustain battle losses in proportion to their population in the united states, may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the interest of a logical solution to the problem of the utilization of negroes in the armed forces.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, ground ag, agf, for cofsa, nov , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, with incl, wdssp . ( dec ).] the army air forces, another large employer of black servicemen, reported a slightly different world war ii experience. conforming with departmental policies on utilizing black soldiers, it had selected negroes for special training on the same basis as whites with the exception of aviation cadets. negroes with a lower stanine (aptitude) had been accepted in order to secure enough candidates to meet the quota for pilots, navigators, and bombardiers in the black units. in its preliminary report to the war department on the employment of negroes, the army air forces admitted that individuals of both races with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in technical schools, could be trained as pilots and technicians in the same period of time, and showed the same degree of mechanical proficiency. black units, on the other hand, required considerably more time in training than white units, sometimes simply because they were understrength and their performance was less effective. at the same time the air forces admitted that even after discounting the usual factors, such as time in service and job assignment, whites advanced further than blacks. no explanation was offered. nevertheless, the commanding general of the air forces reported very little racial disorder or conflict overseas. there had been a considerable amount in the united states, however; many air forces commanders ascribed this to the unwillingness of northern negroes to accept southern laws or social customs, the insistence of black officers on integrated officers' clubs, and the feeling among black fliers that command had been made an exclusive prerogative of white officers rather than a matter depending on demonstrated qualification. in contrast to the others, the army air forces revealed a marked change in sentiment over the post-world war i studies of black troops. no more were there references to congenital inferiority or inherent weaknesses, but everywhere a willingness to admit that negroes had been held back by the white majority. the commanding general of the army air forces recommended negroes be apportioned among the three major forces--the army ground forces, the army service forces, and the army air forces--but that their numbers in no case exceed percent of any command; that black servicemen be trained exactly as whites; and that negroes be segregated in units (p.  ) not to exceed air group size. unlike the others, the army air forces wanted black units to have black commanders as far as possible and recommended that the degree of segregation in messing, recreation, and social activities conform to the custom of the surrounding community. it wanted negroes assigned overseas in the same proportion as whites, and in the united states, to the extent practicable, only to those areas considered favorable to their welfare. finally, the air forces wanted negroes to be neither favored nor discriminated against in disciplinary matters.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cg, aaf, for cofsa, sep , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, wdssp . ( ). for the final report of oct , which summed up the previous recommendations, see summary sheet, ac/as- for maj gen c. c. chauncey, dcofas, oct , same sub and file.] among the responses of the subordinate commands were some exceptions to the generalizations found in those of the major forces. one commander, for example, while concluding that segregation was desirable, admitted that it was one of the basic causes of the army's racial troubles and would have to be dealt with "one way or the other."[ - ] another recommended dispersing black troops, one or two in a squad, throughout all-white combat units.[ - ] still another pointed out that the performance of black officers and noncommissioned officers in terms of resourcefulness, aggressiveness, sense of responsibility, and ability to make decisions was comparable to the performance of white soldiers when conditions of service were nearly equal. but the army failed to understand this truth, the commander of the st service command charged, and its separate and unequal treatment discriminated in a way that would affect the efficiency of any man. the performance of black troops, he concluded, depended on how severely the community near a post differentiated between the black and white soldier and how well the negro's commander demonstrated the fairness essential to authority. the army admitted that black units needed superior leadership, but, he added, it misunderstood what this leadership entailed. all too often commanders of black units acted under the belief that their men were different and needed special treatment, thus clearly suggesting racial inferiority. the army, he concluded, should learn from its wartime experience the deleterious effect of segregation on motivation and ultimately on performance.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, ocsigo (col david e. washburn, exec off) to wdssp, jul , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, wdssp . ( ).] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen james l. collins, cg, fifth service cmd, to cg, asf, jul , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, wdssp . .] [footnote - : memo, cg, first service cmd, for cg, asf, jul , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, wdssp . ( ).] truman gibson took much the same approach when he summed up for mccloy his estimate of the situation facing the army. after rehearsing the recent history of segregation in the armed forces, he suggested that it was not enough to compare the performance of black and white troops; the reports of black performance should be examined to determine whether the performance would be improved or impaired by changing the policy of segregation. any major army review, he urged, should avoid the failure of the old studies on race that based (p.  ) differences in performance on racial characteristics and should question instead the efficiency of segregation. for him, segregation was the heart of the matter, and he counseled that "future policy should be predicated on an assumption that civilian attitudes will not remain static. the basic policy of the army should, therefore, not itself be static and restrictive, but should be so framed as to make further progress possible on a flexible basis."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, truman gibson for asw, aug , asw . .] before passing gibson's suggestions to the assistant secretary of war, mccloy's executive assistant, lt. col. davidson sommers, added some ideas of his own. since it was "pretty well recognized," he wrote, that the army had not found the answer to the efficient use of black manpower, a first-class officer or group of officers of high rank, supplemented perhaps with a racially mixed group of civilians, should be designated to prepare a new racial policy. but, he warned, their work would be ineffectual without specific directions from army leaders. he wanted the army to make "eventual nonsegregation" its goal. complete integration, sommers felt, was impossible to achieve at once. classification test scores alone refuted the claim that "negroes in general make as good soldiers as whites." but he thought there was no need "to resort to racial theories to explain the difference," for the lack of educational, occupational, and social opportunities was sufficient.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, exec off, asw, for mccloy, aug , asw . (nt).] sommers had, in effect, adopted gibson's gradualist approach to the problem, suggesting an inquiry to determine "the areas in which nonsegregation can be attempted first and the methods by which it can be introduced ... instead of merely generalizing, as in the past, on the disappointing and not very relevant experiences with large segregated units." he foresaw difficulties: a certain amount of social friction and perhaps a considerable amount of what he called "professional negro agitation" because negroes competing with whites would probably not achieve comparable ranks or positions immediately. but sommers saw no cause for alarm. "we shall be on firm ground," he concluded, "and will be able to defend our actions by relying on the unassailable position that we are using men in accordance with their ability." competing with these calls for gradual desegregation was the army's growing concern with securing some form of universal military training. congress would discuss the issue during the summer and fall of , and one of the questions almost certain to arise in the congressional hearings was the place contemplated for negroes. would the army use negroes in combat units? would the army train and use negroes in units together with whites? upon the answers to these questions hinged the votes of most, if not all, southern congressmen. prudence dictated that the army avoid any innovations that might jeopardize the chance for universal military training. in other words, went the prevalent view, what was good for the army--and universal military training was in that category--had to come before all else.[ - ] [footnote - : memos, col frederick s. skinner for dir, special planning div, wdss, may and jun , sub: participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment, wdssp . ( ).] even among officers troubled by the contradictory aspects of an (p.  ) issue clouded by morality, many felt impelled to give their prime allegiance to the army as it was then constituted. the army's impressive achievement during the war, they reasoned, argued for its continuation in conformance with current precepts, particularly in a world still full of hostilities. the stability of the army came first; changes would have to be made slowly, without risking the menace of disruption. an attempt to mix the races in the army seemed to most officers a dangerous move bordering on irresponsibility. furthermore, the majority of army officers, dedicated to the traditions of the service, saw the army as a social as well as a military institution. it was a way of life that embraced families, wives and children. the old manners and practices were comfortable because they were well known and understood, had produced victory, and had represented a life that was somewhat isolated and insulated--particularly in the field--from the currents and pressures of national life. why then should the old patterns be modified; why exchange comfort for possible chaos? why should the army admit large numbers of negroes; what had negroes contributed to winning world war ii; what could they possibly contribute to the postwar army? although opinion among army officials on the future role of negroes in the army was diverse and frankly questioning in tone, opinion on the past performance of black units was not. commanders tended to agree that with certain exceptions, particularly small service and combat support units, black units performed below the army average during the war and considerably below the best white units. the commanders also generally agreed that black units should be made more efficient and usually recommended they be reduced in size and filled with better qualified men. most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the army, on the other hand, viewed segregation as the underlying cause of poor performance. how, then, could the conflicting advice be channeled into construction of an acceptable postwar racial policy? the task was clearly beyond the powers of the war department's special planning division, and in september mccloy adopted the recommendation of sommers and gibson and urged the secretary of war to turn over this crucial matter to a board of general officers. out of this board's deliberations, influenced in great measure by opinions previously expressed, would emerge the long-awaited revision of the army's policy for its black minority. _the navy's informal inspection_ in contrast to the elaborate investigation conducted by the army, the navy's search for a policy consisted mainly of an informal intradepartmental review and an inspection of its black units by a civilian representative of the secretary of the navy. in general this contrast may be explained by the difference in the services' postwar problems. the army was planning for the enlistment of a large cross section of the population through some form of universal military training; the navy was planning for a much smaller peacetime organization of technically trained volunteers. moreover, the army wanted to review the performance of its many black combat units, (p.  ) whereas the naval establishment, which had excluded most of its negroes from combat, had little to gain from measuring their wartime performance. the character and methods of the secretary of the navy had an important bearing on policy. forrestal believed he had won the senior officers to his view of equal treatment and opportunity, and to be assured of success he wanted to convince lower commanders and the ranks as well. he wrote in july : "we are making every effort to give more than lip service to the principles of democracy in the treatment of the negro and we are trying to do it with the minimum of commotion.... we would rather await the practical demonstration of the success of our efforts.... there is still a long road to travel but i am confident we have made a start."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, forrestal to field, jul , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] forrestal's wish for a racially democratic navy did not noticeably conflict with the traditionalists' plan for a small, technically elite force, so while the army launched a worldwide quest in anticipation of an orthodox policy review, the navy started an informal investigation designed primarily to win support for the racial program conceived by the secretary of the navy. the navy's search began in the last months of the war when secretary forrestal approved the formation of an informal committee on negro personnel. although lester granger, the secretary's adviser on racial matters, had originally proposed the establishment of such a committee to "help frame sound and effective racial policies,"[ - ] the chief of naval personnel, a preeminent representative of the navy's professionals, saw an altogether different reason for the group. he endorsed the idea of a committee, he told a member of the secretary's staff, "not because there is anything wrong or backward about our policies," but because "we need greater cooperation from the technical bureaus in order that those policies may succeed."[ - ] forrestal did little to define the group's purpose when on april he ordered under secretary bard to organize a committee "to assure uniform policies" and see that all subdivisions of the navy were familiar with each other's successful and unsuccessful racial practices.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, lester granger to secnav, mar , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for cmdr richard m. paget (exec off, secnav), apr , sub: formation of informal cmte to assure uniform policies on the handling of negro personnel, p- , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : memo, secnav for cmdr richard m. paget, apr , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] by pressing for the uniform treatment of negroes, forrestal doubtless hoped to pull backward branches into line with more liberal ones so that the progressive reforms of the past year would be accepted throughout the navy. but if forrestal's ultimate goal was plain, his failure to give clear-cut directions to his informal committee was characteristic of his handling of racial policy. he carefully followed the recommendations of the chief of naval personnel, who wanted the committee to be a military group, despite having earlier expressed his intention of inviting granger to chair the committee. as announced on april, the committee was headed by a senior official of the bureau of naval personnel, capt. roscoe h. hillenkoetter, with another (p.  ) of the bureau's officers serving as committee recorder.[ - ] restricting the scope of the inquiry, forrestal ordered that "whenever practical" the committee should assign each of its members to investigate the racial practices in his own organization. [footnote - : other members of the committee included four senior navy captains and representatives of the marine corps and coast guard. memo, secnav for under secnav, apr , qb /a - , genrecsnav.] nevertheless when the committee got down to work it quickly went beyond the limited concept of its mission as advanced by the chief of naval personnel. not only did it study statistics gathered from all sections of the department and review the experiences of various commanders of black units, it also studied granger's immediate and long-range recommendations for the department, an extension of his earlier wartime work for forrestal. specifically, granger had called for the formulation of a definite integration policy and for a strenuous public relations campaign directed toward the black community. he had also called for the enlistment and commissioning of a significant number of negroes in the regular navy, and he wanted commanders indoctrinated in their racial responsibilities. casting further afield, granger had warned that discriminatory policies and practices in shipyards and other establishments must be eliminated, and employment opportunities for black civilians in the department broadened.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, mar , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] the committee deliberated on all these points, and, after meeting several times, announced in may its findings and recommendations. it found that the navy's current policies were sound and when properly executed produced good results. at the same time it saw a need for periodic reviews to insure uniform application of policy and better public relations. such findings could be expected from a body headed by a senior official of the personnel bureau, but the committee then came up with the unexpected--a series of recommendations for sweeping change. revealing the influence of the special programs unit, the committee asked that negroes be declared available for assignment to all types of ships and shore stations in all classifications, with selections made solely on merit. since wholesale reassignments were impractical, the committee recommended well-planned, gradual assimilation--it avoided the word integration--as the best policy for ending the concentration of negroes at shore activities. it also attacked the steward's branch as the conspicuous symbol of the negroes' second-class status and called for the assignment of white stewards and allowing qualified stewards to transfer to general service. the committee wanted the judge advocate general to assign legal advisers to all major trials, especially those involving minorities, to prevent errors in courts-martial that might be construed as discrimination. it further recommended that negroes be represented in the secretary's public relations office; that news items concerning negroes be more widely disseminated through bureau bulletins; and, finally, that all bureaus as well as the coast guard and marine corps be encouraged to enroll commanders in special indoctrination programs before they were assigned to units with substantial numbers of (p.  ) negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmte on personnel for under secnav, may , sub: report and recommendations of committee on negro personnel, p. - , genrecsnav.] [illustration: granger interviewing sailors _on inspection tour in the pacific_.] the committee's recommendations, submitted to under secretary bard on may , were far more than an attempt to unify the racial practices of the various subdivisions of the navy department. for the first time, senior representatives of the department's often independent branches accepted the contention of the special programs unit that segregation was militarily inefficient and a gradual but complete integration of the navy's general service was the solution to racial problems. yet as a formula for equal treatment and opportunity in the navy, the committee's recommendations had serious omissions. besides overlooking the dearth of black officers and the marine corps' continued strict segregation, the committee had ignored granger's key proposal that negroes be guaranteed a place in the regular navy. almost without exception, negroes in the navy's general service were reservists, products of wartime volunteer enlistment or the draft. all but a few of the black regulars were stewards. without assurance that many of these general service reservists would be converted to regulars or that provision would be made for enlistment of black regulars, (p.  ) the committee's integration recommendations lacked substance. secretary forrestal must have been aware of these omissions, but he ignored them. perhaps the problem of the negro in the postwar navy seemed remote during this last, climactic summer of the war. [illustration: granger with crewmen of a naval yard craft.] to document the status of the negro in the navy, forrestal turned again to lester granger. granger had acted more than once as the secretary's eyes and ears on racial matters, and the association between the two men had ripened from mutual respect to close rapport.[ - ] during august granger visited some twenty continental installations for forrestal, including large depots and naval stations on the west coast, the great lakes training center, and bases and air stations in the south. shortly after v-j day granger launched a more ambitious tour of inspection that found him traveling among the , negroes assigned to the pacific area. [footnote - : columbia university oral hist interv with granger.] unlike the army staff, whose worldwide quest for information stressed black performance in the familiar lessons-learned formula and only incidentally treated those factors that affected performance, granger, a civilian, never really tried to assess performance. he was, (p.  ) however, a race relations expert, and he tried constantly to discover how the treatment accorded negroes in the navy affected their performance and to pass on his findings to local commanders. he later explained his technique. first, he called on the commanding officer for facts and opinions on the performance and morale of the black servicemen. then he proceeded through the command, unaccompanied, interviewing negroes individually as well as in small and large groups. finally, he returned to the commanding officer to pass along grievances reported by the men and his own observations on the conditions under which they served.[ - ] [footnote - : granger's findings and an account of his inspection technique are located in ltrs, granger to secnav, aug, aug, aug, and oct ; and in "minutes of press conference held by mr. lester b. granger," nov . all in - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav. see also columbia university oral hist interv with granger.] granger always related the performance of enlisted men to their morale. he pointed out to the commanders that poor morale was at the bottom of the port chicago mass mutiny and the guam riot, and his report to the secretary confirmed the experiences of the special programs unit: black performance was deeply affected by the extent to which negroes felt victimized by racial discrimination or handicapped by segregation, especially in housing, messing, and military and civilian recreational facilities. although no official policy on segregated living quarters existed, granger found such segregation widely practiced at naval bases in the united states. separate housing meant in most cases separate work crews, thereby encouraging voluntary segregation in mess halls. in some cases the navy's separate housing was carried over into nearby civilian communities where no segregation existed before. in others shore patrols forced segregation on civilian places of entertainment, even when state laws forbade it. on southern bases, especially, many commanders willingly abandoned the navy's ban against discrimination in favor of the racial practices of local communities. there enforced segregation was widespread, often made explicit with "colored" and "white" signs. yet granger found encouraging exceptions which he passed along to local commanders elsewhere. at camp perry, virginia, for example, there was a minimum of segregation, and the commanding officer had intervened to see that virginia's segregated bus laws did not apply to navy buses operating between the camp and norfolk. this situation was unusual for the navy although integrated busing had been standard practice in the army since mid- . he found camp perry "a pleasant contrast" to other southern installations, and from his experiences there he concluded that the attitude of the commanding officer set the pace. "there is practically no limit," granger said, "to the progressive changes in racial attitudes and relationships which can be made when sufficiently enlightened and intelligent officer leadership is in command." the development of hard and fast rules, he concluded, was unnecessary, but the bureau of naval personnel must constantly see to it that commanders resisted the "influence of local conventions." at pearl harbor granger visited three of the more than two hundred auxiliary ships manned by mixed crews. on two the conditions were excellent. the commanding officer in each case had taken special (p.  ) pains to avoid racial differentiation in ratings, assignments, quarters, and messes; efficiency was superior, morale was high, and racial conflict was absent. on the third ship negroes were separated; they were specifically assigned to a special bunk section in the general crew compartment and to one end of the chow table. here there was dissatisfaction among negroes and friction with whites. at the naval air bases in hawaii performance and morale were good because negroes served in a variety of ratings that corresponded to their training and ability. the air station in oahu, for example, had black radar operators, signalmen, yeomen, machinist mates, and others working amiably with whites; the only sign of racial separation visible was the existence of certain barracks, no different from the others, set aside for negroes. morale was lowest in black base companies and construction battalions. in several instances able commanding officers had availed themselves of competent black leaders to improve race relations, but in most units the racial situation was generally poor. granger regarded the organization of the units as "badly conceived from the racial standpoint." since base companies were composed almost entirely of nonrated men, spaces for black petty officers were lacking. in such units the scaffold of subordinate leadership necessary to support and uphold the authority of the officers was absent, as were opportunities for individual advancement. some units had been provisionally re-formed into logistic support companies, and newly authorized ratings were quickly filled. this partial remedy had corrected some deficiencies, but left unchanged a number of the black base companies in the pacific area. although construction battalions had workers of both races, granger reported them to be essentially segregated because whites were assigned to headquarters or to supervisory posts. some officers had carried this arbitrary segregation into off-duty areas, one commander contending that strict segregation was the civilian pattern and that everyone was accustomed to it. the marine corps lagged far behind the rest of the naval establishment, and there was little pretense of conforming with the navy's racial policy. black marines remained rigidly segregated and none of the few black officer candidates, all apparently well qualified, had been commissioned. furthermore, some black marines who wanted to enlist as regulars were waiting word whether they could be included in the postwar marine corps. approximately percent of the black marines in the pacific area were in depot and ammunition companies and steward groups. in many cases their assignments failed to match their qualifications and previous training. quite a few specialists complained of having been denied privileges ordinarily accorded white men of similar status--for example, opportunities to attend schools for first sergeants, musicians, and radar operators. black technicians were frequently sent to segregated and hastily constructed schools or detached to army installations for schooling rather than sent to marine corps schools. conversely, some white enlisted men, assigned to black units for protracted periods as instructors, were often accorded the unusual privilege of living in officers' quarters and eating in the officers' mess in order to preserve racial segregation. most black servicemen, granger found, resented the white fleet (p.  ) shore patrols in the pacific area which they considered biased in handling disciplinary cases and reporting offenders. the commanding officer of the shore patrol in honolulu defended the practice because he believed the use of negroes in this duty would be highly dangerous. granger disagreed, pointing to the successful employment of black shore patrols in such fleet liberty cities as san diego and miami. he singled out the situation in guam, which was patrolled by an all-white marine corps guard regarded by black servicemen as racist in attitude. frequently, racial clashes occurred, principally over the attentions of native women, but it was the concentration of negroes in the naval barracks at guam, granger concluded, along with the lack of black shore patrols, that intensified racial isolation, induced a suspicion of racial policies, and aggravated resentment. at every naval installation granger heard vigorous complaints over the contrast between black and white ratings and promotions. discrepancies could be explained partly by the fact that, since the general service had been opened to negroes fairly late in the war, many white men had more than two years seniority over any black. but granger found evidence that whites were transferred into units to receive promotions and ratings due eligible black members. in many cases, he found "indisputable racial discrimination" by commanding officers, with the result that training was wasted, trained men were prevented from acquiring essential experience and its rewards, and resentment smoldered. evidence of overt prejudice aside, granger stressed again and again that the primary cause of the navy's racial problems was segregation. segregation was "impractical and inefficient," he pointed out, because racial isolation bred suspicion, which in turn inflamed resentment, and finally provoked insubordination. the best way to integrate negroes, granger felt, was to take the most natural course, that is, eliminate all special provisions, conditions, or cautions regarding their employment. "there should be no exceptional approach to problems involving negroes," he counseled, "for the racial factor in naval service will disappear only when problems involving negroes are accepted as part of the navy's general program for insuring efficient performance and first-class discipline." despite his earlier insistence on a fair percentage of negroes in the postwar regular navy, granger conceded that the number and proportion would probably decrease during peacetime. it was hardly likely, he added, that black enlistment would exceed percent of the total strength, a manageable proportion. he even saw some advantages in smaller numbers, since, as the educational standards for all enlistees rose, the integration of relatively few but better qualified negroes would "undoubtedly make for greater racial harmony and improved naval performance." despite the breadth and acuity of his observations, granger suggested remarkedly few changes. impressed by the progress made in the treatment of negroes during the war, he apparently expected it to continue uninterrupted. although his investigations uncovered basic problems that would continue to trouble the navy, he did not (p.  ) recognize them as such. for his part, forrestal sent granger's voluminous reports with their few recommendations to his military staff and thanked the urban league official for his contribution.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, j.f. [james forrestal] for vice adm jacobs (chief of naval personnel), aug ; ltr, secnav to granger, dec , both in - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] although different in approach and point of view, granger's observations neatly complemented the findings and recommendations of the committee on negro personnel. both reinforced the secretary's postwar policy aims and both supported his gradualist approach to racial reform. granger cited segregation, in particular the concentration of masses of black sailors, as the principal cause of racial unrest and poor morale among negroes. the committee urged the gradual integration of the general service in the name of military efficiency. granger and the committee also shared certain blind spots. both were encouraged by the progress toward full-scale integration that occurred during the war, but this improvement was nominal at best, a token bow to changing conditions. their assumption that integration would spread to all branches of the navy neglected the widespread and deeply entrenched opposition to integration that would yield only to a strategy imposed by the navy's civilian and military leaders. finally, the hope that integration would spread ignored the fact that after the war few negroes except stewards would be able to meet the enlistment requirements for the regular navy. in short, the postwar navy, so far as negroes were concerned, was likely to resemble the prewar navy. the search for a postwar racial policy led the army and navy down some of the same paths. the army manpower planners decided that the best way to avoid the inefficient black divisions was to organize negroes into smaller, and therefore, in their view, more efficient segregated units in all the arms and services. at the same time secretary forrestal's advisers decided that the best way to avoid the concentration of negroes who could not be readily assimilated in the general service was to integrate the small remnant of black specialists and leave the majority of black sailors in the separate steward's branch. in both instances the experiences of world war ii had successfully demonstrated to the traditionalists that large-scale segregated units were unacceptable, but neither service was yet ready to accept large-scale integration as an alternative. chapter (p.  ) new directions all the services developed new racial policies in the immediate postwar period. because these policies were responses to racial stresses peculiar to each service and were influenced by the varied experiences of each, they were, predictably, disparate in both substance and approach; because they were also reactions to a common set of pressures on the services they proved to be, perhaps not so predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. one pressure felt by all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the nation's military manpower was not only variable but also limited in quantity. military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also improve its quality. since negroes, who made up approximately percent of the population, formed a substantial part of the nation's manpower, they could no longer be considered primarily a source of unskilled labor. they too must be employed appropriately, and to this end a higher proportion of negroes in the services must be qualified for specialized jobs. continuing demands by civil rights groups added to the pressure on the services to employ negroes according to their abilities. arguing that negroes had the right to enjoy the privileges and share the responsibilities of citizenship, civil rights spokesmen appeared determined to test the constitutionality of the services' wartime policies in the courts. their demands placed the truman administration on the defensive and served warning on the armed forces that never again could they look to the exclusion of black americans as a long-term solution to their racial problems. in addition to such pressures, the services had to reckon with a more immediate problem. postwar black reenlistment, particularly among service men stationed overseas, was climbing far beyond expectation. as the armed forces demobilized in late and early , the percentage of negroes in the army rose above its wartime high of . percent of the enlisted strength and was expected to reach percent and more by . aside from the marine corps, which experienced a rapid drop in black enlistment, the navy also expected a rise in the percentage of negroes, at least in the near future. the increase occurred in part because negroes, who had less combat time than whites and therefore fewer eligibility points for discharge, were being separated from service later and more slowly. the rise reflected as well the negro's expectation that the national labor market would deteriorate in the wake of the war. although greater opportunities for employment had developed for black americans, civilians already filled the posts and many young negroes preferred the job security of a military career. but there was another, more poignant reason why many negroes elected to remain in uniform: they were afraid to reenter (p.  ) what seemed a hostile society and preferred life in the armed forces, imperfect as that might be. the effect of this increase on the services, particularly the largest service, the army, was sharp and direct. since many negroes were poorly educated, they were slow to learn the use of sophisticated military equipment, and since the best educated and qualified men, black and white, tended to leave, the services faced the prospect of having a large proportion of their enlisted strength black and unskilled. _the gillem board report_ clearly, a new policy was necessary, and soon after the japanese surrender assistant secretary mccloy sent to the recently appointed secretary of war the accumulated pile of papers on the subject of how best to employ negroes in the postwar army. along with the answers to the questionnaires sent to major commanders and a collection of interoffice memos went mccloy's reminder that the matter ought to be dealt with soon. mccloy wanted to form a committee of senior officers to secure "an objective professional view" to be used as a base for attacking the whole race problem. but while he considered it important to put this professional view on record, he still expected it to be subject to civilian review.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, mccloy for sw, sep , sw . ; ltr, mccloy to author, sep , cmh files.] robert p. patterson became secretary of war on september , after serving with henry stimson for five years, first as assistant and later as under secretary. intimately concerned with racial matters in the early years of the war, patterson later became involved in war procurement, a specialty far removed from the complex and controversial racial situation that faced the army. now as secretary he once again assumed an active role in the army's black manpower problems and quickly responded to mccloy's request for a policy review.[ - ] in accordance with patterson's oral instructions, general marshall appointed a board, under the chairmanship of lt. gen. alvan c. gillem, jr., which met on october . three days later a formal directive signed by the deputy chief of staff and approved by the secretary of war ordered the board to "prepare a policy for the use of the authorized negro manpower potential during the postwar period including the complete development of the means required to derive the maximum efficiency from the full authorized manpower of the nation in the event of a national emergency."[ - ] on this group, to be known as the gillem board, would fall the responsibility for formulating a policy, preparing a directive, and planning the use of negroes in the postwar army. [footnote - : see, for example, memo, sw for cofs, nov , sw . ; see also ltr, mccloy to author, sep .] [footnote - : quoted in memo, gen gillem for cofs, nov , sub: report of board of general officers on utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army, copy in csgot . ( ) bp.] none of the board members was particularly prepared for the new assignment. general gillem, a tennessean, had come up through the ranks to command the xiii corps in europe during world war ii. although he had written one of the war college studies on the (p.  ) use of black troops and had many black units in his corps, gillem probably owed his appointment to the fact that he was a three-star general, available at the moment, and had recently been selected by the chief of staff to direct a special planning division study on the use of black troops that had been superseded by the new board.[ - ] burdened with the voluminous papers collected by mccloy, gillem headed a board composed of maj. gen. lewis a. pick, a virginian who had built the ledo road in the china-burma-india theater; brig. gen. winslow c. morse of michigan, who had served in a variety of assignments in the army air forces culminating in wartime duties in china; and brig. gen. aln d. warnock, the recorder without vote, a texan who began his career in the arizona national guard and had served in iceland during world war ii.[ - ] these men had broad and diverse experience and gave the board a certain geographical balance. curiously enough, none was a graduate of west point.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, capt alan osur, usaf, with lt gen alvan c. gillem (usa ret.), feb , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, maj gen ray porter, dir, spec planning div, for gillem, sep , sub: war department special board on negro manpower, wdcsa . .] [footnote - : in a later comment on the selections, mccloy said that the geographical spread and lack of west point representation was accidental and that the use of general officers reflected the importance of the subject to him and to patterson. see ltr, mccloy to author, sep , and ltr, gen morse to author, sep , cmh files.] [illustration: general gillem.] although new to the subject, the board members worked quickly. less than a month after their first session, gillem informed the chief of staff that they had already reached certain conclusions. they recognized the need to build on the close relationships developed between the races during the war by introducing progressive measures that could be put into operation promptly and would provide for the assignment of black troops on the basis of individual merit and ability alone. after studying and comparing the racial practices of the other services, the board decided that the navy's partial integration had stimulated competition which improved black performance without causing racial friction. by contrast, strict segregation in the marine corps required longer training periods and closer supervision for black marines. in his memorandum gillem refrained from drawing the logical conclusion and simply went on to note that the army had, for example, integrated its black and white patients in hospitals because of the greater expense, inefficiency, and general impracticality of duplicating complex medical (p.  ) equipment and installations.[ - ] by inference the same disadvantages applied to maintaining separate training facilities, operational units, and the rest of the apparatus of the shrinking army establishment. at one point in his progress report, gillem seemed close to recommending integration, at least to the extent already achieved in the navy. but stated explicitly such a recommendation would have been a radical step, out of keeping with the climate of opinion in the country and in the army itself. [footnote - : memo, gen gillem for cofs, oct , sub: progress rpt on board study of utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army, wdcsa . ; see also interv, osur with gillem.] on november the gillem board finished the study and sent its report to the chief of staff.[ - ] in six weeks the board had questioned more than sixty witnesses, consulted a mass of documentary material, and drawn up conclusions and recommendations on the use of black troops. the board declared that its recommendations were based on two complementary principles: black americans had a constitutional right to fight, and the army had an obligation to make the most effective use of every soldier. but the board also took into account reports of the army's wartime experience with black units. it referred constantly to this experience, citing the satisfactory performance of the black service units and some of the smaller black combat units, in particular the artillery and tank battalions. it also described the black infantry platoons integrated into white companies in europe as "eminently successful." at the same time large black combat units had not been satisfactory, most often because their junior officers and noncommissioned officers lacked the ability to lead. the difficulties the army encountered in properly placing its black troops during the war, the board decided, stemmed to some extent from inadequate staff work and improper planning. poor staff work allowed a disproportionate number of negroes with low test scores to be allocated to combat elements. lack of early planning, constant reorganization and regrouping of black units, and continuous shifting of individuals from one type of training to another had confused and bewildered black troops, who sometimes doubted that the army intended to commit them to combat at all. [footnote - : memo, gillem for cofs, nov , sub: report of board of general officers on the utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army. unless otherwise noted this section is based on the report.] it was necessary, the board declared, to avoid repetition of this experience. advance planning was needed to develop a broader base of trained men among black troops to provide cadres and leaders to meet national emergencies more efficiently. the army had to realize and take advantage of the advances made by negroes in education, industry, and government service. the wide range of skills attained by negroes had enhanced their military value and made possible a broader selectivity with consequent benefit to military efficiency. thus, the army had to adopt a racial policy that provided for the progressive and flexible use of black manpower "within proportions corresponding to those in the civilian population." this policy, it added, must "be implemented _promptly ... must_ be objective by nature ... must (p.  ) eliminate, at the earliest practicable moment, any special consideration based on race ... and should point towards the immediate objective of an evaluation of the negro on the basis of individual merit and ability." the board made eighteen specific recommendations, of which the following were the most important. "that combat and service units be organized and activated from the negro manpower available in the postwar army to meet the requirements of training and expansion and in addition qualified individuals be utilized in appropriate special and overhead units." the use of qualified negroes in overhead units was the first break with the traditional policy of segregation, for though black enlisted men would continue to eat and sleep in segregated messes and barracks, they would work alongside white soldiers and perform the same kind of duty in the same unit. "the proportion of negro to white manpower as exists in the civil population be the accepted ratio for creating a troop basis in the postwar army."[ - ] [footnote - : the percent quota that eventually emerged from the gillem board was an approximation; gillem later recalled that the world war ii enlisted ratio was nearer . percent, but that general eisenhower, the chief of staff, saying he could not remember that, suggested making it "an even percent." see interv, osur with gillem.] "that negro units organized or activated for the postwar army conform in general to other units of the postwar army but the maximum strength of type [sic] units should not exceed that of an infantry regiment or comparable organization." here the board wanted the army to avoid the division-size units of world war ii but retain separate black units which would be diversified enough to broaden the professional base of negroes in the regular army by offering them a larger selection of military occupations. "that in the event of universal training in peacetime additional officer supervision is supplied to units which have a greater than normal percentage of personnel falling into a.g.c.t. classifications iv and v." such a policy had existed in world war ii, but was never carried out. "that a staff group of selected officers whose background has included commanding troops be formed within the g- division of the staffs of the war department and each major command of the army to assist in the planning, promulgation, implementation and revision of policies affecting all racial minorities." this was the administrative machinery the board wanted to facilitate the prompt and efficient execution of the army's postwar racial policies. "that reenlistment be denied to regular army soldiers who meet only the minimum standards." this provision was in line with the concept that the peacetime army was a cadre to be expanded in time of emergency. as long as the army accepted all reenlistments regardless of aptitude and halted black enlistments when black strength exceeded percent, it would deny enlistment to many qualified negroes. it would also burden the army with low-scoring men who would never rise above the rank of private and whose usefulness in a peacetime (p.  ) cadre, which had the function of training for wartime expansion, would be extremely limited. "that surveys of manpower requirements conducted by the war department include recommendations covering the positions in each installation of the army which could be filled by negro military personnel." this suggestion complemented the proposal to use negroes in overhead positions on an individual basis. by opening more positions to negroes, the army would foster leadership, maintain morale, and encourage a competitive spirit among the better qualified. by forcing competition with whites "on an individual basis of merit," the army would become more attractive as a career to superior negroes, who would provide many needed specialists as a "nucleus for rapid expansion of army units in time of emergency." "that groupings of negro units with white units in composite organizations be continued in the postwar army as a policy." since world war ii demonstrated that black units performed satisfactorily when grouped or operated with white combat units, the inclusion of a black service company in a white regiment or a heavy weapons company in an infantry battalion could perhaps be accomplished "without encountering insurmountable difficulties." such groupings would build up a professional relationship between blacks and whites, but, the board warned, experimentation must not risk "the disruption of civilian racial relationships." "that there be accepted into the regular army an unspecified number of qualified negro officers ... that all officers, regardless of race, be required to meet the same standard for appointment ... be accorded equal rights and opportunities for advancement and professional improvement; and be required to meet the same standard for appointment, promotion and retention in all components of the army." the board set no limit on the number of black officers in the army, nor did it suggest that black officers be restricted to service in black units. its report rendered, the board remained in existence ready to make revisions "as may be warranted" by the comments of the many individuals and agencies that were to review the policy in conformance with a directive of the secretary of war.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, brig gen h. i. hodes, adcofs, for gillem, nov , sub: war department special board on negro management, wdcsa . ( nov ).] no two individuals were more intimately concerned with the course of events that led to the gillem board report than john j. mccloy and truman gibson, and although both were about to leave government service, each gave the new secretary of war his opinion of the report.[ - ] mccloy called the report a "fine achievement" and a "great advance over previous studies." it was most important, he said, that the board had stated the problem in terms of manpower efficiency. at the same time both men recognized ambiguities in the board's (p.  ) recommendations, and their criticisms were strong, precise, and, considering the conflicts that developed in the army over these issues, remarkedly acute. both agreed the report needed a clear statement on the basic issue of segregation, and they wanted the board to eliminate the quota. gibson pointed out that the board proposed as a long-range objective the utilization of all persons on the basis of individual ability alone. "this means, of course," he announced with more confidence than was warranted, "a completely integrated army." in the interest of eventually achieving an integrated army he was willing to settle for less than immediate and total integration, but nevertheless he attacked the board for what he called the vagueness of its recommendations. progressive and planned integration, he told secretary patterson, demanded a clear and explicit policy stating that segregation was outmoded and integration inevitable, and the army should move firmly and steadily from one to the other. [footnote - : memo, civilian aide for asw, nov , asw . negro troops (post war); ltr, idem to sw, nov ; memo, mccloy for patterson, nov ; memo, gibson for sw, nov . last three in sw . . the gibson quote is from the november memo.] on some fundamental issues mccloy thought the board did "not speak with the complete clarity necessary," but he considered the ambiguity unintentional. experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of misconstruction." directness, he said, was required in place of equivocation based on delicacy. if the gillem board intended black officers to command white officers and men, it should have said so flatly. if it meant the army should try unsegregated and mixed units, it should have said so. its report, mccloy concluded, should have put these matters beyond doubt. he was equally forthright in his rejection of the quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the army of many qualified negroes who would be unable to enlist when the quota was full. even if the quota was meant as a floor rather than a ceiling, mccloy thought it objectionable. "i do not see any place," he wrote, "for a quota in a policy that looks to utilize negroes on the basis of ability." if the gillem board revealed the army's willingness to compromise in treating a pressing efficiency problem, detailed comments by interested staff agencies revealed how military traditionalists hoped to avoid a pressing social problem. for just as mccloy and gibson criticized the board for failing to spell out concrete procedures toward integration, other staff experts generally approved the board's report precisely because its ambiguities committed them to very little. their specific criticisms, some betraying the biases of the times, formed the basis of the standard traditionalist defense of the racial _status quo_ for the next five years. comments from the staff's personnel organization set the tone of this criticism.[ - ] the assistant chief of staff for personnel, g- , maj. gen. willard s. paul, approved the board's recommendations, calling them a "logical solution to the problem of effective utilization of negro manpower." although he thought the report "sufficiently (p.  ) detailed to permit intelligent, effective planning," he passed along without comment the criticisms of his subordinates. he was opposed to the formation of a special staff group. "we must soon reach the point," he wrote, "where our general staff must be able to cope with such problems without the formation of ad hoc committees or groups."[ - ] [footnote - : for examples of this extensive review of the gillem board report in g- , see the following memos: col j. f. cassidy (exec office, g- ) for col parks, dec ; chief, officer branch, g- , for exec off, g- policy group, dec ; actg chief, req and res br, for chief, policy control group, dec ; lt col e. b. jones, special projects br, for g- , and dec , sub: policy for utilization of negro manpower in post-war army. all in wdgap . .] [footnote - : memo, gen paul, g- , for cofs, dec , sub: policy for utilization of negro manpower in post-war army, wdgap . ( nov ).] the assistant chief of staff for organization and training, g- , maj. gen. idwal h. edwards, was chiefly concerned with the timing of the new policy. in trying to employ black manpower on a broader professional scale, he warned, the army must recognize the "ineptitude and limited capacity of the negro soldier." he wanted various phases of the new policy timed "with due consideration for all factors such as public opinion, military requirements and the military situation." if the priority given public opinion in the sequence of these factors reflected edwards's view of their importance, the list is somewhat curious. edwards concurred in the recommendations, although he wanted the special staff group established in the personnel office rather than in his organization, and he rejected any arbitrary percentage of black officers. more black officers could be obtained through expansion of the reserve officers' training corps, he suggested, but he rejected the board's call for special classification of all enlistees in reception and training centers, on grounds that the centers were not adequate for the task.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet to adcofs, jan , sub: war department special board on negro manpower, wdgct . ( nov ).] the chief of the general staff's operations division, lt. gen. john e. hull, dismissed the gillem report with several blunt statements: black enlisted men should be assigned to black units capable of operational use within white units at the rate of one black battalion per division; a single standard of professional proficiency should be followed for white and black officers; and "no negro officer be given command of white troops."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, lt gen john e. hull, acofs, opd (signed brig gen e. d. post, dep chief, theater gp, opd), for acofs, g- , jan , sub: war department special board on negro manpower, wdgct . .] the deputy commander of the army air forces, lt. gen. ira c. eaker, agreed with the board that the army should not be "a testing ground for problems in race relationships." neither did he think the air forces should organize units for the sole purpose of "advancing the prestige of one race, especially when it is necessary to utilize personnel that do not have the proper qualifications in order to keep these units up to strength." black combat units should be limited by the percent quota and by the small number of negroes qualified for tactical training. most negroes should be placed in air forces service units, where "their wartime record was the best," even though such placement would leave the air forces open to charges of discrimination. the idea of experimental groupings of black and white units in composite organizations might prove "impractical," eaker wrote to the chief of staff, because an air forces group operated as an integral unit rather than as three or four separate squadrons; units often exchanged men and equipment, and common messes were used. composite organizations were practical "only when it is not (p.  ) necessary for the units to intermingle continually in order to carry on efficiently." why intermingling could not be synonymous with efficiency, he failed to explain. the inference was clear that segregation was not only normal but best. yet he advocated continuing integrated flying schools and agreed that negroes should be stationed where community attitudes were favorable. he cited the difficulties involved in stationing. for more than two years the army air forces had tried to find a suitable base for its only black tactical group. even in northern cities with large black communities--syracuse, new york, columbus, ohio, and windsor locks, connecticut, among others--officials had vehemently protested against having the black group. the war department, eaker concluded, "should never be ahead of popular opinion on this subject; otherwise it will put itself in a position of stimulating racial disorders rather than overcoming them." along these lines, and harking back to the freeman field incident, he protested against regulations reaffirmed by the gillem board for the joint use of clubs, theaters, post exchanges, and the like at stations in localities where such use was contrary to civilian practices.[ - ] [footnote - : st ind, lt gen ira c. eaker, deputy cmdr, aaf, to cofs, dec , sub: war department special board on negro manpower, copy at tab h, supplemental report of board of officers on utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army, jan , copy in cmh.] the army ground forces headquarters concurred generally with the gillem board's conclusions and recommendations but suggested the army not act alone. the headquarters recommended a policy be formulated for the entire military establishment; only then should individual elements of the armed forces come forward with their own policies. the idea that negroes should serve in numbers proportionate to their percentage of the population and bear their share of battle losses "may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the interest of a logical solution."[ - ] since the abilities of negroes were limited, the report concluded, their duties should be restricted. [footnote - : memo, lt col s. r. knight (for cg, agf) for cofs, dec , sub: army ground forces comments and recommendations on report of the war department special board (gillem) on negro manpower, dated nov , gngps . ( dec ); agf study, "participation of negro troops in the postwar military establishment," nov , forwarded to cofs, attn: dir, wd special planning div, gndcg . ( nov ).] the commanding general of the army service forces claimed the gillem board report was advocating substantially the same policy his organization had followed during the war. the army service forces had successfully used an even larger percentage of negroes than the gillem board contemplated. concurring generally with the board's recommendations, he cautioned that the war department should not dictate the use of negroes in the field; to do so would be a serious infringement of command prerogatives that left each commander free to select and assign his men. as for the experimental groupings of black and white units, the general believed that such mixtures were appropriate for combat units but not for the separate small units common to the army service forces. separate, homogeneous companies or battalions formed during the war worked well, and experience proved mixed units impractical below group and regimental echelons. the service forces commander called integration infeasible "for (p.  ) the present and foreseeable future." it was unlawful in many areas, he pointed out, and not common practice elsewhere, and requiring soldiers to follow a different social pattern would damage morale and defeat the army's effort to increase the opportunities and effectiveness of black soldiers. he did not try to justify his contention, but his meaning was clear. it would be a mistake for the army to attempt to lead the nation in such reforms, especially while reorganization, unification, and universal military training were being considered.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, maj gen daniel noce, actg cofs, asf, for cofs, dec , sub: war department special board on negro manpower, copy at tab j, supplemental report of war department special board on negro manpower, jan , cmh files.] reconvened in january to consider the comments on its original report, the gillem board deliberated for two more weeks, heard additional witnesses, and stood firm in its conclusions and recommendations.[ - ] the policy it proposed, the board emphasized, had one purpose, the attainment of maximum manpower efficiency in time of national emergency. to achieve this end the armed forces must make full use of negroes now in service, but future use of black manpower had to be based on the experience gained in two major wars. the board considered the policy it was proposing flexible, offering opportunity for advancement to qualified individuals and at the same time making possible for the army an economic use of national manpower as a whole. [footnote - : supplemental report of war department special board on negro manpower, "policy for utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army," jan . the following quotations are taken from this amended version of the gillem board report, a copy of which, with all tabs and annexes, is in cmh.] to its original report the board added a statement at once the hope and despair of its critics and supporters. _the initial objectives_: the utilization of the proportionate ratio of the manpower made available to the military establishment during the postwar period. the manpower potential to be organized and trained as indicated by pertinent recommendations. _the ultimate objective_: the effective use of _all_ manpower made available to the military establishment in the event of a major mobilization at some unknown date against an undetermined aggressor. the manpower to be utilized, in the event of another major war, in the army without regard to antecedents or race. when, and if such a contingency arises, the manpower of the nation should be utilized in the best interests of the national security. the board cannot, and does not, attempt to visualize at this time, intermediate objectives. between the first and ultimate objective, timely phasing may be interjected and adjustments made in accordance with conditions which may obtain at this undetermined date. the board based its ultimate objective on the fact that the black community had made important advances in education and job skills in the past generation, and it expected economic and educational conditions for negroes to continue to improve. since such improvement would make it possible to employ black manpower in a variety of ways, the board's recommendations could be only a guide for the future, a policy that must remain flexible. to the specific objections raised by the reviewing agencies, the board replied that although black units eventually should be commanded by black officers "no need exists for the assignment of negro commanders to units composed of white troops." it also agreed with those who (p.  ) felt it would be beneficial to correlate army racial policies with those of the navy. on other issues the board stood firm. it rejected the proposal that individual commanders be permitted to choose positions where negroes could be employed in overhead installations on the grounds that this delegation of responsibility "hazards lack of uniformity and makes results doubtful." it refused to drop the quota, arguing it was needed for planning purposes. at the same time the board did admit that the percent ratio, suitable for the moment, might be changed in the future in the interest of efficiency--though changed in which way it did not say. [illustration: secretary patterson.] the board rejected the proposition that the army service forces and the army air forces were unable to use small black units in white organizations and took a strong stand for elimination of the professional private, the career enlistee lacking the background or ability to advance beyond the lowest rank. finally, the board rejected demands that the color line be reestablished in officers' messes and enlisted recreational facilities. "this large segment of the population contributed materially to the success attained by our military forces.... the negro enjoyed the privileges of citizenship and, in turn, willingly paid the premium by accepting service. in many instances, this payment was settled through the medium of the supreme sacrifice." the board's recommendations were well received, at least in the highest echelons of the war department. general dwight d. eisenhower, now chief of staff,[ - ] quickly sent the proposed policy to the secretary of war with a recommendation for approval "subject to such adjustment as experience shows is necessary."[ - ] on february secretary patterson approved the new policy in a succinct restatement of the board's recommendations. the policy and the full gillem board report were published as war department circular on april . at the secretary's direction the circular was dispatched to the field "without delay."[ - ] on march the report was released to the press.[ - ] the most exhaustive and intensive inquiry ever made (p.  ) by the army into the employment of black manpower had survived the review and analysis process with its conclusions and recommendations intact. [footnote - : eisenhower succeeded marshall as chief of staff on november .] [footnote - : memo, cofs for sw, feb , sub: supplemental report of board of officers on utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army, wdcsa . ( feb ).] [footnote - : ltr, tag for cg's, agf et al., may , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army, wdgap . .] [footnote - : wd press release, mar , "report of board of officers on utilization of negro manpower in the post-war army."] attitudes toward the new policy varied with interpretations of the board's statement of objectives. secretary patterson saw in the report "a significant development in the status of the negro soldiers in the army." the immediate effect of using negroes in composite units and overhead assignments, he predicted, would be to change war department policy on segregation.[ - ] but the success of the policy could not be guaranteed by a secretary of war, and some of his advisers were more guarded in their estimates. to truman gibson, once again in government service, but briefly this time, the report seemed a good beginning because it offered a new approach, one that had originated within the army itself. yet gibson was wary of its chances for success: the board's recommendations, he told the assistant secretary of war, would make for a better army "only if they are effectively carried out."[ - ] the newly appointed assistant secretary, howard c. petersen, was equally cautious. explaining the meaning of the report to the negro newspaper publishers association, he warned that "a strong policy weakly enforced will be of little value to the army."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, sw for cofs, feb , wdcsa . ( feb ).] [footnote - : memo, truman gibson, expert consultant to the sw, for howard c. petersen, feb , asw . negro troops (post-war).] [footnote - : remarks of the assistant secretary of war at luncheon for negro newspaper publishers association, mar , asw . .] marcus h. ray, gibson's successor as the secretary's adviser on racial affairs,[ - ] stressed the board's ultimate objective to employ manpower without regard to race and called its recommendations "a step in the direction of efficient manpower utilization." it was a necessary step, he added, because "any racial group which lives under the stigma of implied inferiority inherent in a system of enforced separation cannot give over-all top performance in peace or in war."[ - ] [footnote - : ray, a former commander of an artillery battalion in the d infantry division, was appointed civilian aide on january ; see wd press release, jan .] [footnote - : ltr, marcus ray to capt warman k. welliver, apr , copy in cmh. welliver, the commander of a black unit during the war, was a student of the subject of negroes in the army; see his "report on the negro soldier."] on the whole, the black community was considerably less sanguine about the new policy. the _norfolk journal and guide_ called the report a step in the right direction, but reserved judgment until the army carried out the recommendations.[ - ] to a distinguished black historian who was writing an account of the negro in world war ii, the gillem board report reflected the army's ambiguity on racial matters. "it is possible," l. d. reddick of the new york public library wrote, "to interpret the published recommendations as pointing in opposite directions."[ - ] one naacp official charged that it "tries to dilute jim-crow by presenting it on a smaller scale." after citing the tremendous advances made by negroes and all the reasons for ending segregation, he accused the gillem board of refusing to take the (p.  ) last step.[ - ] most black papers adopted the same attitude, characterizing the new policy as "the same old army." the pittsburgh _courier_, for one, observed that the new policy meant that the army command had undergone no real change of heart.[ - ] other segments of the public were more forebearing. one veterans' organization commended the war department for the work of the gillem board but called its analysis and recommendations incomplete. citing evidence that jim crow, not the enemy, "defeated" black combat units, the chairman of the american veterans committee called for an immediate end to segregation.[ - ] [footnote - : norfolk _journal and guide_, march , .] [footnote - : ltr, l. d. reddick, n.y. pub. lib., to sw, mar , sw .] [footnote - : ltr, bernard jackson, youth council, naacp boston br, to asw, apr , asw . (nt).] [footnote - : pittsburgh _courier_, may , .] [footnote - : ltr, charles g. bolte, chmn, amer vets cmte, to sw, mar ; see also ltr, ralph denat, corr secy, amer vets cmte, to sw, may , both in sw . (cmte) ( aug ).] clearly, opposition to segregation was not going to be overcome with palliatives and promises, yet petersen could only affirm that the gillem board report would mean significant change. he admitted segregation's tenacious hold on army thinking and that black units would continue to exist for some time, but he promised movement toward desegregation. he also made the army's usual distinction between segregation and discrimination. though there were many instances of unfair treatment during the war, he noted, these were individual matters, inconsistent with army policy, which "has consistently condemned discrimination." discrimination, he concluded, must be blamed on "defects" of enforcement, which would always exist to some degree in any organization as large as the army.[ - ] [footnote - : ltrs, asw to bernard h. solomon and to bernard jackson, apr , both in asw . .] actually, petersen's promised "movement" toward integration was likely to be a very slow process. so substantive a change in social practice, the army had always argued, required the sustained support of the american public, and judging from war department correspondence and press notices large segments of the public remained unaware of what the army was trying to do about its "negro problem." most military journalists continued to ignore the issue; perhaps they considered the subject of the employment of black troops unimportant compared with the problems of demobilization, atomic weaponry, and service unification. for example, in listing the principal military issues before the united states in the postwar period, military analyst hanson baldwin did not mention the employment of negroes in the service.[ - ] [footnote - : hanson baldwin, "wanted: an american military policy," _harper's_ (may ): - .] given the composition of the gillem board and the climate of opinion in the nation, the report was exemplary and fair, its conclusions progressive. if in the light of later developments the recommendations seem timid, even superficial, it should be remembered to its credit that the board at least made integration a long-range goal of the army and made permanent the wartime guarantee of a substantial black representation. nevertheless the ambiguities in the gillem board's recommendations would be useful to those commanders at all levels of the army who were devoted to the racial _status quo_. gillem and his colleagues (p.  ) discussed black soldiers in terms of social problems rather than military efficiency. as a result, their recommendations treated the problem from the standpoint of how best negroes could be employed within the traditional segregated framework even while they spoke of integration as an ultimate goal. they gave their blessing to the continued existence of segregated units and failed to inquire whether segregation might not be a factor in the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of black units and black soldiers. true, they sought to use qualified negroes in specialist jobs as a solution to better employment of black manpower, but this effort could have little practical effect. few were qualified--and determination of qualifications was often done by those with little sympathy for the negro and even less for the educated negro. black serviceman holding critical specialties and those assigned to overhead installations would never amount to more than a handful of men whose integration during duty hours only would fall far short even of tokenism. to point out as the board did that the policy it was recommending no longer required segregation was meaningless. until the army ordered integration, segregation, simply by virtue of inertia, would remain. as mccloy, along with gibson and others, warned, without a strong, explicit statement of intent by the army the changes in army practice suggested by the gillem board would be insignificant. the very acceptance of the board's report by officials traditionally opposed to integration should have been fair warning that the report would be difficult to use as a base for a progressive racial policy; in fact it could be used to justify almost any course of action. from the start, the war department encountered overwhelming difficulties in carrying out the board's recommendations, and five years later the ultimate objective was still out of reach. clearly, the majority of army officers viewed segregated service as the acceptable norm. general jacob l. devers, then commanding general of army ground forces, gave a clue to their view when he told his fellow officers in that "we are going to put colored battalions in white divisions. this is purely business--the social side will not be brought into it."[ - ] here then was the dilemma: was not the army a social institution as well as a fighting organization? the solution to the army's racial problems could not be achieved by ignoring the social implications. on both counts there was a reluctance among many professional soldiers to take in negroes. they registered acute social discomfort at the large influx of black soldiers, and many who had devoted their lives to military service had very real misgivings over using negroes in white combat units or forming new black combat units because they felt that black fighters in the air and on the ground had performed badly in the past. to entrust the fighting to negroes who had failed to prove their competence in this highest mission of the army seemed to them to threaten the institution itself. [footnote - : remarks by gen j. l. devers, armored conference report, may .] despite these shortcomings, the work of the gillem board was a progressive step in the history of army race relations. it broke with the assumption implicit in earlier army policy that the black soldier was inherently inferior by recommending that negroes be assigned (p.  ) tasks as varied and skilled as those handled by white soldiers. it also made integration the army's goal by declaring as official policy the ultimate employment of all manpower without regard to race. even the board's insistence on a racial quota, it could be argued, had its positive aspects, for in the end it was the presence of so many black soldiers in the korean war that finally ended segregation. in the meantime, controversy over the quota, whether it represented a floor supporting minimum black participation or a ceiling limiting black enlistment, continued unabated, providing the civil rights groups with a focal point for their complaints. no matter how hard the army tried to justify the quota, the quota increased the army's vulnerability to charges of discrimination. _integration of the general service_ the navy's postwar revision of racial policy, like the army's, was the inevitable result of its world war ii experience. inundated with unskilled and undereducated negroes in the middle of the war, the navy had assigned most of these men to segregated labor battalions and was surprised by the racial clashes that followed. as it began to understand the connection between large segregated units and racial tensions, the navy also came to question the waste of the talented negro in a system that denied him the job for which he was qualified. perhaps more to the point, the navy's size and mission made immediately necessary what the army could postpone indefinitely. unlike the army, the navy seriously modified its racial policy in the last year of the war, breaking up some of the large segregated units and integrating negroes in the specialist and officer training schools, in the waves, and finally in the auxiliary fleet and the recruit training centers. yet partial integration was not enough. lester granger's surveys and the studies of the secretary's special committee had demonstrated that the navy could resolve its racial problems only by providing equal treatment and opportunity. but the absurdity of trying to operate two equal navies, one black and one white, had been obvious during the war. only total integration of the general service could serve justice and efficiency, a conclusion the civil rights advocates had long since reached. after years of leaving the navy comparatively at peace, they now began to demand total integration. there was no assurance, however, that a move to integration was imminent when granger returned from his final inspection trip for secretary forrestal in october . both granger and the secretary's committee on negro personnel had endorsed the department's current practices, and granger had been generally optimistic over the reforms instituted toward the end of the war. admirals nimitz and king both endorsed granger's recommendations, although neither saw the need for further change.[ - ] for his part secretary forrestal seemed determined to maintain the momentum of reform. "what steps do we take," he (p.  ) asked the chief of naval personnel, "to correct the various practices ... which are not in accordance with navy standards?"[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, cincpac&poa to secnav via ch, navpers, oct , sub: negro naval personnel--pacific ocean areas, and d ind, cno, dec , same sub, both in p - /mm, opnavarchives.] [footnote - : memo, j. f. for adm jacobs, aug , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] [illustration: admiral denfeld.] in response the bureau of naval personnel circulated the granger reports throughout the navy and ordered steps to correct practices identified by granger as "not in accordance with navy standards."[ - ] but it was soon apparent that the bureau would be selective in adopting granger's suggestions. in november, for example, the chief of naval personnel, admiral louis e. denfeld, arguing that officers "could handle black personnel without any special indoctrination," urged the secretary to reject granger's recommendation that an office be established in headquarters to deal exclusively with racial problems. at the same time some of the bureau's recruiting officials were informing negroes that their reenlistment in the regular navy was to be limited to the steward's branch.[ - ] with the help of admiral nimitz, chief of naval operations, forrestal quickly put an end to this recruiting practice, but he paid no further attention to racial matters except to demand in mid-december a progress report on racial reforms in the pacific area.[ - ] nor did he seem disturbed when the pacific commander reported a large number of all-black units, some with segregated recreational facilities, operating in the pacific area as part of the permanent postwar naval organization.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asst ch, navpers, for secnav, sep , sub: ur memo of august , , relative to lester b. granger ... - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : st ind, chief, navpers, to ltr, cincpac&poa to secnav, oct , sub: negro personnel--pacific ocean areas (ca. nov ), p - mm, opnavarchives; memo, m. f. correa (admin asst to secnav) for capt robert n. mcfarlane, nov , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : forrestal's request for a progress report was circulated in cno dispatch z dec to cincpac&poa, quoted in nelson, "integration of the negro," p. .] [footnote - : memo, cincpac&poa for cno, jan , sub: negro naval personnel--pacific ocean areas, p /p , opnavarchives.] in the end the decision to integrate the general service came not from the secretary but from that bastion of military tradition, the bureau of naval personnel. despite the general reluctance of the bureau to liberalize the navy's racial policy, there had been all along some manpower experts who wanted to increase the number of specialties open to black sailors. capt. hunter wood, jr., for example, suggested in january that the bureau make plans for an expansion in assignments for negroes. wood's proposal fell on the sympathetic ears of admiral denfeld, who considered the granger recommendations (p.  ) practical for the postwar navy. denfeld, of course, was well aware that these recommendations had been endorsed by admirals king and nimitz as well as forrestal, and he himself had gone on record as believing that negroes in the peacetime navy should lose none of the opportunities opened to them during the war.[ - ] [footnote - : admiral denfeld's statement to the black press representatives in this regard is referred to in memo, capt h. wood, jr., for chief, navpers, jan , p - /mm, bupersrecs.] denfeld had had considerable experience with the navy's evolving racial policy in his wartime assignment as assistant chief of personnel where his principal concern had been the efficient distribution and assignment of men. he particularly objected to the fact that current regulations complicated what should have been the routine transfer of sailors. simple control procedures for the segregation of negroes in general service had been effective when negroes were restricted to particular shore stations and duties, he told admiral nimitz on january , but now that negroes were frequently being transferred from shore to sea and from ship to ship the restriction of negroes to auxiliary ships was becoming extremely difficult to manage and was also "noticeably contrary to the non-differentiation policy enunciated by the secretary of the navy." the only way to execute that policy effectively and maintain efficiency, he concluded, was to integrate the general service completely. denfeld pointed out that the admission of negroes to the auxiliary fleet had caused little friction in the navy and passed almost unnoticed by the press. secretary forrestal had promised to extend the use of negroes throughout the entire fleet if the preliminary program proved practical, and the time had come to fulfill that promise. he would start with "the removal of restrictions governing the type of duty to which general service negroes can be assigned," but would limit the number of negroes on any ship or at any shore station to a percentage no greater than that of general service negroes throughout the navy.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, chief, navpers, to cno, jan , sub: assignment of negro personnel, p - mm, bupersrecs.] with the enlistment of the chief of naval personnel in the cause, the move to an integrated general service was assured. on february the navy published circular letter - : "effective immediately all restrictions governing types of assignments for which negro naval personnel are eligible are hereby lifted. henceforth, they shall be eligible for all types of assignments in all ratings in all activities and all ships of naval service." the letter went on to specify that "in housing, messing, and other facilities, there would be no special accommodations for negroes." it also directed a redistribution of personnel by administrative commands so that by october no ship or naval activity would be more than percent negro. the single exception would be the naval academy, where a large contingent of black stewards would be left intact to serve the midshipmen's meals. the publication of circular letter - was an important step in the navy's racial history. in less than one generation, in fewer years actually than the average sailor's service life, the navy had made a complete about-face. in a sense the new policy was a service (p.  ) reform rather than a social revolution; after a -year hiatus integration had once again become the navy's standard racial policy. since headlines are more often reserved for revolutions than reformations, the new policy attracted little attention. the metropolitan press gave minimum coverage to the event and never bothered to follow later developments. for the most part the black press treated the navy's announcement with skepticism. on behalf of secretary forrestal, lester granger invited twenty-three leading black editors and publishers to inspect ships in the fleet as well as shore activities to see for themselves the changes being made. not one accepted. as one veteran put it, the editors shrank from praising the navy's policy change for fear of being proved hasty. they preferred to remain on safe ground, "givin' 'em hell."[ - ] [footnote - : as reported in ltr, granger to author, jun , cmh files.] the editors had every reason to be wary: integration was seriously circumscribed in the new directive, which actually offered few guarantees of immediate change. applying only to enlisted men in the shore establishment and on ships, the directive ignored the navy's all-white officer corps and its nonwhite servants branch of stewards. aimed at abolishing discrimination in the service, it failed to guarantee either through enlistment, assignment guidelines, or specific racial quotas a fair proportion of black sailors in the postwar navy. finally, the order failed to create administrative machinery to carry out the new policy. in a very real sense the new policy mirrored tradition. it was naval tradition to have black sailors in the integrated ranks and a separate messman's branch. the return to this tradition embodied in the order complemented forrestal's philosophy of change as an outgrowth of self-realized reform. at the same time naval tradition did not include the concept of high-ranking black officers, white servants, and negroes in specialized assignments. here forrestal's hope of self-reform did not materialize, and equal treatment and opportunity for negroes in the navy remained an elusive goal. but forrestal and his military subordinates made enough of a start to draw the fire of white segregationists. the secretary answered charges and demands in a straightforward manner. when, for example, a congressman complained that "white boys are being forced to sleep with these negroes," forrestal explained that men were quartered and messed aboard ship according to their place in the ship's organization without regard to race. the navy made no attempt to prescribe the nature or extent of their social relationships, which were beyond the scope of its authority. although forrestal expressed himself as understanding the strong feelings of some americans on this matter, he made it clear that the navy had finally decided segregation was the surest way to emphasize and perpetuate the gap between the races and had therefore adopted a policy of integration.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, congressman stephen pace of georgia to forrestal, jun ; ltr, forrestal to pace, aug , both in - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav.] what forrestal said was true, but the translation of the navy's postwar racial policy into the widespread practice of equal treatment and opportunity for negroes was still before him and his officers. (p.  ) to achieve it they would have to fight the racism common in many segments of american society as well as bureaucratic inertia. if put into practice the new policy might promote the efficient use of naval manpower and give the navy at least a brief respite from the criticism of civil rights advocates, but because of forrestal's failure to give clear-cut direction--a characteristic of his approach to racial reform--the navy might well find itself proudly trumpeting a new policy while continuing its old racial practices. _the marine corps_ as part of the naval establishment, the marine corps fell under the strictures of secretary forrestal's announced policy of racial nondiscrimination.[ - ] at the same time the marine corps was administratively independent of the chief of naval operations and the chief of naval personnel, and circular letter - , which desegregated the navy's general service, did not apply to the corps. in the development of manpower policy the corps was responsible to the navy, in organization it closely resembled the army, but in size and tradition it was unique. each of these factors contributed to the development of the corps' racial policy and helped explain its postwar racial practices. [footnote - : the latest pronouncement of that policy was alnav - .] because of the similarities in organization and mission between the army and the marine corps, the commandant leaned toward the army's solution for racial problems. the army staff had contended that racially separate service was not discriminatory so long as it was equal, and through its gillem board policy it accepted the responsibility of guaranteeing that negroes would be represented in equitable numbers and their treatment and opportunity would be similar to that given whites. since the majority of marines served in the ground units of the fleet marine force, organized like the army in regiments, battalions, and squadrons with tables of organization and equipment, the formation of racially separate units presented no great problem. although the marine corps was similar to the army in organization, it was very different in size and tradition. with a postwar force of little more than , men, the corps was hardly able to guarantee its segregated negroes equal treatment and opportunity in terms of specialized training and variety of assignment. again in contrast to the army and navy with their long tradition of negroes in service, the marine corps, with a few unauthorized exceptions, had been an exclusively white organization since . this habit of racial exclusion was strengthened by those feelings of intimacy and fraternity natural to any small bureaucracy. in effect the marines formed a small club in which practically everybody knew everybody else and was reluctant to admit strangers.[ - ] racial exclusion often warred with the corps' clear duty to provide the fair and equal service for all americans authorized by the secretary of the navy. at one point the commandant, general alexander vandegrift, even had (p.  ) to remind his local commanders that black marines would in fact be included in the postwar corps.[ - ] [footnote - : see usmc oral history interviews, lt gen james l. underhill, mar , and lt gen ray a. robinson, mar , both in hist div, hqmc.] [footnote - : memo, co, th marine depot co., fifth service depot, second fmf, pacific, for cmc, nov , with inds, sub: information concerning peacetime colored marine corps, request for; memos, cmc for cg, fmf (pacific), et al., dec , sub: voluntary enlistments, negro marines, in regular marine corps, assignment of quotas; idem for cmdr, mcab, cherry point, n.c., et al., dec . unless otherwise noted, all documents cited in this section are located in hist div, hqmc.] one other factor influenced the policy deliberations of the marine corps: its experiences with black marines during world war ii. overshadowing the praise commanders gave the black depot companies were reports of the trials and frustrations suffered by those who trained the large black combat units. many negroes trained long and hard for antiaircraft duty, yet a senior group commander found them ill-suited to the work because of "emotional instability and lack of appreciation of materiel." one battery commander cited the "mechanical ineptitude" of his men; another fell back on "racial characteristics of the negro as a whole" to explain his unit's difficulty.[ - ] embodying rash generalization and outright prejudice, the reports of these commanders circulated in marine corps headquarters, also revealed that a large group of black marines experienced enough problems in combat training to cast serious doubt on the reliability of the defense battalions. this doubt alone could explain the corps' decision to relegate the units to the backwaters of the war zone. seeing only the immediate shortcomings of the large black combat units, most commanders ignored the underlying reasons for the failure. the controversial commander of the st defense battalion, col. curtis w. legette,[ - ] however, gave his explanation to the commandant in some detail. he reported that more than half the men in the st as it prepared for overseas deployment--most of them recent draftees--were in the two lowest categories, iv and v, for either general classification or mechanical aptitude. that some of the noncommissioned officers of the units were also in categories iv and v was the result of the unit's effort to carry out the commandant's order to replace white noncommissioned officers as quickly as possible. the need to develop black noncommissioned officers was underscored by legette, who testified to a growing resentment among his black personnel at the assignment of new white noncoms. symptomatic of the unit's basic problems in was what legette called an evolving "occupational neurosis" among white officers forced to serve for lengthy periods with black marines.[ - ] [footnote - : aaa gp, st defense bn, fmf, montford pt., gp cmdr's endorsement on annual record practice, year , dec ; aaa gp, st defense bn, fmf, montford pt., battery cmdr's narrative report of record practice, , dec ; idem, battery cmdr's narrative rpt (signed r. h. twisdale) (ca. dec ).] [footnote - : for the extensive charges and countercharges concerning the controversy between colonel legette and his predecessor in the st, see files of hist div, hqmc.] [footnote - : memo, co, st defense bn, fmf, for cmc, jul , sub: combat efficiency, fifty-first defense battalion, serial .] the marines experienced far fewer racial problems than either the army or navy during the war, but the difficulties that occurred were nonetheless important in the development of postwar racial policy. the basic cause of race problems was the rigid concentration of (p.  ) often undertrained and undereducated men, who were subjected to racial slurs and insensitive treatment by some white officials and given little chance to serve in preferred military specialties or to advance in the labor or defense units or steward details to which they were invariably consigned. but this basic cause was ignored by marine corps planners when they discussed the postwar use of negroes. they preferred to draw other lessons from the corps' wartime experience. the employment of black marines in small, self-contained units performing traditional laboring tasks was justified precisely because the average black draftee was less well-educated and experienced in the use of the modern equipment. furthermore, the correctness of this procedure seemed to be demonstrated by the fact that the corps had been relatively free of the flare-ups that plagued the other services. many officials would no doubt have preferred to eliminate race problems by eliminating negroes from the corps altogether. failing this, they were determined that regular black marines continue to serve in those assignments performed by black marines during the war: in service units, stewards billets, and a few antiaircraft artillery units, the postwar successors to defense battalions.[ - ] [footnote - : shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, pp - ; interv, james westfall with col curtis w. legette (usmc, ret.), feb , copy in cmh.] [illustration: general thomas.] the development of a postwar racial policy to carry out the navy department's nondiscrimination order in the marine corps fell to the division of plans and policies and its director, brig. gen. gerald c. thomas. it was a complicated task, and general thomas and his staff after some delay established a series of guidelines intended to steer a middle path between exclusion and integration that would be nondiscriminatory. in addition to serving in the steward's branch, which contained percent of all blacks in the corps, negroes would serve in segregated units in every branch of the corps, and their strength would total some , men. this quota would not be like that established in the army, which was pegged to the number of black soldiers during the war and which ultimately was based on national population ratios. the marine corps ratio of blacks to whites would be closer to in and would merely represent the estimated number of billets that might be filled by negroes in self-sustaining segregated units. the directorate also established a table of distribution plan that for the first time provided for black regular marines in aviation units and several other marine corps activities. aviation units alone (p.  ) accounted for percent of the marines in the postwar corps, general thomas contended, and must absorb their proportionate share of black strength. further, the navy's policy of nondiscrimination demanded that all types of assignments be opened to black marines. segregation "best suits the needs of the marine corps," general thomas concluded. ignoring the possibility of black officers and women marines, he thought that the opening of all specialties and types of duty to the enlisted ranks would find the marine corps "paralleling navy policy."[ - ] clearly, the division of plans and policies wanted the corps to adopt a formula roughly analogous to the gillem board's separate but equal system without that body's provisions for a fixed quota, black officers, or some integrated service. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, apr , sub: negro personnel in the post-war marine corps. this memo was not submitted for signature and was superseded by a memo of may .] but even this concession to nondiscrimination was never approved, for the plans and policies division ran afoul of a basic fact of segregation: the postwar strength of many elements of the marine corps was too small to support separate racial units. the director of aviation, for example, argued that because of the size and nature of his operation, segregated service was impossible. a substantial number of his enlisted men also did double duty by serving in air stations where negroes could not be segregated, he explained. only completely separate aviation units, police and maintenance, and construction units would be available for negroes, a state of affairs "which would be open to adverse criticism." he recommended instead that negroes in aviation be used only as stewards.[ - ] he failed to explain how this solution would escape adverse criticism. [footnote - : memos, dir, aviation, for cmc, apr , sub: negro personnel in the post-war marine corps, and may , sub: enlistment of negroes "for duty in aviation units only."] general thomas rejected these proposals, repeating that secretary forrestal's nondiscrimination policy demanded that a separate but equal system be extended throughout the marine corps. he also borrowed one of the gillem board's arguments: negroes must be trained in the postwar military establishment in every occupation to serve as a cadre for future general mobilizations.[ - ] thomas did not mention the fact that although large branches such as fleet marine force aviation could maintain separate but equal living facilities for its black marines, even they would have to provide partially integrated training and working conditions. and the smaller organizations in the corps would be forced to integrate fully if forced to accept black marines. in short, if the corps wanted segregation it must pay the price of continued discrimination against black marines in terms of numbers enlisted and occupations assigned. [footnote - : div of plans and policies (signed g. c. thomas), consideration of non-concurrence, may , attached to memo, dir, aviation, for cmc, apr .] the choice was left to commandant vandegrift. one solution to the "negro question," general thomas told him, was complete integration and the abolition of racial quotas, but thomas did not press this solution. instead, he reviewed for vandegrift the racial policies of the other services, pointing out that these policies had more often been devised to "appease the negro press and other 'interested' (p.  ) agencies than to satisfy their own needs." until the matter was settled on a "higher level," thomas concluded, the services were not required to go further than had been their custom, and until vandegrift decided on segregation or integration, setting quotas for the different branches in the corps was inappropriate. thomas himself recommended that segregated units be adopted and that a quota be devised only after each branch of the corps reported how many negroes it could use in segregated units.[ - ] vandegrift approved thomas's recommendation for segregated black units, and the marine corps lost the chance, temporarily, to adopt a policy in line with either the navy's limited and integrated system or the army's separate but equal system. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, may , sub: negro personnel in the post-war marine corps.] general thomas spent the summer collecting and reviewing the proposals of the corps' various components for the employment of black marines. on the basis of this review general vandegrift approved a postwar policy for the employment of negroes in the marine corps on september . the policy called for the enlistment of , negroes, as stewards, the rest to serve in separate units, chiefly in ground security forces of the fleet marine force in guam and saipan and in marine corps activities of the naval shore establishment. no negroes except stewards would serve in marine aviation, marine forces afloat, or, with the exception of service depots, in the marine logistic establishment.[ - ] [footnote - : idem for cmc, sep , sub: post-war negro personnel requirements. for examples of the proposals submitted by the various components, see memo, f. d. beans, g- , for g- , aug , sub: employment of colored personnel in the fleet marine force (ground) (less service ground) and in training activities; memo, lt col schmuck, g- , for col stiles, jun , sub: utilization of negro personnel in post-war infantry units of the fleet marine force; memo, qmc for cmc, sep , sub: negro personnel in the post-war marine corps.] the policy was in effect by january . in the end the marine corps' white-only tradition had proved strong enough to resist the progressive impulses that were pushing the other services toward some relaxation of their segregation policies. committed to limiting negroes to a token representation and employing black marines in rigidly self-contained units, the marine corps could not establish a quota for negroes based on national racial proportions and could offer no promise of equal treatment and opportunity in work assignments and promotions. thus all the services emerged from their deliberations with postwar policies that were markedly different in several respects but had in common a degree of segregation. the army, declaring that military efficiency demanded ultimate integration, temporized, guaranteeing as a first step an intricate system of separate but equal treatment and opportunity for negroes. the marine corps began with the idea that separate but equal service was not discriminatory, but when equal service proved unattainable, black marines were left with separatism alone. the navy announced the most progressive policy of all, providing for integration of its general service. yet it failed to break the heavy concentration of negroes in the steward's branch, (p.  ) where no whites served. and unlike the segregated army, the integrated navy, its admission standards too high to encourage black enlistments, did not guarantee to take any black officers or specialists. none of these policies provided for the equal treatment and opportunity guaranteed to every black serviceman under the constitution, although the racial practices of all the services stood far in advance of those of most institutions in the society from which they were derived. the very weaknesses and inadequacies inherent in these policies would in themselves become a major cause of the reforms that were less than a decade away. chapter (p.  ) a problem of quotas the war department encountered overwhelming problems when it tried to put the gillem board's recommendations into practice, and in the end only parts of the new policy for the use of black manpower were ever carried out. the policy foundered for a variety of reasons: some implicit in the nature of the policy itself, others the result of manpower exigencies, and still others because of prejudices lingering in the staff, the army, and the nation at large. even before the army postwar racial policy was published in war department circular on april it met formidable opposition in the staff. although secretary patterson had approved the new course of action, the assistant chief of staff for personnel, general paul, sent a copy of what he called the "proposed" policy to the army air forces for further comment.[ - ] the response of the air commander, general carl spaatz, revealed that he too considered the policy still open for discussion. he suggested that the army abandon the quota in favor of admitting men on the basis of intelligence and professional ability and forbid enlistment to anyone scoring below eighty in the entry tests. he wanted the composite organizations of black and white units recommended by the board held to a minimum, and none smaller than an air group--a regimental-size unit. black combat units should have only black service units in support. in fact, spaatz believed that most black units should be service units, and he wanted to see negroes employed in overhead assignments only where and when their specialties were needed. he did not want jobs created especially for them.[ - ] [footnote - : df, acofs, g- , to cg, aaf, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgap . .] [footnote - : memo, cg, aaf, for acofs, g- , apr , sub: utilization of manpower in the postwar army, wdgap . .] these were not the only portents of difficulty for the new policy. before its publication general paul had announced that he would not establish a staff group on racial affairs as called for by the gillem board. citing manpower shortages and the small volume of work he envisaged, paul planned instead to divide such duties between his welfare branch and military personnel services group.[ - ] the concept of a central authority for the direction of racial policy was further weakened in april when paul invited the assistant chief of staff for organization and training, general edwards, one of whose primary tasks was to decide the size and number of military units, to share responsibility for carrying out the recommendations of the gillem board.[ - ] [footnote - : df, acofs, g- , to asw, mar , sub: implementation of wd cir , wdgap . .] [footnote - : idem to acofs, g- , apr , sub: implementation of wd cir , wdgap . .] assistant secretary petersen was perturbed at the mounting (p.  ) evidence of opposition. specifically, he believed spaatz's comments indicated a lack of accord with army policy, and he wanted the army air forces told that "these basic matters are no longer open for discussion." he also wanted to establish a troop basis that would lead, without the imposition of arbitrary percentages, to the assignment of a "fair proportion" of black troops to all major commands and their use in all kinds of duties in all the arms and services. petersen considered the composite unit one of the most important features of the new policy, and he wanted "at least a few" such units organized soon. he mentioned the assignment of a black parachute battalion to the d airborne division as a good place to begin. petersen had other concerns. he was distressed at the dearth of black specialists in overhead detachments, and he wondered why war department circular , which provided for the assignment of men to critically needed specialties, explicitly excluded negroes.[ - ] he wanted the circular revised. above all, petersen feared the new policy might falter from a lack of aggressive leadership. he estimated that at first it would require at least the full attention of several officers under the leadership of an "aggressive officer who knows the army and has its confidence and will take an active interest in vigorous enforcement of the program."[ - ] by implication petersen was asking general paul to take the lead. [footnote - : wd cir , apr .] [footnote - : memo, asw for acofs, g- , apr , asw . .] within a week of petersen's comments on leadership, paul had revised circular , making its provisions applicable to all enlisted men, regardless of race or physical profile.[ - ] a few days later, he was assuring petersen that general spaatz's comments were "inconsistent with the approved recommendations" and were being disregarded.[ - ] paul also repeated the principal points of the new policy for the major commanders, especially those dealing with composite units and overhead assignments for black specialists. he stressed that, whenever possible, negroes should be assigned to places where local community attitudes were most favorable and no undue burden would be imposed on local civilian facilities.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet for cofs, may , sub: changes to wd cir , , wdgap . . revision appeared as wd circular , may .] [footnote - : df, acofs, g- , to asw, may , sub: utilization of negro manpower in postwar army, wdgap . .] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg's, agf, aaf, and asf, may , sub: utilization of negro manpower in postwar army, agam-pm . ( apr ); idem to cg's, jun , same sub, same file ( jun ).] general paul believed the principal impediment to practical application of the new policy was not so much the opposition of field commanders as the fact that many black units continued to perform poorly. he agreed with marcus ray, civilian aide to the secretary of war, who had predicted as early as january that the success of the gillem board's recommendations would depend on how many negroes of higher than average ability the armed forces could attract and retain. ray reasoned that among the negroes enlisting in the regular army-- percent of the total--were large numbers of noncommissioned (p.  ) officers in the three highest grades whose abilities were limited. they were able to maintain their ratings, usually in service units, because their duties required knowledge of neither administration nor weapons. truckmasters, foremen, riggers, and the like, they rushed to reenlist in order to freeze themselves in grade. since many of these men were in the two lowest test categories, they could not supply the leaders needed for black units. ray wanted to replace these men with better educated enlistees who could be used on the broadened professional base recommended by the gillem board. to that end he wanted the army to test all enlisted men, discharge those below minimum standards, and launch a recruiting campaign to attract better qualified men, both black and white.[ - ] for his part, paul also deplored the enlistment of men who were, in his words, "mentally incapable of development into the specialists, technicians, and instructors that we must have in the post-war regular army."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, marcus h. ray for asw, jan , asw . .] [footnote - : memo, acofs, g- , for cofs, jan , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgap . .] [illustration: general paul.] here, even before the new racial policy was published, the army staff ran head on into the realities of postwar manpower needs. in a rapid demobilization, the army was critically short of troops, particularly for overseas replacements, and it could maintain troop strength only by accepting all the men it could get. until paul had more definite information on the future operations of selective service and the rate of voluntary regular army enlistments, he would have to postpone action to curtail the admission of low-scoring men. so pressing were the army's needs that paul could do nothing to guarantee that black strength would not greatly exceed the percent figure suggested by the gillem board. he anticipated that by july the regular and active reserve components of the army would together be approximately percent black, a percentage impossible to avoid if the army was to retain . million men. since all planning had been based on a percent black strength, plans would have to be revised to make use of the excess. in february the chief of staff approved general paul's program: negroes would continue to be drafted at the percent ratio; at the same time their enlistment in the regular army would continue without restriction on numbers. negroes would be limited to percent of the overseas commands, and the continental commands (p.  ) would absorb all the rest.[ - ] [footnote - : df, acofs, g- , jan , sub: utilization of negro personnel, wdgap . ( jan ); ltr, tag to cg's, major forces, and overseas cmdrs, feb , same sub, ag . ( jan ) ob-s-a-m.] paul's program for absorbing negroes faced rough going, for the already complex manpower situation was further complicated by limitations on the use of negroes in certain overseas theaters and the demands of the war department's major commands. the army was prohibited by an agreement with the state department from sending negroes to the panama canal zone; it also respected an unwritten agreement that barred black servicemen from iceland, the azores, and china.[ - ] since the war department was unable to use negroes everywhere, the areas where they could be used had to take more. the increase in black troops provoked considerable discussion in the large pacific and european commands because it entailed separate housing, transportation, and care for dependents--all the usual expensive trappings of segregation. theater commanders also faced additional problems in public relations and management. as one war department staff officer claimed, black units required more than normal administration, stricter policing, and closer supervision. this in turn demanded additional noncommissioned officers, and "more negro bodies must be maintained to produce equivalent results."[ - ] [footnote - : g- memo for rcd, col coyne, operations gp, feb , wdgap . ; prohibitions for certain areas are discussed in detail in chapter .] [footnote - : memo, actg chief, pac theater sec, opd, for maj gen h. a. craig, dep acofs, opd, feb , sub: utilization of negro manpower, wdgot . .] both commands protested the war department decision. representatives from the european theater arrived in washington in mid-february to propose a black strength of . rather than the prescribed percent. seeking to determine where black soldiers could be used "with the least harmful effect on theater operations," they discovered in conferences with representatives of the war department staff only the places negroes were not to be used: in infantry units, in the constabulary, which acted as a border patrol and occupation police, in highly technical services, or as supervisors of white civilian laborers.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, eur sec, opd, for maj gen howard a. craig, dep acofs, opd, feb , sub: utilization of negro personnel, wdgot . .] the commander of army forces, pacific, was even more insistent on a revision, asking how he could absorb so many negroes when his command was already scheduled to receive , philippine scouts and , negroes in the second half of . these two groups, which the command considered far less adaptable than white troops to occupational duties, would together make up about percent of the command's total strength. although philippine scouts in the theater never exceeded , , the command's protest achieved some success. the war department agreed to reduce black troops in the pacific to percent by january and percent by july .[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, lt col french, theater group, opd, may , sub: negro enlisted strength, pacific theater, , wdgot . . for a discussion of the philippine scouts in the pacific theater, see robert ross smith, "the status of philippine military forces during world war ii," cmh files.] no sooner had the demands of the overseas theaters been dealt with (p.  ) than the enlarged black quotas came under attack from the commanders of major forces. instead of planning to absorb more negroes, the army air forces wanted to divest itself of some black units on the premise that unskilled troops were a liability in a highly technical service. general spaatz reported that some percent of all his black troops stationed in the united states in january were performing the duties of unskilled laborers and that very few could be trained for skilled tasks. he predicted that the army air forces would soon have an even higher percentage of low-scoring negroes because percent of all men enlisting in his regular army units--expected to reach a total of , men by july --were black. to forestall this increase in "undesirable and uneconomical" troops, he wanted to stop inducting negroes into the army air forces and suspend all black enlistments in the regular army.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cg, aaf, for acofs, g- , jan , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgap . .] the army air forces elaborated on these arguments in the following months, refining both its estimates and demands. specifically, its manpower officials estimated that to reach the percent black strength ordered by july the air forces would have to take , negroes into units that could efficiently use only , men. this embarrassment of more than , unusable men, the army air forces claimed, would require eliminating tactical units and creating additional quartermaster car companies, mess platoons, and other service organizations.[ - ] the air staff wanted to eliminate the unwanted , black airmen by raising to eighty the minimum classification test score for regular army enlistment in the army air forces. in the end it retreated from this proposal, and on february requested permission to use the , negroes in service units, but over and above its , -man troop basis. it promised to absorb all these men into the troop basis by june .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, brig gen william metheny, off, commitments div, acofs air staff- , for acofs air staff- , feb , wdgot . .] [footnote - : df, dcofas (maj gen c. c. chauncey) to g- feb , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgot . .] the army staff rejected this plan on the grounds that any excess allowed above the current air forces troop basis would have to be balanced by a corresponding and unacceptable deficit in the army ground forces and army service forces.[ - ] the army air forces countered with a proposal to discharge all black enlistees in excess of air forces requirements in the european theater who would accept discharge. it had in mind a group of , negroes recently enlisted for a three-year period, who, in accordance with a lure designed to stimulate such enlistments, had chosen assignment in the air forces and a station in europe. with a surplus of black troops, the air forces found itself increasingly unable to fulfill the "overseas theater of choice" enlistment contract. since some men would undoubtedly refuse to serve anywhere but europe, the air staff (p.  ) reasoned, why not offer a discharge to all men who preferred separation over service elsewhere? [footnote - : memo, actg acofs, g- , for cg, aaf, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgot . .] again the army staff turned down a request for a reduction in black troops. this time the air forces bowed to the inevitable-- percent of its enlisted strength black--but grudgingly, for a quota of , negroes, general spaatz charged, "seriously jeopardizes the ability of the aaf to perform its assigned mission."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, acofs, g- , for cg, aaf, mar , sub: authorized military personnel as of december and june , wdgot . ( mar ); df, cg, aaf, to acofs, g- , mar , same sub, wdgot . ( feb ).] the army service forces also objected. when queried,[ - ] the chiefs of its technical and administrative services all agreed they could use only small percentages of black troops, and only those men in the higher categories of the classification test. from the replies of the chiefs it was plain that none of the technical services planned to use negroes in as much as percent of spaces, and several wanted to exclude black units altogether. furthermore, the test qualifications they wanted set for many jobs were consistently higher than those achieved by the men then performing the tasks. the staff of the army service forces went so far as to advocate that no more than . percent of the overhead and miscellaneous positions in the army service forces be entrusted to black troops.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg dir, plans and policy, asf, for pmg et al., may , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, ag . ( may ).] [footnote - : the replies of the individual technical and administrative service chiefs, along with the response of the asf personnel director, are inclosed in memo, chief, plans and policy off, dir of ss&p, for dir, o&t, jun , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgsp . (negro).] these answers failed to impress the war department's director of personnel and administration and the director of organization and training.[ - ] both agreed that the technical and administrative services had failed to appreciate the problems and responsibilities outlined in war department circular ; the assumption that black troops would not be used in certain types of duty in the future because they had not been so used in the past was unwarranted, general paul added. limited or token employment of negroes, he declared, was no longer acceptable.[ - ] [footnote - : under wd circular , may , the war department general staff was reorganized, and many of its offices, including g- and g- , were redesignated as of june . for an extended discussion of these changes, see james e. hewes, jr., _from root to mcnamara: army organization and administration, - _ (washington: government printing office, ), chapter iv.] [footnote - : df, d/ot to d/pa, jul , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgot . ( jun ); df, d/pa to d/ot, jul , same sub, wdgap . ( jul ).] yet somehow the reality of black enlistments and inductions in never quite matched the army's dire predictions. according to plans for april , negroes in the continental united states would comprise . percent of the army service forces, . percent of the army ground forces, and percent of the army air forces. actually, negroes in continental commands on april made up . percent of the army service forces, . percent of the army ground forces, and . percent of the army air forces. the , black soldiers amounted to . percent of all troops based in the united states; overseas, the , negroes constituted . percent of american (p.  ) force. altogether, the , negroes in the army amounted to . percent of the whole.[ - ] [footnote - : strength of the army (stm- ), may ; see also memo, acofs, g- , for chief, mpd, asf, jun , sub: utilization of negro personnel, wdgpa . . ( jul ).] _the quota in practice_ while the solution to the problem of too many black enlistees and too many low-scoring men was obvious, it was also replete with difficulty. the difficulty came from the complex way the army obtained its manpower. it accepted volunteers for enlistment in the regular army and qualified veterans for the organized reserves; until november it also drafted men through the selective service and accepted volunteers for the draft.[ - ] at the same time, under certain conditions it accepted enlistment in the regular army of drafted men who had completed their tours. to curtail enlistment of negroes and discharge low-scoring professionals, the army would be obliged to manipulate the complex regulations governing the various forms of enlistment and sidestep the egalitarian provisions of the selective service system at a time when the service was trying to attract recruits and avoid charges of racial discrimination. altogether it was quite a large order, and during the next two years the army fought the battle of numbers on many fronts. [footnote - : volunteers for the draft were men classified -a by selective service who were allowed to sign up for immediate duty often in the service of their choice. the volunteer for the draft was only obliged to serve for the shorter period imposed on the draftee rather than the -month enlistment for the regular army.] it first took on the draft. although to stop inducting negroes when the administration was trying to persuade congress to extend the draft act was politically unwise, the army saw no way to restrict the number of negroes or eliminate substandard men so long as selective service insisted on percent black calls and a minimum classification test score of seventy. in april the army issued a call for , men, boldly specifying that no negroes would be accepted. out of the battle of memos with selective service that followed, a compromise emerged: a black call of percent of the total in april, a return to the usual percent call for negroes in may, and another percent call in june.[ - ] no draft calls were issued in july and august, but in september the army staff tried again, canceling the call for negroes and rejecting black volunteers for induction.[ - ] again it encountered resistance from the selective service and the black community, and when the secretary of war was sued for violation of the selective service act the army issued a percent call for negroes in october, the last call made under the draft law. in all, , negroes were drafted into the army in , some . percent of the total.[ - ] [footnote - : report of the director, office of selective service review, march , table , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, chief, manpower control gp, d/pa, for tag, sep , utilization of negro manpower in postwar army, wdgpa . ; d/pa memo for rcd, sep . wdgpa . ( sep - dec ).] [footnote - : figures vary for the number actually drafted; those given above are from selective service monograph no. , _special groups_, appendix, p. . see also "review of the month," _a monthly summary of events and trends in race relations_ (october ): .] the army had more success restricting black enlistments. in april (p.  ) , at the same time it adopted the gillem board recommendations, the army began to deny enlistment or reenlistment in the regular army to anyone scoring below seventy on the army general classification test. the only exceptions were men who had been decorated for valor and men with previous service who had scored sixty-five and were recommended for reenlistment by their commanders.[ - ] the army also stopped enlisting men with active venereal disease, not because the medical department was unable to cure them but because by and large their educational levels were low and, according to the classification tests, they had little aptitude for learning. the army stopped recruiting men for special stations, hoping a denial of the european theater and other attractive assignments would lower the number of unwanted recruits. [footnote - : wd cir , apr .] using the new enlistment standards as a base, the army quickly revised its estimated black strength downward. on april the secretary of war rescinded the order requiring major commands to retain a black strength of percent.[ - ] the acting g- had already informed the commanding general of the army air forces of the predicted drop in the number of black troops--from . percent in june to percent a year later--and agreed the army air forces could reduce its planned intake accordingly.[ - ] estimating the european theater's capacity to absorb black troops at , men, approximately percent of the command total, the army staff agreed to readjust its planned allotment of negroes to that command downward by some , spaces.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg, aaf, et al., apr , sub: utilization of negro personnel, agao-s-a-m . ( apr ).] [footnote - : memo, actg acofs, g- , for cg, aaf, apr , sub: utilization of negro personnel, wdgot . ( feb ).] [footnote - : memo, acofs, opd, for cofs, may , sub: augmentation of the eto ceiling strengths as of jul (less aaf), wdcsa . ( ).] these changes proved ill-advised, for the effort to curb the number of negroes in the regular army was largely unsuccessful. the staff had overlooked the ineffectiveness of the army's testing measures and the zeal of its recruiters who, pressed to fill their quotas, accepted enlistees without concern for the new standards. by mid-june the effect was readily apparent. the european theater, for example, reported some , negroes in excess of billets in black units and some , men above the theater's current allotment of black troops. assignment of negroes to europe had been stopped, but the number of black regulars waiting for overseas assignment stood at , , a figure expected to double by the end of the summer. some of this excess could be absorbed in eight newly created black units, but that still left black units worldwide to percent overstrength.[ - ] [footnote - : g- memo for rcd (signed col e. l. heyduck, enl div), jun , wdgap . ; see also eucom hist div (prepared by margaret l. geis), "negro personnel in the european command, january - june ," occupation forces in europe series (historical division, european command, ) (hereafter geis monograph), pp. - , copy in cmh.] notice that negroes totaled percent of the regular army on july with the personnel staff's projections running to a percent level for the next year precipitated action in the war department. (p.  ) on july marcus ray and dean rusk, special assistant to the assistant secretary of war, met with representatives of the army staff to discuss black strength. basing his decision on the consensus of that meeting, the secretary of war on july suspended enlistment of negroes in the regular army. he excepted two categories of men from this ruling. men who qualified and had actually served for six months in any of forty-eight unusual military occupational specialties in which there were chronic manpower shortages would be enlisted without promise of specific assignment to branch or station. at the same time, because of manpower shortages, the army would continue to accept negroes, already regulars, who wanted to reenlist.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg, each army, et al., jul , sub: enlistment of negroes, agse-p . ( jul ); d/pa summary sheet to cofs, jul , sub: enlistment of negroes in regular army, wdgpa . .] [illustration: marcus ray.] while the new enlistment policy would help restore the gillem board's quantitative equilibrium to the army, the secretary's exception allowing reenlistment of regulars would only intensify the qualitative imbalance between black and white soldiers. the nation's biracial educational system had produced an average black soldier who scored well below the average white soldier on all the army's educational and training tests. the segregation policy had only complicated the problem by denying the talented negro the full range of army occupations and hence an equal chance for advancement. with the suspension of first-time enlistments, the qualitative imbalance was sure to grow, for now the highly qualified civilian would be passed over while the less qualified soldier was permitted to reenlist. this imbalance was of particular concern to marcus ray who was present when the suspension of black enlistments had been decided upon. ray had suggested that instead of barring all new enlistees the army should discharge all class v soldiers, whites and blacks alike, for the convenience of the government and recruit in their place an equal number of class i and ii candidates. manpower officials had objected, arguing there was no point in enlisting more negroes in class i and ii until the percent ratio was again reached. such a reduction, with current attrition, would take two years. at the same time, the army manpower shortages made it impractical to discharge , soldiers, half of whom were white, in class v. the organization and training representatives, on the other hand, agreed with ray that it was (p.  ) in the best interest of the army to discharge these men, pointing out that a recent increase in pay for enlisted men together with the continuing need for recruits with greater aptitude for learning would make the policy palatable to the congress and the public.[ - ] [footnote - : d/ot memo for red, jul ; df, d/ot to d/pa, jul , sub: basic training of negro personnel; both in wdgot . .] the conferees deferred decision on the matter, but during the following months the war department set out to achieve a qualitative balance between its black and white recruits. on august the chief of staff directed commanders, under the authority of army regulation - which defined ineptness for military service, to eliminate after six months men "incapable of serving in the army in a desirable manner after reasonable attempts have been made to utilize their capabilities." he went on to explain that this category included those not mentally qualified, generally defined as men scoring below seventy, and those repeatedly guilty of minor offenses.[ - ] the army reissued the order in , further defining the criteria for discharge to include those who needed continued and special instruction or supervision or who exhibited habitual drunkenness, ineptness, or inability to conform to group living. a further modification in would deny reenlistment to married men who had failed during their first enlistment to make corporal or single men who did not make private first class.[ - ] [footnote - : wd cir , aug .] [footnote - : wd cir , apr ; d/pa summary sheet, sep , sub: method of reducing negro reenlistment rate, wdgpa . ( apr ).] the measures were aimed at eliminating the least qualified men of both races, and in october general paul decided the army could now begin taking black recruits with the qualifications and background that allowed them "to become useful members of the army."[ - ] to that end the adjutant general announced on october that as a further exception to the prohibition against black enlistments in the regular army all former officers and noncommissioned officers who volunteered would be accepted without limitation.[ - ] on october he announced the establishment of a selective procurement program. with the exception of men who had been in certain specialized occupations for six months, all negroes enlisting in the regular army had to score one hundred on the army general classification test; the minimum score for white enlistees remained seventy.[ - ] at the same time, the adjutant general rescinded for negroes the choice-of-assignment provision of regular army enlistment contracts. [footnote - : p&a memo for red, sep , attached to copy of ltr, tag to cg, each army, et al., oct , sub: enlistment of negroes, agse-p . , wdgap . .] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg, each army, et al., oct , sub: enlistment of negroes, agse-p . ( sep ).] [footnote - : ibid., oct , sub: enlistment of negroes, agse-p . ( oct ); see also wd cir , . an exception to the agct minimum for whites was made in the case of enlistment into the aaf which remained at for both races.] these measures helped lower the percentage of negroes in the army and reduced to some extent the differential in test scores between white and black soldiers. the percentage of negroes dropped by june to . percent of the army, . percent of its enlisted strength (p.  ) and . percent of its regular army strength. black enlisted strength of all the overseas commands stood at . percent, down from the . percent of the previous december. percentages in the individual theaters reflected this trend; the european theater, for example, dropped from . percent black to . , the mediterranean theater from . to . , and alaska from . to . .[ - ] [footnote - : all figures are from stm- , strength of the army. figures for the pacific theater were omitted because of the complex reorganization of army troops in that area in early . on june the army element in the far east command, the major army organization in the pacific, had , black enlisted troops, . percent of the command's total.] precise figures on the number of poorly qualified troops eliminated are unknown, but the european command expected to discharge some , low-scoring and unsuitable men, many of them black, in .[ - ] several commands reported that the new regulations materially improved the quality of black units by opening vacancies to better qualified men. general paul could argue with considerable justification that in regulating the quality of its recruits the army was following the spirit if not the letter of the gillem board report. if the army could set high enough standards it would get good men, and to this end the general staff's personnel and administration division asked for the support of commanders.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, brig gen j. j. o'hare, dep dir, p&a, for sa, mar , sub: implementation of wd cir , csgpa . .] [footnote - : g- memo for rcd, sep , attached to ltr, tag to cg, each army, et al., oct , sub: enlistment of negroes, agse-p . ( sep ).] although these measures were helpful to the army, they were frankly discriminatory, and they immediately raised a storm of protest. during the summer of , for example, many black soldiers and airmen complained about the army's rejection of black enlistments for the european theater. the naacp, which received some of the soldiers' complaints, suggested that the war department honor its pledges or immediately release all negroes who were refused their choice of location.[ - ] the army did just that, offering to discharge honorably those soldiers who, denied their theater of choice, rejected any substitute offered.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, walter white to sw, jun ; telg, white to sw, jun ; both in sw . (negro troops).] [footnote - : df, otig to d/pa, jul , sub: assignment of negro enlistees who have selected eto as choice of initial assignment, wdsig . --negro enlistees.] later in a young negro sued the secretary of war and a pittsburgh recruiting officer for refusing to enlist him. to make standards for black applicants substantially higher than those for whites, he alleged, violated the preamble and fifth amendment of the constitution, while the inducements offered for enlistment, for example the gi bill of rights, constituted a valuable property right denied him because of race. the suit asked that all further enlistments in the army be stopped until negroes were accepted on equal terms with whites and all special enlistment requirements for negroes were abolished.[ - ] commenting on the case, the chief of the war department's public relations division, maj. gen. floyd l. parks, defended the gillem board's percent quota, but agreed that (p.  ) "we are on weak ground [in] having a different standard for admission between white and colored.... i think the thing to do is to put a ceiling over the number you take in, and then take the best ones."[ - ] [footnote - : pittsburgh _post gazette_, december , .] [footnote - : memo, d/prd for sw, asw, and d/p&a, dec , asw . .] the suit brought to a climax the feeling of indignation against army policy that had been growing among some civil rights activists. one organization called on the secretary of war to abandon the gillem board policy "and unequivocably and equitably integrate negroes ... without any discrimination, segregation or quotas in any form, concept or manner."[ - ] senator robert m. lafollette, jr., of wisconsin called the decision to suspend black enlistments race discrimination.[ - ] walter p. reuther, president of the united automobile workers and the codirector of his union's fair practices department, branded the establishment of a quota "undemocratic and in violation of principles for which they [negroes] fought in the war" and demanded that black enlistment be reinstated and the quota abolished.[ - ] invoking american tradition and the united nations charter, john haynes holmes, chairman of the board of directors of the american civil liberties union, called for the abolition of enlistment quotas. the national commander of the united negro and allied veterans of america announced that his organization unreservedly condemned the quota because it deliberately deprived citizens of their constitutional right to serve their country.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, american veterans committee, manhattan chapter, to sw, jul , sw . (nt).] [footnote - : ltr, lafollette to sw, jul , sw . .] [footnote - : ltr, reuther and william oliver to sw, jul , sw . .] [footnote - : ltr, j. h. holmes to sw, jul ; ltr, arthur d. gatz, nat'l cmdr, united negro and allied veterans of america, to sw, jul ; both in sw . .] the replies of the secretary of war to all these protests were very much alike. the army's enlistment practices, he wrote, were based on a belief that black strength in the army ought to bear a direct relationship to the percentage of negroes in the population. as for the basic premise of what seemed to him a perfectly logical course of action, patterson concluded that "acceptance of the negro-white ratio existing in the civilian population as a basis for the army's distribution of units and personnel is not considered discriminatory."[ - ] the secretary's responses were interesting, for they demonstrated a significant change in the army's attitude toward the quota. there is evidence that the quota was devised by the gillem board as a temporary expedient to guarantee the substantial participation of negroes. it was certainly so viewed by civil rights advocates. as late as december assistant secretary petersen was still echoing this view when he explained that the quota was a temporary ceiling and the army had no right to use it as a permanent bar to black enlistment.[ - ] [footnote - : see ltrs, sw to wesley p. brown, adjutant, jesse clipper american legion post no. , buffalo, n.y., aug , and to jesse o. dedmon, jr., secy, veterans affairs bureau, naacp, nov ; both in sw . . the quote is from the latter document.] [footnote - : memo, maj gen parks for sw, et al., dec (with attached note signed "hp"), sw . .] nevertheless it is also clear that the traditionalists considered the quota a means of permanently limiting black soldiers to a percentage equivalent to negroes in the population. assistant secretary (p.  ) mccloy belonged to neither group. more than a year before in reviewing the gillem board's work he had declared: "i do not see any place for a quota in a policy that looks to utilization of negroes on the basis of ability." after a year of dealing with black overstrengths and juggling enlistment standards, general paul and his staff thought otherwise. they believed that a ceiling must be imposed on the army's black strength if a rapid and uncontrolled increase in the number of black troops was to be avoided. and it had to be avoided, they believed, lest it create a disproportionately large pool of black career soldiers with low aptitudes that would weaken the army. using the quota to limit the number of black troops, they maintained, was not necessarily discriminatory. it could be defended as a logical reading of the gillem board's declaration that "the proportion of negro to white manpower as exists in the civil population" should be accepted in the peacetime army to insure an orderly and uniform mobilization in a national emergency. with the gillem policy to support it, the army staff could impose a strict quota on the number of black soldiers and justify different enlistment standards for blacks and whites, a course that was in fact the only alternative to the curtailment of white enlistment under the manpower restrictions being imposed upon the postwar army.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/p&a to d/o&t, apr , sub: negro enlisted strength, wdgpa . ( jul ); idem for sa, aug , sub: removing restrictions on negro enlistments, csgpa . .] paul's reasoning was eventually endorsed by the new chief of staff, general omar n. bradley, secretary patterson, and his successor, secretary of the army kenneth c. royall.[ - ] beginning in mid- the enlistment of negroes was carefully geared to their percentage of the total strength of the army, not to a fixed quota or percentage of those enlisting. this limitation on black enlistment was made more permanent in when it was included in the army's mobilization plan, the basic manpower planning document.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, onb (gen bradley) for gen paul, aug , csusa . negroes ( aug ). bradley succeeded eisenhower as chief of staff on february , and royall succeeded patterson on july . royall assumed the title secretary of the army on september under the terms of the national security act of .] [footnote - : amp- personnel annex, jun , p&d . ( apr ); see also memo, chief, planning office, p&a, for brig gen john e. dahlquist (dep p&a), feb , sub: utilization of negroes in mobilization, d/pa . ( feb ).] the adjustment of enlistment quotas to increase or curtail black strength quickly became routine in the army. when the number of negroes dropped below percent of the army's total strength in june , the adjutant general set a quota for the enlistment of black soldiers.[ - ] when this quota was met in late august, the enlistment of negroes with no special training was reduced to men per month.[ - ] as part of a personnel and administration division program to increase the number and kinds of black units, the quota was temporarily increased to , men per month for four months beginning in december .[ - ] finding itself once again exceeding the (p.  ) percent black strength figure, the army suspended the enlistment of all negroes for nine months beginning in april .[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to cg, each army, et al., jul , sub: enlistment of negroes agse-p . . ( jun ).] [footnote - : t- , tag to co, gen ground, ft. monroe (agf), aug , . negroes; ltr, tag to cg, each army, et al., sep , sub: enlistment of negroes, agse-p . .] [footnote - : msg, tag to cg's, all zi armies, dec , agse-p . .] [footnote - : msg, tag to cg, all armies (zi), et al., mar , wcl ; d/pa summary sheet for vcofs, sep , sub: method of reducing the negro reenlistment rate, csgpa . ( apr ).] in effect, the gillem board's critics who predicted that the quota would become permanent were correct, but the quota was only the most publicized manifestation of the general scheme of apportioning manpower by race throughout the army. general paul had offered one solution to the problem in july . he recommended that each major command and service be allocated its proportionate share of black troops; that such troops "have the over-all average frequency of agct grades occurring among negro military personnel"; and that major commands and services submit plans for establishing enough units and overhead positions to accommodate their total allocations.[ - ] but paul did not anticipate the low-scoring soldier's penchant for reenlistment or the ability of some commanders, often on the basis of this fact, to justify the rejection of further black allotments. thus, in pursuit of a racial policy designed to promote the efficient use of manpower, the g- and g- sections of the general staff wrestled for almost five years with the problem of racial balances in the various commands, continental armies, and training programs. [footnote - : df, d/pa to d/ot, jul , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army, wdgpa . ( jul ).] _broader opportunities_ the equitable distribution of negroes throughout each major command and service was complicated by certain provisions of circular . along with the quota, the policy prescribed grouping black units, not to exceed regimental size, with white units in composite organizations and integrating black specialists in overhead organizations. the composite organizations were primarily the concern of the g- (later the organization and training division) section of the general staff, and in june its director, lt. gen. charles p. hall, brought the matter to the attention of major commanders. although the war department did not want to establish an arbitrary number of black combat units, hall explained, the new policy stressed the development of such units to provide a broader base for future expansion, and he wanted more black combat units organized as rapidly as trained troops became available. to that end he called for a survey of all black units to find out their current organization and assignment.[ - ] [footnote - : cir as memo, tag for cg, aaf et al., jun , sub: organization of negro manpower in postwar army, ag . ( jun ).] army ground forces reported that it had formed some composite units, but its largest black unit, the th regimental combat team, had been attached to the v corps at fort jackson, south carolina, instead of being made an organic element in a division. practically all service group headquarters reported separate black and white battalions (p.  ) under their control, but many of the organizations in the army service forces--those under the provost marshal general and the surgeon general, for example--still had no black units, let alone composite organizations. the caribbean defense command, the trinidad base command, and the headquarters base command of the antilles department reported similar situations. the mediterranean theater was using some negroes with special skills in appropriate overhead organizations, but in the vast european command negroes were assigned to separate regiments and smaller units. there were two exceptions: one provisional black regiment was attached to the st infantry division, and a black field artillery battalion was attached to each of the three occupation divisions. the alaskan department and the okinawa base command had black units, both separate and grouped with white units, but the yokohama base command continued to use specially skilled negroes in black units because of the great demand for qualified persons in those units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, d/o&t for asw, jul , sub: organization of negro manpower in postwar army, wdgot . .] to claim, as hall did to assistant secretary petersen, that black units were being used like white units was misleading. despite the examples cited in the survey, many black units still remained independent organizations, and with one major exception black combat units grouped with white units were attached rather than assigned as organizational elements of a parent unit. this was an important distinction.[ - ] the constant imposition of attached status on a unit that under normal circumstances would be assigned as an organic element of a division introduced a sense of impermanence and alienation just as it relieved the division commander of considerable administrative control and hence proprietary interest in the unit. [footnote - : an attached unit, such as a tank destroyer battalion, is one temporarily included in a larger organization; an assigned unit is one permanently given to a larger organization as part of its organic establishment. on the distinction between attached and assigned status, see ltr, csa to cg, conarc, jul , csusa . (div), and cmh, "lineages and honors: history, principles, and preparation," june , in cmh.] attached status, so common for black units, thus weakened morale and hampered training as petersen well understood. noting the favorable attitude of the division commander, he had asked in april if it was possible to assign the black th parachute battalion to the celebrated d airborne division.[ - ] the answer was no. the commanding general of the army ground forces, general devers, justified attachment rather than assignment of the black battalion to the d on the grounds that the army's race policy called for the progressive adoption of the composite unit and attachment was a part of this process. assignment of such units was, on the other hand, part of a long-range plan to put the new policy into effect and should still be subject to considerable study. further justifying the _status quo_, he pointed to the division's low strength, which he said resulted from a lack of volunteers. offering his own variation (p.  ) of the "catch- " theme, he suggested that before any black battalion was assigned to a large combat unit, the effect of such an assignment on the larger unit's combat efficiency would first have to be studied. finally, he questioned the desirability of having a black unit assume the history of a white unit; evidently he did not realize that the intention was to assign a black unit with its black history to the division.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg, acofs, g- , for cg, agf, jun , sub: formation of composite white-negro units, with attachment, wdgot . ( apr ).] [footnote - : memo, cg, afg, for cofs, june , sub: formation of composite white-negro units, gngct- . (negro) ( jun ).] [illustration: general eichelberger, eighth army commander, _inspects th infantry troops, camp majestic, japan, june _.] in the face of such arguments hall accepted what he called the "nonfeasibility" of replacing one of the d's organic battalions with the th, but he asked whether an additional parachute battalion could be authorized for the division so that the th could be assigned without eliminating a white battalion. he reiterated the arguments for such an assignment, adding that it would invigorate the th's training, attract more and better black recruits, and better implement the provisions of circular .[ - ] general devers remained unconvinced. he doubted that assigning the black battalion to the (p.  ) division would improve the battalion's training, and he was "unalterably opposed" to adding an extra battalion. he found the idea unsound from both a tactical and organizational point of view. it was, he said, undesirable to reorganize a division solely to assign a black unit.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/o&t to cg, agf, jul , sub: formation of composite white-negro units, wdgot . ( apr ).] [footnote - : memo, cg, agf, for d/o&t, aug , sub: formation of composite white-negro units, cmt to df, d/o&t to cg, agf, jul , same sub, wdgot . ( apr ).] general hall gave up the argument, and the th remained attached to the d. attached status would remain the general pattern for black combat units for several years.[ - ] the assignment of the th infantry to the th infantry division in japan was the major exception to this rule, but the th was the only black regiment left intact, and it was administratively difficult to leave such a large organization in attached status for long. the other black regiment on active duty, the th infantry, was split; its battalions, still carrying their unit designations, were attached to various divisions to replace inactive or unfilled organic elements. the th and th cavalry, the other major black units, were inactivated along with the d cavalry division in , but reactivated in as separate tank battalions. [footnote - : memo, d/o&t for sw, sep , sub: request for memorandum, wdgot . ( sep ).] that this distinction between attached and assigned status was considered important became clear in the fall of . at that time the personnel organization suggested that the word "separate" be deleted from a sentence of circular : "employment will be in negro regiments or groups, separate battalions or squadrons, and separate companies, troops, or batteries." general paul reasoned that the word was redundant since a black unit was by definition a separate unit. general devers was strongly opposed to deletion on grounds that it would lead to the indiscriminate organization of small black units within larger units. he argued that the gillem board had provided for black units as part of larger units, but not as organic parts. he believed that a separate black unit should continue to be attached when it replaced a white unit; otherwise it would lose its identity by becoming an organic part of a mixed unit. larger considerations seem also to have influenced his conclusion: "our implementation of the negro problem has not progressed to the degree where we can accept this step. we have already progressed beyond that which is acceptable in many states and we still have a considerable latitude in the present policy without further liberalizing it from the negro viewpoint."[ - ] the chief of staff supported paul's view, however, and the word "separate" was excised.[ - ] [footnote - : df, cg, agf, to d/p&a, sep , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army. policy; agf df, aug , same sub; both in gngap-m . ( aug ). the quote is from the former document.] [footnote - : da cir -iii, oct . the life of circular was extended indefinitely by da circular -ii, oct , and da ltr agao . ( mar ).] but the practice of attaching rather than assigning black units continued until the end of . only then, and increasingly during , did the army begin to assign a number of black units as organic parts of combat divisions. more noteworthy, negroes began to be assigned to fill the spaces in parts of white units. thus the d (p.  ) battalion of the th infantry and the d battalion of the th became black units in . despite the emergence of racially composite units, the army's execution of the gillem board recommendation on the integration of black and white units was criticized by black leaders. the board had placed no limitation on the size of the units to be integrated, and its call for progressive steps to utilize black manpower implied to many that the process of forming composite black and white units would continue till it included the smaller service units, which still contained the majority of black troops. it was one thing, the army staff concluded, to assign a self-sustaining black battalion to a division, but quite another to assign a small black service unit in a similar fashion. as a spokesman for the personnel and administration division put it in a address, the army was "not now ready to mix negro and white personnel in the same company or battery, for messing and housing." ignoring the navy's experience to the contrary, he concluded that to do so might provoke serious opposition from the men in the ranks and from the american public.[ - ] [footnote - : col. h. e. kessinger, exec off, acofs, g- , "utilization of negro manpower, ," copy in wdgpa . ( ).] accordingly, g- and g- agreed to reject the mediterranean theater's plan to organize composite service units in the th infantry division because such organization "involves the integration of negro platoons or negro sections into white companies, a combination which is not in accordance with the policy as expressed in circular ."[ - ] in the separate case of black service companies--for example, the many transportation truck companies and ordnance evacuation companies--theater commanders tended to combine them first into quartermaster trains and then attach them to their combat divisions.[ - ] [footnote - : df, acofs, g- , to cofs, jun , sub: implementation of the gillem board, wdgap . ( nov ); see also routing form, acofs, g- , same date, subject, and file.] [footnote - : for the formation of quartermaster trains in europe, see geis monograph, pp. - .] despite the relaxation in the distinction between attached and assigned status in the case of large black units, the army staff remained adamantly opposed to the combination of small black with small white units. the personnel and administration division jealously guarded the orthodoxy of this interpretation. commenting on one proposal to combine small units in april , general paul noted that while grouping units of company size or greater was permissible, the army had not yet reached the stage where two white companies and two black companies could be organized into a single battalion. until the process of forming racially composite units developed to this extent, he told the under secretary of the army, william h. draper, jr., the experimental mixing of small black and white units had no place in the program to expand the use of negroes in the army.[ - ] he did not say when such a process would become appropriate or possible. several months later paul flatly told the chief of staff that integration of black and white platoons in a company was precluded by stated army policy.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, d/p&a for under sa, apr , sub: negro utilization in the postwar army, csgpa . .] [footnote - : idem for cofs, jun , csgpa . .] _assignments_ (p.  ) the organization of black units was primarily the concern of the organization and training division; the personnel and administration division's major emphasis was on finding more jobs for black soldiers in keeping with the gillem board's call for the use of negroes on a broader professional scale. this could best be done, paul decided, by creating new black units in a variety of specialties and by using more negroes in overhead spaces in unit headquarters where black specialists would be completely interspersed with white. to that end his office prepared plans in november listing numerous occupational specialties that might be offered black recruits. it also outlined in considerable detail a proposal for converting several organizations to black units, including a field artillery ( -mm. howitzer) battalion, a tank company, a chemical mortar company, and an ordnance heavy automotive maintenance company. these units would be considered experimental in the sense that the men would be specially selected and distributed in terms of ability. the officers, negroes insofar as practical, and cadre noncommissioned officers would be specially assigned. morale and learning ability would be carefully monitored, and special training would be given men with below average agct scores. at the end of six months, these organizations would be measured against comparable white units. mindful of the controversial aspects of his plan, paul had a draft circulated among the major commands and services.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/p&a to cg, agf, et al., nov , sub: proposed directive, utilization of negro military personnel; see also p&a memo for rcd, nov ; both in wdgpa . ( jul ).] the army ground forces, first to answer, concentrated on paul's proposal for experimental black units. maj. gen. charles l. bolte, speaking for the commanding general, reported that in july the command had begun a training experiment to determine the most effective assignments for black enlisted men in the combat arms. because of troop reductions and the policy of discharging individuals with low test scores, he said, the experiment had lasted only five weeks. five weeks was apparently long enough, however, for brig. gen. benjamin f. caffey, commander of the th regimental combat team (provisional), to reach some rather startling conclusions. he discovered that the black soldier possessed an untrained and undisciplined mind and lacked confidence and pride in himself. in the past the negro had been unable to summon the physical courage and stamina needed to withstand the shocks of modern battle. integrating individual negroes or small black units into white organizations would therefore only lower the standard of efficiency of the entire command. he discounted the integration after the battle of the bulge, saying that it succeeded only because it came at the end of the war and during pursuit action. "it still remains a moot question," caffey concluded, "as to whether the negroes in integrated units would have fought in a tough attack or defensive battle." curiously enough he went on to say that until negroes reached the educational level of whites, they should be organized into small combat units--battalions and smaller--and attached to white organizations in order to learn the proper standards of military discipline, conduct, administration, (p.  ) and training. despite its unfavorable opinion of experimental black units, the army ground forces did not reject the whole proposal outright but asked for a postponement of six months until its own reorganization, required by the war department, was completed.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, brig gen b. f. caffey, cg, th rct (prov), ft. benning ga., to cg, agf, dec , agf . ; df, cg, agf, to d/p&a, nov , sub: utilization of negro military personnel, wdgpa . (negro) ( nov ).] the other forces also rejected the idea of experimental black units. general spaatz once again declared that the mission of the army air forces was already seriously hampered by budgetary and manpower limitations and experimentation would only sacrifice time, money, manpower, and training urgently needed by the army air forces to fulfill its primary mission. he believed, moreover, that such an experiment would be weighted in favor of negroes since comparisons would be drawn between specially selected and trained black units and average white units.[ - ] in a similar vein the director of organization and training, general hall, found the conversion "undesirable at this time." he also concluded that the problem was not limited to training difficulties but involved a "combination of factors" and could be solved through the application of common sense by the local commander.[ - ] the chiefs of ordnance and the chemical corps, the technical services involved in the proposed experiment, concurred in the plan but added that they had no negroes available for the designated units.[ - ] [footnote - : df, cg, aaf, to d/p&a, nov , sub: utilization of negro military personnel, wdgpa . ( nov ).] [footnote - : memo, d/o&t for d/p&a, dec , sub: utilization of negro military personnel, wdgot . ( nov ).] [footnote - : tabs e and f to df, d/p&a to dcofs, jan , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations, wdgpa . ( jul ).] in the face of this strong opposition, paul set aside his plan to establish experimental black units and concentrated instead on the use of negroes in overhead positions. on january he drew up for the chief of staff's office a list of military occupational specialties most commonly needed in overhead installations, including skilled jobs in the signal, ordnance, transportation, medical, and finance corps from which negroes had been excluded. he called for an immediate survey of the army commands to determine specialties to which negroes might be assigned, the number of negroes that could be used in each, and the number of negroes already qualified and available for immediate assignment. depending on the answers to this survey, he proposed that commanders assign immediately to overhead jobs those negroes qualified by school training, and open the pertinent specialist courses to negroes. black quotas for the courses would be increased, not only for recruits completing basic training, who would be earmarked for assignment to overhead spaces, but also for men already assigned to units, who would be returned to their units for such assignments upon completion of their courses. negroes thus assigned would perform the same duties as whites alongside them, but they would be billeted and messed in separate detachments or (p.  ) attached to existing black units for quarters and food.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/p&a to dcofs, jan , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations, wdgpa . ( jul ).] this proposal also met with some opposition. general spaatz, for example, objected on the same grounds he had used against experimental black units. forcing the military development of persons on the basis of color, general ira c. eaker, the deputy commander of army air forces, argued, was detrimental to the organization as a whole. spaatz added that it was desirable and necessary to select individual men on the basis of their potential contribution to the service rather than in response to such criteria as race.[ - ] [footnote - : df, cg, aaf (signed by dep cg, lt gen ira c. eaker), to d/p&a, jan , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations, wdgpa . ( jul ).] the acting deputy chief of staff, maj. gen. henry i. hodes, objected to the timing of the paul proposal since it would require action by field commanders during a period when continuing mass demobilization and severe budget limitations were already causing rapid and frequent adjustments, especially in overhead installations. he also felt that sending men to school would disrupt unit activities; altogether too many men would be assigned to overhead jobs, particularly during the period when negroes were receiving training. finally, he believed that paul's directive was too detailed. he doubted that it was workable because it centralized power in washington.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, adcofs for d/p&a, jan , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations, wdcsa . ( jan ).] general paul disagreed. the major flow of manpower, he maintained, was going to domestic rather than overseas installations. a relatively small shift of manpower was contemplated in his plan and would therefore cause little dislocation. the plan would provide commanders with the trained men they had been asking for. school training inevitably required men to be temporarily absent from their units, but, since commanders always complained about the scarcity of trained negroes, paul predicted that they would accept a temporary inconvenience in order to have their men school trained. the gillem board policy had been in effect for nine months, and "no material implementation by field commanders has as yet come to the attention of the division." if any changes were to be accomplished, paul declared, "a specific directive must be issued." since the chief of staff had charged the personnel and administration division with implementing gillem board policy and since that policy expressly directed the use of negroes in overhead positions, it seemed to paul "inconceivable that any proposition ... designed to improve the caliber of any of their negro personnel would be unworkable in the sense of creating a personnel shortage." he again recommended that the directive be approved and released to the public to "further the spirit and recommendations of the gillem board report."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, d/p&a for general hodes, jan , sub: utilization of negro personnel in overhead installations, wdgpa . ( jul ).] his superiors did not agree. instead of a directive, general hodes ordered yet another survey to determine whether commanders were actually complying with circular . he wanted all commands (p.  ) to itemize all the occupation specialties of major importance that contained black troops in overhead spaces.[ - ] needless to say, the survey added little to the army's knowledge of its racial problems. most commanders reported full compliance with the circular and had no further recommendations. [footnote - : memo, adcofs for d/p&a, feb , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations, wdcsa . ( jan ); ltr, tag to cg, aaf, et al., mar , same sub, agam-pm . ( feb ).] with rare exceptions their statistics proved their claims specious. the far east command, for example, reported no negroes in overhead spaces, although general macarthur planned to incorporate about negroes into the bulk overhead units in japan in july . he reported that he would assign negroes to overhead positions when qualified men could be spared. for the present they were needed in black units.[ - ] other commands produced similar statistics. the mediterranean theater, percent black, had only four negroes in , overhead spaces, a decrease over the previous year, because, as its commander explained, a shortage of skilled technicians and noncommissioned officers in black units meant that none could be spared. more than percent black, the alaskan department had no negroes in overhead spaces. in europe, on the other hand, some , overhead spaces, . percent of the total, were filled by negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : msg, cincfe to wd for agpp-p, may , c- . although cincfe was a joint commander, his report concerned army personnel only.] [footnote - : ltr, cg, mto, to tag, apr , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations; ltr, cg, alaskan dept, to tag, apr , same sub; ltr, cg, eucom, to tag, apr , same sub. all in agpp-p . ( feb ).] although negroes held some percent of all overhead positions in the field services, the picture was far from clear. more than percent of the army air forces' , overhead spaces, for example, were filled by negroes, but the army ground forces used only negroes, who occupied percent of its overhead spaces. in the continental armies almost , negroes were assigned to overhead, . percent of the total of such spaces--a more than equitable figure. yet most were cooks, bakers, truck drivers, and the like; all finance clerks, motion picture projectionists, and personnel assistants were white. in the field commands the use of negroes in signal, ordnance, transportation, medical, and finance overhead spaces was at a minimum, although figures varied from one command to the other. the transportation corps, more than percent black, used almost percent of its negroes in overhead; the chemical corps, percent black, used more than percent of its negroes in overhead. at the same time virtually all skilled military occupational specialties were closed to negroes in the signal corps, and the chief of finance stated flatly: "it is considered impractical to have negro overhead assigned to these [field] activities and none are utilized."[ - ] [footnote - : the reports of all these services are inclosures to df, tag to d/p&a, apr , sub: utilization of negro military personnel in overhead installations, agpp-p . ( feb ). the quote is from ltr, chief of finance corps to tag, mar , same sub.] the survey attested to a dismal lack of progress in the (p.  ) development of specialist training for negroes. although all the commanders of the zone of interior armies reported that negroes had equal opportunity with whites to attend army schools, in fact more than half of all the army's courses were not open to black soldiers regardless of their qualifications. the ordnance department, for example, declared that all its technical courses were open to qualified negroes, but as late as november the ordnance school in atlanta, georgia, had openings for whites but none for blacks. ironically, the results of the hodes survey were announced just four days short of circular 's first birthday. along with the other surveys and directives of the past year, it demonstrated that in several important particulars the gillem board's recommendations were being only partially and indifferently followed. obviously, some way must be found to dispel the atmosphere of indifference, and in some quarters hostility, that now enveloped circular . _a new approach_ a new approach was possible mainly because general paul and his staff had amassed considerable experience during the past year in how to use black troops. they had come to understand that the problems inherent in broadening the employment of black soldiers--the procurement of desirable black recruits, their training, especially school training for military occupational specialties, and their eventual placement in spaces that used that training--were interrelated and that progress in one of these areas was impossible without advances in the other two. in november the personnel and administration division decided to push for a modest step-by-step increase in the number of jobs open to negroes, using this increase to justify an expansion of school quotas for negroes and a special recruitment program. it was a good time for such an initiative, for the army was in the midst of an important reorganization of its program for specialist training. on may the war department had introduced a career guidance program for managing the careers of enlisted men. to help each soldier develop his maximum potential and provide the most equitable system for promotions, it divided all army jobs into several career fields--two, for example, were infantry and food service--and established certain job progressions, or ladders, within each field. an enlisted man could move up the ladder in his career field to increased responsibility and higher rank as he completed school courses, gained experience, and passed examinations.[ - ] [footnote - : wd cir , may .] general paul wanted to take advantage of this unusually fluid situation. he could point out that black soldiers must be included in the new program, but how was he to fit them in? black units lacked the diverse jobs open to whites, and as a result negroes were clustered in a relatively small number of military specialties with few career fields open to them. moreover, some of the army's listed school courses required an army general classification test score (p.  ) of ninety for admission, and the personnel and administration division discovered that percent of negroes enlisted between april and march as compared to percent of whites scored below that minimum. excluded from schools, these men would find it difficult to move up the career ladders.[ - ] [footnote - : p&a memo for rcd, attached to df, d/p&a to tag, jun , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the postwar army in connection with enlisted career guidance program, wdgpa . ( jun ).] concerned that the new career program would discriminate against black soldiers, paul could not, however, agree with the solution suggested by roy k. davenport, an army manpower expert. on the basis of a detailed study that he and a representative of the personnel and administration division conducted on negroes in the career program, davenport concluded that despite significant improvement in the quality of black recruits in recent months more than half the black enlisted men would still fail to qualify for the schooling demanded in the new program. he wanted the army to consider dropping the test score requirement for school admission and substituting a "composite of variables," including length of service in a military occupation and special performance ratings. such a system, he pointed out, would insure the most capable in terms of performance would be given opportunities for schooling and would eliminate the racial differential in career opportunity. it was equally important, davenport thought, to broaden arbitrarily the list of occupational specialties, open all school courses to negroes, and increase the black quotas for courses already open to them.[ - ] [footnote - : davenport, "matters relating to the participation of negro personnel in the career program," attached to df, d/p&a to brig gen j. j. o'hare, chief, mil pers mgt gp, p&a div, nov , wdgpa . ( jul ).] mindful of the strong opposition to his recent attempts to train negroes for new overhead assignments, general paul did not see how occupational specialties could be increased until new units or converted white ones were formed, or, for that matter, how school quotas could be increased unless positions for negroes existed to justify the training. he believed that the army should first widen the employment of black units and individuals in overhead spaces, and then follow up with increased school quotas and special recruitment. paul had already learned from recent surveys that the number of available overhead positions would allow only a modest increase in the number of specialized jobs available to negroes; any significant increase would require the creation of new black units. given the limitations on organized units, any increase would be at the expense of white units. the organization and training division had the right to decide which units would be white and which black, and considering the strong opposition in that division to the creation of more black units, an opposition that enjoyed support from the chief of staff's office, paul's efforts seemed in vain. but again an unusual opportunity presented itself when the chief of staff approved a reorganization of the general reserve in late . it established a continentally based, mobile striking force of four divisions with supporting units. each unit would have a well-trained core of regular army or other troops who might be expected to remain in the service for a (p.  ) considerable period of time. manpower and budget limitations precluded a fully manned and trained general reserve, but new units for the four continental divisions, which were in varying stages of readiness, were authorized.[ - ] [footnote - : for a discussion of the reorganization of the general reserve, see the introduction to john b. wilson's "u.s. army lineage and honors: the division," in cmh.] [illustration: army specialists report for airborne training, _fort bragg, north carolina, _.] here was a chance to create some black units, and paul jumped at it. during the activation and reorganization of the units for the general reserve he persuaded the organization and training division to convert nineteen white units to black: seven combat (including infantry and field artillery battalions), five combat support, and seven service units for a total of , spaces. nine of the units were attached to general reserve divisions, including the d armored, d infantry, and d airborne division. the rest, nondivisional elements, were assigned to the various continental armies.[ - ] [footnote - : ltrs, tag to cg, each army, et al., dec and mar . sub: activation and reorganization of certain units of the general reserve, agao- ( nov and jan ).] with the spaces in hand, the personnel and administration division launched a special drive in late december to secure , negroes, men per week, above the normal recruiting quotas. it called on the commanding generals of the continental armies to enlist men for three years' service in the regular army from among those (p.  ) who had previous military service, had completed high school, or had won the bronze star, commendation ribbon, or a decoration for valor, and who could make a "reasonable" score on the classification test. after basic training at fort dix and fort knox, the men would be eligible for specialized schooling and direct assignment to the newly converted units.[ - ] [footnote - : army memo - - , dec , sub: enlistment of negroes for special units; df, d/p&a to tag, jan , sub: training div assignment procedures for negro pers enlisting under provisions of da memo - - , dec , csgpa . ( jan ).] the conversion of units did not expand to any great extent the range of military specialties open to negroes because they were already serving in similarly organized units. but it did increase the number of skilled occupation slots available to them. to force a further increase in the number of school-trained negroes, paul asked the adjutant general to determine how many spaces for school-trained specialists existed in the units converted from white to black and how many spaces for school-trained specialists were unfilled in black units worldwide. he wanted to increase the quotas for each school-trained specialty to insure filling all these positions.[ - ] he also arranged to increase black quotas in certain military police, signal, and medical corps courses, and he insisted that a directive be sent to all major continental commands making mandatory the use of negroes trained under the increased school quotas.[ - ] moving further along these lines, paul suggested the adjutant general assign a black officer to study measures that might broaden the use of negroes in the army, increase school quotas for them, select black students properly, and assign trained black soldiers to suitable specialties.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/p&a to tag, jan , sub: training div assignment procedures for negro personnel enlisting under provisions of da memo - - , dec ; ibid., jan , sub: notification to z armies of certain negro school training; both in csgpa . ( jan ).] [footnote - : ibid., mar , sub: utilization of negro school trained personnel, csgpa . ( jan ).] [footnote - : df d/p&a for brig gen joseph j. o'hare, chief mil pers mgt gp, nov , csgpa . ( nov ).] the adjutant general assigned maj. james d. fowler, a black graduate of west point, class of , to perform all these tasks. fowler surveyed the nineteen newly converted units and recommended that , men, approximately percent of those enlisted for the special expansion of the general reserve, be trained in thirty-seven courses of instruction--an increase of black spaces in these courses. examining worldwide army strength to determine deficiencies in school-trained specialties in black units, he recommended a total increase of spaces in another thirty-seven courses. studying the organizational tables of more than two hundred military bases, fowler recommended that black school quotas for another eleven military occupational specialties, for which there were currently no black quotas, be set at thirty-nine spaces. on the basis of these recommendations, the army increased the number of courses with quotas for negroes from to ; black quotas were increased in courses; others remained unchanged or their black quotas were slightly decreased. new courses were opened to negroes in the adjutant general's school, the airborne section of the (p.  ) infantry school, and the artillery, armored, engineer, medical, military police, ordnance, quartermaster, signal, and transportation schools. courses with increased quotas were in transportation, quartermaster, ordnance, and engineer schools.[ - ] the number of black soldiers in courses open to recruits quickly grew from to . percent of total enrollment, and the number of courses open to negroes rose from to percent of all the entry courses in the army school system. [footnote - : memo, chief, morale, and welfare br, p&a, for chief, mil pers mgt gp, p&a, feb , sub: school input quotas for enlisted personnel from the replacement stream (other than air), csgpa . .] _the quota system: an assessment_ the conversion of nineteen units from white to black in december , the procurement of , negroes to man these units, and the increases in black quotas for the army schools to train specialists for these and other black units worldwide marked the high point of the army's attempt to broaden the employment of negroes under the terms of the gillem board policy. as paul well knew, the training of black troops was linked to their placement and until the great expansion of the army in for the korean war no other units were converted from white to black. the increase in black combat units and the spread in the range of military occupations for black troops, therefore, were never achieved as planned. the interval between wars ended just as it began with the majority of white soldiers serving in combat or administrative units and the majority of black soldiers continuing to work in service or combat support units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, brig gen j. j. o'hare, dep dir, p&a, for sa, mar , sub: implementation of wd circular , csgpa . .] the personnel and organization division made no further requests for increased school quotas for negroes, and even those increases already approved were short-lived. as soon as the needs of the converted units were met, the school quotas for negroes were reduced to a level sufficient to fill the replacement needs of the black units. by march , spaces for black students in the replacement stream courses had declined from the recommended by major fowler to eighty-two; the number of replacement stream courses open to negroes fell from percent of all courses offered to . percent. fowler had expected to follow up his study of school quotas in the military police, signal corps, and medical corps with surveys of other schools figuring in the career guidance program, but since no additional overhead positions were ever converted from white to black, no further need existed for school quota studies. the three-point study suggested by paul to find ways to increase school quotas for negroes was never made. the war department's problems with its segregation policy were only intensified by its insistence on maintaining a racial quota. whatever the authors' intention, the quota was publicized as a guarantee of black participation. in practice it not only restricted the number of negroes in the army but also limited the number and variety of (p.  ) black units that could be formed and consequently the number and variety of jobs available to negroes. further, it restricted the openings for negroes in the army's training schools. [illustration: bridge players, seaview service club, tokyo, japan, .] at the same time, enlistment policies combined with selective service regulations to make it difficult for the army to produce from its black quota enough men with the potential to be trained in those skills required by a variety of units. attracted by the superior economic status promised by the army, the average black soldier continued to reenlist, thus blocking the enlistment of potential military leaders from the increasing number of educated black youths. this left the army with a mass of black soldiers long in service but too old to fight, learn new techniques, or provide leadership for the future. subject to charges of discrimination, the army only fitfully and for limited periods tried to eliminate low scorers to make room for more qualified men. yet to the extent to which it failed to attract educated negroes and provide them with modern military skills, it failed to perform a principal function of the peacetime army, that of preparing a cadre of leaders for future wars. in discussing the problem of low-scoring negroes it should be remembered that the army general classification test, universally accepted in the armed services as an objective device to measure ability, has been seriously questioned by some manpower experts. (p.  ) since world war ii, for example, educational psychologists have learned that ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds have an important influence on performance in general testing. davenport, who eventually became a senior manpower official in the department of defense has, for one, concluded that the test scores created a distorted picture of the mental ability of the black soldier. he has also questioned the fairness of the army testing system, charging that uniform time periods were not always provided for black and white recruits taking the tests and that this injustice was only one of several inequalities of test administration that might have contributed to the substantial differences in the scores of applicants.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, roy k. davenport to author, dec , cmh files. davenport became deputy under secretary of the army and later deputy assistant secretary of defense (manpower planning and research) in the johnson administration.] the accuracy of test scores can be ignored when the subject is viewed from the perspective of manpower utilization. in the five years after world war ii, the actual number of white soldiers who scored in the lowest test categories equaled or exceeded the number of black soldiers. the army had no particular difficulty using these white soldiers to advantage, and in fact refused to discharge all class v men in . segregation was the heart of the matter; the less gifted whites could be scattered throughout the army but the less gifted blacks were concentrated in the segregated black units. reversing the coin, what could the army do with the highly qualified black soldier? his technical skills were unneeded in the limited number and variety of black units; he was barred from white units. in an attempt to deal with this problem, the gillem policy directed that negroes with special skills or qualifications be employed in overhead detachments. such employment, however, depended in great part on the willingness of commanders to use school-trained negroes. many of these officers complained that taking the best qualified negroes out of black units for assignment to overhead detachments deprived black units of their leaders. furthermore, overhead units represented so small a part of the whole that they had little effect on the army's problem. the racial quota also complicated the postwar reduction in army strength. since the strength and composition of the army was fixed by the defense budget and military planning, the majority of new black soldiers produced by the quota could be organized into units only at the expense of white units already in existence. in light of past performance of black units and in the interests of efficiency and economy, particularly at a time of reduced operating funds and a growing cold war, how could the army justify converting efficient white units into less capable black units? the same question applied to the formation of composite units. grouping lower scoring black units with white units, many of the army staff believed, would lower the efficiency of the whole and complicate the army's relations with the civilian community. as a result, the black units remained largely separate, limited in number, and tremendously overstrength throughout the postwar period. some of these problems, at least, might have been solved had the (p.  ) army created a special staff group to oversee the new policy, a key proposal of the gillem board. the personnel and administration division was primarily interested in individuals, in trying to place qualified negroes on an individual basis; the organization and training division was primarily concerned with units, in trying to expand the black units to approximate the combat to service ratio of white units. these interests conflicted at times, and with no single agency possessing overriding authority, matters came to an impasse, blocking reform of army practices. instead, the staff played a sterile numbers game, seeking to impose a strict ratio everywhere. but it was impossible to have a percent proportion of negroes in every post, in every area, in every overseas theater; it was equally impossible to have percent in every activity, in every arm and service, in every type of task. yet wherever the army failed to organize its black strength by quota, it was open to charges of racial discrimination. it would be a mistake to overlook the signs of racial progress achieved under the gillem board policy. because of its provisions thousands of negroes came to serve in the postwar regular army, many of them in a host of new assignments and occupations. but if the policy proved a qualified success in terms of numbers, it still failed to gain equal treatment and opportunity for black soldiers, and in the end the racial quotas and diverse racial units better served those who wanted to keep a segregated army. chapter (p.  ) segregation's consequences the army staff had to overcome tremendous obstacles in order to carry out even a modest number of the gillem board's recommendations. in addition to prejudices the army shared with much of american society and the institutional inertia that often frustrates change in so large an organization, the staff faced the problem of making efficient soldiers out of a large group of men who were for the most part seriously deficient in education, training, and motivation. to the extent that it overcame these difficulties, the army's postwar racial policy must be judged successful and, considered in the context of the times, progressive. nevertheless, the gillem board policy was doomed from the start. segregation was at the heart of the race problem. justified as a means of preventing racial trouble, segregation only intensified it by concentrating the less able and poorly motivated. segregation increased the problems of all commanders concerned and undermined the prestige of black officers. it exacerbated the feelings of the nation's largest minority toward the army and multiplied demands for change. in the end circular was abandoned because the army found it impossible to fight another war under a policy of racial quotas and units. but if the quota had not defeated the policy, other problems attendant on segregation would probably have been sufficient to the task. _discipline and morale among black troops_ by any measure of discipline and morale, black soldiers as a group posed a serious problem to the army in the postwar period. the standard military indexes--serious incidents statistics, venereal disease rates, and number of courts-martial--revealed black soldiers in trouble out of all proportion to their percentage of the army's population. when these personal infractions and crimes were added to the riots and serious racial incidents that continued to occur in the army all over the world after the war, the dimensions of the problem became clear. in , when negroes accounted for . percent of the army's average strength, black prisoners entering rehabilitation centers, disciplinary barracks, and federal institutions were . percent of the army total. in , when the average black strength had risen (p.  ) to . percent of the army's total, . percent of the soldiers sent to the stockade were negroes. the following tabulation gives their percentage of all military prisoners by offense: negro military offenses percentage absent without leave . desertion . misbehavior before the enemy . violation of arrest or confinement . discreditable conduct toward superior . civil offenses murder . rape . robbery . manslaughter . burglary and housebreaking . larceny . forgery . assault . _source_: correction branch, tago, copy in cmh. the most common explanation offered for such statistics is that fundamental injustices drove these black servicemen to crime. probably more to the point, most black soldiers, especially during the early postwar period, served in units burdened with many disadvantaged individuals, soldiers more likely to get into trouble given the characteristically weak leadership in these units. but another explanation for at least some of these crime statistics hinged on commanders' power to define serious offenses. in general, unit commanders had a great deal of discretion in framing the charges brought against an alleged offender; indeed, where some minor offenses were concerned officers could even conclude that a given infraction was not a serious matter at all and simply dismiss the soldier with a verbal reprimand and a warning not to repeat his offense. whereas one commander might decide that a case called for a charge of aggravated assault, another, faced with the same set of facts, might settle for a charge of simple assault. if it is reasonable to assume that, as a part of the pattern of discrimination, negroes accused of offenses like misconduct toward superiors, awol, and assault often received less generous treatment from their officers than white servicemen, then it is reasonable to suspect that statistics on negroes involved in crime may reflect such discriminatory treatment. the crime figures were particularly distressing to the individual black soldier, as indeed they were to his civilian counterpart, because as a member of a highly visible minority he became identified with the wrongdoing of some of his fellows, spectacularly reported in the press, while his own more typical attendance to orders and competent performance of duty were more often buried in the army's administrative reports. in particular, negroes among the large overseas commands suffered embarrassment. the gillem board policy (p.  ) was announced just as the army began the occupation of germany and japan. as millions of veterans returned home, to be replaced in lesser numbers by volunteers, black troops began to figure prominently in the occupation forces. on january the army had , negroes stationed overseas, . percent of the total number of overseas troops, divided principally between the two major overseas commands. by march , in keeping with the general reduction of forces, black strength overseas was reduced to , men, but black percentages in europe and the far east remained practically unchanged.[ - ] it was among these negroes, scattered throughout germany and japan, that most of the disciplinary problems occurred. [footnote - : stm- , strength of the army, jan and mar .] during the first two years of peace, black soldiers consistently dominated the army's serious-incident rate, a measure of indictments and accusations involving troops in crimes against persons and property. in june , for example, black soldiers in the european theater were involved in serious incidents (actual and alleged) at the rate of . cases per , men. the rate among white soldiers for the same period was . cases per , . the rate for both groups rose considerably in . the figure for negroes climbed to a yearly average of . incidents per , ; the figure for whites, reflecting an even greater gain, reached . . these crime rates were not out of line with america's national crime rate statistics, which, based on a sample of cities, averaged about . during the same period.[ - ] nevertheless, the rate was of particular concern to the government because the majority of the civil offenses were perpetuated against german and japanese nationals and therefore lowered the prestige and effectiveness of the occupation forces. [footnote - : geis monograph, pp. - and chart .] less important but still a serious internal problem for the army was a parallel rise in the incidence of venereal disease. various reasons have been advanced for the great postwar rise in the army's venereal disease rate. it is obvious, for example, that the rapid conversion from war to peacetime duties gave many american soldiers new leisure and freedom to engage in widespread fraternization with the civilian population. serious economic dislocation in the conquered countries drove many citizens into a life of prostitution and crime. by the same token, the breakdown of public health services had removed a major obstacle to the spread of social disease. but whatever the reasons, a high rate of venereal disease--the overseas rate was three times greater than the rate reported for soldiers in the united states--reflected a serious breakdown in military discipline, posed a threat to the combat effectiveness of the commands, and produced lurid rumors and reports on army morality. as in the case of crime statistics, the rate of venereal disease for black soldiers in the overseas commands far exceeded the figure for whites. the eighth army, the major unit in the far east, reported for the month of june , cases of venereal disease for whites, or cases per , men per year; cases were reported for negroes, or , cases per , men per year. the rates for the european (p.  ) command for july stood at cases per , negroes per year as compared with for white soldiers. the disease rate improved considerably during in both commands, but still the rates for black troops averaged per , men per year in eighth army compared to for whites. in europe the rate was per , men per year for negroes compared to for whites. at the same time the rate for all soldiers in the united states was per , per year.[ - ] some critics question the accuracy of these statistics, charging that more white soldiers, with informal access to medical treatment, were able to escape detection by the medical department's statisticians, at least in cases of more easily treated strains of venereal disease. [footnote - : ibid., pp. - ; eighth army (afpac) hist div, _occupational monograph of the eighth army in japan_ (hereafter afpac monograph), : .] the court-martial rate for black soldiers serving overseas was also higher than for white soldiers. black soldiers in europe, for example, were court-martialed at the rate of . men per , during the third quarter of compared with a . rate for whites. a similar situation existed in the far east where the black service units had a monthly court-martial rate nearly double the average rate of the eighth army as a whole.[ - ] [footnote - : geis monograph; afpac monograph, : - and charts, : - and jag illus. no. . it should be noted that on occasion individual white units registered disciplinary rates spectacularly higher than these averages. in a nine-month period in - , for example, a -man white unit stationed in vienna, austria, had general courts-martial, between and special and summary courts-martial, and of its members separated under the provisions of ar - .] the disproportionate black crime and disease rates were symptomatic of a condition that also revealed itself in the racially oriented riots and disturbances that continued to plague the postwar army. sometimes black soldiers were merely reacting to blatant discrimination countenanced by their officers, to racial insults, and at times even to physical assaults, but nevertheless they reacted violently and in numbers. the resulting incidents prompted investigations, recriminations, and publicity. two such disturbances, more spectacular than the typical flare-up, and important because they influenced army attitudes toward blacks, occurred at army bases in the united states. the first was a mutiny at macdill airfield, florida, which began on october at a dance for black noncommissioned officers to which privates were denied admittance. military police were called when a fight broke out among the black enlisted men and rapidly developed into a belligerent demonstration by a crowd that soon reached mob proportions. police fire was answered by members of the mob and one policeman and one rioter were wounded. urged on by its ringleaders, the mob then overwhelmed the main gate area and disarmed the sentries. the rioters retained control of the area until early the next day, when the commanding general persuaded them to disband. eleven negroes were charged with mutiny.[ - ] a second incident, a riot with strong racial overtones, occurred at fort leavenworth in may following an altercation between white and black prisoners in the army disciplinary barracks. the rioting, caused by allegations of favoritism (p.  ) accorded to prisoners, lasted for two days; one man was killed and six were injured.[ - ] [footnote - : "history of macdill army airfield, th aab unit, october ," pp. - , afcho files.] [footnote - : florence murray, ed., _the negro handbook, _ (new york: macmillan, ), pp. - .] disturbances in overseas commands, although less serious, were of deep concern to the army because of the international complications. in april , for example, soldiers of the th signal construction detachment threw stones at two french officers who were driving through the village of weyersbusch in the rhine palatinate. the officers, one of them injured, returned to the village with french mp's and requested an explanation of the incident. they were quickly surrounded by about thirty armed negroes of the detachment who, according to the french, acted in an aggressive and menacing manner. as a result, the supreme french commander in germany requested his american counterpart to remove all black troops from the french zone. the u.s. commander in europe, general joseph t. mcnarney, investigated the incident, court-martialed its instigators, and transferred the entire detachment out of the french zone. at the same time his staff explained to the french that to prohibit the stationing of negroes in the area would be discriminatory and contrary to army policy. black specialists continued to operate in the french zone, although none were subsequently stationed there permanently.[ - ] [footnote - : geis monograph, pp. - .] the far east command also suffered racial incidents. the eighth army reported in that "racial agitation" was one of the primary causes of assault, the most frequent violent crime among american troops in japan. this racial agitation was usually limited to the american community, however, and seldom involved the civilian population.[ - ] [footnote - : afpac monograph, : .] the task of maintaining a biracial army overseas in peacetime was marked with embarrassing incidents and time-consuming investigations. the army was constantly hearing about its racial problems overseas and getting no end of advice. for example, in may louis lautier, chief of the negro newspaper publishers association news service, informed the assistant secretary of war that fifty-five of the seventy american soldiers executed for crimes in the european theater were black. most were category iv and v men. "in light of this fact," lautier charged, "the blame for the comparatively high rate of crime among black soldiers belongs to the american educational system."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, louis r. lautier to howard c. petersen, may . asw . (nt).] but when a delegation of publishers from lautier's organization toured european installations during the same period, the members took a more comprehensive look at the seventh army's race problems. they told secretary patterson that they found all american soldiers reacting similarly to poor leadership, substandard living conditions, and menial occupations whenever such conditions existed. although they professed to see no difference in the conduct of white and black troops, they went on to list factors that contributed to the bad conduct of some of the black troops including the dearth of black officers, hostility of military police, inadequate recreation, and poor camp location. they also pointed out that many soldiers in the occupation had been shipped overseas without basic training, (p.  ) scored low in the classification tests, and served under young and inexperienced noncoms. many black regulars, on the other hand, once proud members of combat units, now found themselves performing menial tasks in the backwaters of the occupation. above all, the publishers witnessed widespread racial discrimination, a condition that followed inevitably, they believed, from the army's segregation policy. conditions in the army appeared to them to facilitate an immediate shift to integration; conditions in europe and elsewhere made such a shift imperative. yet they found most commanders in europe still unaware of the gillem board report and its liberalizing provisions, and little being done to encourage within the army the sensitivity to racial matters that makes life in a biracial society bearable. until the recommendations of the board were carried out and discrimination stopped, they warned the secretary, the army must expect racial flare-ups to continue.[ - ] [footnote - : frank l. stanley, report of the negro newspaper publishers association to the honorable secretary of war on troops and conditions in europe, jul , copy in cmh.] characteristically, the secretary of war's civilian aide, marcus ray, never denied evidence of misconduct among black troops, but concentrated instead on finding the cause. returning from a month's tour of pacific installations in september , he bluntly pointed out to secretary patterson that high venereal disease and court-martial rates among black troops were "in direct proportion to the high percentage of class iv and vs among the negro personnel." given ray's conclusion, the solution was relatively simple: the army should "vigorously implement" its recently promulgated policy, long supported by ray, and discharge persons with test scores of less than seventy.[ - ] [footnote - : ray, rpt of tour of pacific installations to sw patterson, aug- sep , asw . .] the civilian aide was not insensitive to the effects of segregation on black soldiers, but he stressed the practical results of the army's policy instead of making a sweeping indictment of segregation. for example, he criticized the report of the noted criminologist, leonard keeler, who had recently studied the criminal activities of american troops in europe for the army's criminal investigation division. ray was critical, not because keeler had been particularly concerned with the relatively high black crime rate and its effect on europeans, but because the report overlooked the concentration of segregated black units which had increased the density of negroes in some areas of europe to a point where records and reports of misconduct presented a false picture. in effect, black crime statistics were meaningless, ray believed, as long as the army's segregation policy remained intact. where keeler implied that the solution was to exclude negroes from europe, ray believed that the answer lay in desegregating and spreading them out.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, ray for asw petersen, nov , asw . .] it was probably inevitable that all the publicity given racial troubles would attract attention on capitol hill. when the senate's special investigations committee took up the question of military government in occupied europe in the fall of , it decided to look into the conduct of black soldiers also. witnesses asserted that black troops in europe were ill-behaved and poorly disciplined and their (p.  ) officers were afraid to punish them properly for fear of displeasing higher authorities. the committee received a report on the occupation prepared by its chief counsel, george meader. a curious amalgam of sensational hearsay, obvious racism, and unimpeachable fact, the document was leaked to the press and subsequently denounced publicly by the committee's chairman, senator harley m. kilgore of west virginia. kilgore charged that parts of the report dealing with negroes were obviously based on hearsay. "neither prejudice nor malice," the senator concluded, "has any place in factual reports."[ - ] [footnote - : u.s. congress, senate special committee investigating national defense programs, part , "military government in germany," th cong., november , pp. - ; see also new york _times_, november and december , . the quotation is from the _times_ of november th.] although the committee's staff certainly had displayed remarkable insensitivity, meader's recommendations appeared temperate enough. he wanted the committee to explore with the war department possible solutions to the problem of black troops overseas, and he called on the war department to give careful consideration to the recommendations of its field commanders. the european commander was already on record with a recommendation to recall all black troops from europe, citing the absence of negroes from the u.s. occupation army in the rhineland after world war i. lt. gen. lucius d. clay, then u.s. commander, berlin, who later succeeded general mcnarney as theater commander and military governor, wanted negroes in the occupation army used primarily as parade troops. meader contended that the war department was reluctant to act on these theater recommendations because it feared political repercussions from the black community. he had no such fear: "certainly, the conduct of the negro troops, as provable from war department records, is no credit to the negro race and proper action to solve the problem should not result in any unfavorable reaction from any intelligent negro leaders."[ - ] [footnote - : senate special committee, "military government in germany," th cong., nov , pp. - ; see also geis monograph, pp. - .] the war department was not insensitive to the opinions being aired on capitol hill. the under secretary, kenneth c. royall, had already dispatched a group from the inspector general's office under brig. gen. elliot d. cooke to find out among other things if black troops were being properly disciplined and to investigate other charges lt. col. francis p. miller had made before the special investigations committee. examining in detail the records of one subordinate european command, which had , negroes in its force of , , the cooke group decided that commanders were not afraid to punish black soldiers. although negroes were responsible for vehicle accidents and disciplinary infractions in numbers disproportionate to their strength, they also had a proportionately higher court-martial rate.[ - ] [footnote - : geis monograph, pp. - ; eucom hist div, _morale and discipline in the european command, - _, occupation forces in europe series, pp. - , in cmh.] while the cooke group was still studying the specific charges of the senate's investigations committee, secretary patterson decided on a general review of the situation. he ordered ray to tour european installations and report on how the gillem board policy was being (p.  ) put into effect overseas. ray visited numerous bases and housing and recreation areas in germany, italy, france, switzerland, and austria. he examined duties, living conditions, morale, and discipline. he also looked into race relations and community attitudes. his month's tour, ending on december , reinforced his conviction that substandard troops--black and white--were at the heart of the army's crime and venereal disease problem. ray supported the efforts of local commanders to discharge these men, although he wanted the secretary to reform and standardize the method of discharge. in his analysis of the overseas situation, the civilian aide avoided any specific allusion to the nexus between segregation and racial unrest. in a rare burst of idealism, however, he did condemn those who would exclude negroes from combat units and certain occupations because of presumed prejudices on the part of the german population. to bow to such prejudices, he insisted, was to negate america's aspirations for the postwar world. in essence, ray's formula for good race relations was quite simple: institute immediately the reforms outlined in the gillem board report. in addition to broader use of black troops, ray was concerned with basic racial attitudes. the army, he charged, generally failed to see the connection between prejudice and national security; many of its leaders even denied that prejudice existed in the army. yet to ignore the problem of racial prejudice, he claimed, condemned the army to perpetual racial upsets. he wanted the secretary to restate the army's racial objectives and launch an information and education program to inform commanders and troops on racial matters.[ - ] [footnote - : ray, "rpt to secwar, mr. robert p. patterson, of tour of european installations," dec , incl to memo, sw for dcofs, jan , sw . .] in all other respects a lucid progress report on the gillem board policy, ray's analysis was weakened by his failure to point out the effect of segregation on the performance and attitude of black soldiers. ray believed that the gillem board policy, with its quota system and its provisions for the integration of black specialists, would eventually lead to an integrated army. preoccupied with practical and imminently possible racial reforms, ray, along with secretary patterson and other reformers within the army establishment, tended to overlook the tenacious hold that racial segregation had on army thought. this hold was clearly illustrated by the reaction of the army staff to ray's recommendations. speaking with the concurrence of the other staff elements and the approval of the deputy chief of staff, general paul warned that very little could be accomplished toward the long-range objective of the gillem board--integration--until the army completed the long and complex task of raising the quality and lowering the quantity of black soldiers. he also considered it impractical to use negroes in overhead positions, combat units, and highly technical and professional positions in exact proportion to their percentage of the population. such use, paul claimed, would expend travel funds already drastically curtailed and further complicate a serious housing situation. he admitted that the deep-seated prejudice of some army members in all grades would (p.  ) have a direct bearing on the progress of the army's new racial policy. [illustration: th infantry band, gifu, japan, .] the staff generally agreed with ray's other recommendations with one exception: it opposed his suggestion that black units be used in the european theater's constabulary, the specially organized and trained force that patrolled the east-west border and helped police the german occupation. the theater commander had so few capable negroes, paul reasoned, that to siphon off enough to form a constabulary unit would threaten the efficiency of other black units. besides, even if enough qualified negroes were available, he believed their use in supervisory positions over german nationals would be unacceptable to many germans.[ - ] the staff offered no evidence for this latter argument, and indeed there was none available. in marked contrast to their reaction to the french government's quartering of senegalese soldiers in the rhineland after world war i, the german attitude toward american negroes immediately after world war ii was notably tolerant, a factor in the popularity among negroes of assignments to europe. it was only later that the germans, especially tavern owners and the (p.  ) like, began to adopt the discriminatory practices of their conquerors.[ - ] [footnote - : wdgpa summary sheet, jan , sub: utilization of negroes in the european theater, with incls, wdgpa . ( jan ).] [footnote - : interv, author with lt gen clarence r. huebner (former cg, u.s. army, europe), mar , cmh files.] ray's proposals and the reaction to them formed a kind of watershed in the war department's postwar racial policy. just ten months after the gillem board report was published, the army staff made a judgment on the policy's effectiveness: the presence of negroes in numbers approximating percent of the army's strength and at the current qualitative level made it necessary to retain segregation indefinitely. segregation kept possible troublemakers out of important combat divisions, promoted efficiency, and placated regional prejudices both in the army and congress. integration must be postponed until the number of negroes in the army was carefully regulated and the quality of black troops improved. both, the staff thought, were goals of a future so distant that segregated units were not threatened. but the staff's views ran contrary to the gillem board policy and the public utterances of the secretary of war. robert patterson had consistently supported the policy in public and before his advisers. besides, it was unthinkable that he would so quickly abandon a policy developed at the cost of so much effort and negotiation and announced with such fanfare. he had insisted that the quota be maintained, most recently in the case of the european command.[ - ] in sum, he believed that the policy provided guidelines, practical and expedient, albeit temporary, that would lead to the integration of the army. [footnote - : geis monograph, pp. - .] in face of this impasse between the secretary and the army staff there slowly evolved what proved to be a new racial policy. never clearly formulated--circular continued in effect with only minor changes until --the new policy was based on the substantially different proposition that segregation would continue indefinitely while the staff concentrated on weeding out poorly qualified negroes, upgrading the rest, and removing vestiges of discrimination, which it saw as quite distinct from segregation. at the same time the army would continue to operate under a strict percent quota of negroes, though not necessarily within every occupation or specialty. the staff overlooked the increasingly evident connection between segregation and racial unrest, thereby assuring the continuation of both. from on, integration, the stated goal of the gillem board policy, was ignored, while segregation, which the board saw as an expedient to be tolerated, became for the army staff a way of life to be treasured. it was from this period in that circular and the gillem board report began to gain their reputations as regressive documents. _improving the status of the segregated soldier_ in the army accelerated its long-range program to discharge soldiers who scored less than seventy on the army general classification test. often a subject of public controversy, the program formed a major part of the army's effort to close the (p.  ) educational and training gap between black and white troops.[ - ] of course, there were other ways to close the gap, and on occasion the army had taken the more positive and difficult approach of upgrading its substandard black troops by giving them extra training. although rarely so recognized, the army's long record of providing remedial academic and technical training easily qualified it as one of the nation's major social engineers. [footnote - : for the use of ar - to discharge low-scoring soldiers, see chapter .] [illustration: general huebner _inspects the th military police company, giessen, germany, _.] in world war ii thousands of draftees were taught to read and write in the army's literacy program. in at fort benning an on-duty educational program was organized in the th regimental combat team for soldiers, in this case all negroes, with less than an eighth grade education. although the project had to be curtailed because of a lack of specialized instructors, an even more ambitious program was launched the next year throughout the army after a survey revealed an alarming illiteracy rate in replacement troops. in a move of primary importance to black recruits, the far east command, for example, ordered all soldiers lacking the equivalent of a fifth grade education to attend courses. the order was later changed to include all soldiers who failed to achieve army test scores of seventy.[ - ] [footnote - : afpac monograph, : .] in the european theater launched the most ambitious project by far for improving the status of black troops, and before it was over thousands of black soldiers had been examined, counseled, and trained. the project was conceived and executed by the deputy and later theater commander, lt. gen. clarence r. huebner, and his adviser on negro affairs, marcus ray, now a lieutenant colonel.[ - ] these men were convinced that a program could be devised to raise the status of the black soldier. huebner wanted to lay the foundation for a command-wide educational program for all black units. "if you're going to make soldiers out of people," he later explained, "they have the right to be trained." huebner had specialized in training in his army career, had written several of the army's training manuals, and possessed an abiding faith in the ability of the army to change men. "if your (p.  ) soldiers don't know how, teach them."[ - ] [footnote - : at the suggestion of secretary patterson, general huebner established the position of negro adviser. after several candidates were considered, the post went to marcus ray, who left the secretary's office and went on active duty.] [footnote - : interv, author with huebner.] general huebner got his chance in march when the command decided to use some , unassigned black troops in guard duties formerly performed by the st infantry division. the men were organized into two infantry battalions,[ - ] but because of their low test scores huebner decided to establish a twelve-to thirteen-week training program at the grafenwohr training center and directed the commanding general of the st division to train black soldiers in both basic military and academic subjects. huebner concluded his directive by saying: this is our first opportunity to put into effect in a large way the war department policy on negro soldiers as announced in war department circular no. , . owing to the necessity for rapid training, and to the press of occupational duties, little time has been available in the past for developing the leadership of the negro soldier. we can now do that.... i wish you to study the program, its progress, its deficiencies and its advantages, in order that a full report may be compiled and lessons in operation and training drawn.[ - ] [footnote - : the th and st infantry battalions (separate) were organized on june . the men came from eucom's inactivated engineer service battalions and construction companies, ambulance companies, and ordnance ammunition, quartermaster railhead, signal heavy construction, and transportation corps car companies; see geis monograph, p. .] [footnote - : ltr, cg, ground and service forces, europe, to cg, st inf div, may , sub: training of negro infantry battalions, quoted in geis monograph, pp. - .] as the improved military bearing and efficiency of black trainees and the subsequent impressive performance of the two new infantry battalions would suggest, the reports on the grafenwohr training were optimistic and the lessons drawn ambitious. they prompted huebner on december to establish a permanent training center at kitzingen air base.[ - ] essentially, he was trying to combine both drill and constant supervision with a broad-based educational program. trainees received basic military training for six hours daily and academic instruction up to the twelfth grade level for two hours more. the command ordered all black replacements and casuals arriving from the united states to the training center for classifying and training as required. eventually all black units in europe were to be rotated through kitzingen for unit refresher and individual instruction. as each company completed the course at kitzingen, the command assigned academic instructors to continue an on-duty educational program in the field. a soldier was required to participate in the educational program until he passed the general education development test for high school level or until he clearly demonstrated that he could not profit from further instruction. [footnote - : the training center had already moved from grafenwohr to larger quarters at mannheim koafestal, germany.] washington was quick to perceive the merit of the european program, and paul reported widespread approval "from all concerned."[ - ] the program quickly produced some impressive statistics. thousands of (p.  ) soldiers--at the peak in more than percent of all negroes in the command--were enrolled in the military training course at kitzingen or in on-duty educational programs organized in over two-thirds of the black companies throughout the command. by june the program had over , students and instructors. a year later, the european commander estimated that since the program began some , negroes had completed fifth grade in his schools, , had finished grade school, and had passed the high school equivalency test.[ - ] the experiment had a practical and long-lasting effect on the army. for example, in a sampling of three black units showed that after undergoing training at kitzingen and in their own units the men scored an average of twenty points higher in army classification tests. according to a european command estimate, the command's education program was producing some of the finest trained black troops in the army. [footnote - : ltr, d/p&a to huebner, oct , csgpa . . this approval did not extend to all civil rights advocates, some of whom objected to the segregated training. walter white, however, supported the program. see interv, author with huebner.] [footnote - : eucom hist div, _eucom command report, _, pp. , , copy in cmh.] [illustration: reporting to kitzingen. _men of company b, st infantry battalion, arrive for refresher course in basic military training._] the training program even provoked jealous reaction among some white troops who claimed that the educational opportunities offered negroes discriminated against them. they were right, for in comparison to the on-duty high school courses offered negroes, the command restricted courses for white soldiers to so-called literacy training or completion of the fifth grade. command spokesmen quite openly justified the disparity on the grounds that negroes on the whole (p.  ) had received fewer educational opportunities in the united states and that the program would promote efficiency in the command.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, chief, eucom ti&e div, to eucom dcsops, jun , cited in geis monograph, p. .] whether a connection can be made between the kitzingen training program and improvement in the morale and discipline of black troops, the fact was that by january a dramatic change had occurred in the conduct of black soldiers in the european command. the rate of venereal disease among black soldiers had dropped to an average approximating the rate for white troops (and not much greater than the always lower average for troops in the united states). this phenomenon was repeated in the serious incident rate. in the first half of courts-martial that resulted in bad conduct discharges totaled fifty-nine for negroes, a figure that compared well with the similar verdicts for the larger contingent of white soldiers.[ - ] for once the army could document what it had always preached, that education and training were the keys to the better performance of black troops. the tragedy was that the education program was never applied throughout the army, not even in the far east and in the united states, where far more black soldiers were stationed than in europe.[ - ] the army lost yet another chance to fulfill the promise of its postwar policy. [footnote - : geis monograph, charts and and p. .] [footnote - : not comparable was the brief literacy program reinstituted in the th regimental combat team at fort benning, georgia, in .] in later years kitzingen assumed the task of training black officers, a natural progression considering the attitude of general huebner and marcus ray. the general and the command adviser were convinced that the status of black soldiers depended at least in part on the caliber of black officers commanding them. huebner deftly made this point in october soon after kitzingen opened when he explained to general paul that he wanted more "stable, efficient, and interested negro officers and senior non-commissioned officers" who, he believed, would set an example for the trainees.[ - ] others shared huebner's views. the black publishers touring europe some months later observed that wherever black officers were assigned there was "a noticeable improvement in the morale, discipline and general efficiency of the units involved."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, huebner to d/p&a, oct , csgpa . .] [footnote - : memo, dcofs for d/p&a, may , sub: report of visit by negro publishers and editors to the european theater, csusa . negroes ( may ).] the european command had requisitioned only five black officers during the last eight months, general paul noted; this might have caused its shortage of black officers. still, paul knew the problem went deeper, and he admitted that many black officers now on duty were relatively undesirable and many desirable ones were being declared surplus. he was searching for a solution.[ - ] the personnel and administration division could do very little about the major cause of the shortage, for the lack of black officers was fundamentally connected with the postwar demobilization affecting all the services. most black officers were unable to compete in terms of length of service, combat experience, and other factors that counted heavily toward retention. (p.  ) consequently their numbers dropped sharply from an august high of , to a december low of , . the drop more than offset the slight rise in the black percentage of the whole officer corps, . percent in to . percent in . [footnote - : ltr, d/p&a to huebner, oct , csgpa . .] at first general paul was rather passive in his attitude toward the shortage of black officers. commenting on assistant secretary of war petersen's suggestion in may that the army institute a special recruitment program to supplement the small number of black officers who survived the competition for regular army appointments, paul noted that all appointments were based on merit and competition and that special consideration for negroes was itself a form of discrimination.[ - ] whether through fear of being accused of discrimination against whites or because of the general curtailment of officer billets, it was not until april that the personnel and administration division launched a major effort to get more black officers. [footnote - : memo, asw for d/p&a, may , sub: negro officers in the regular establishment; memo, d/p&a for asw, may , same sub; memo, "d. r." (exec asst to asw, lt col d. j. rogers) for petersen, jun . copies of all in asw . ( may ).] in april general paul had his manpower control group review the officer strength of seventy-eight black units stationed in the united states. the group uncovered a shortage of seventy-two officers in the seventy-eight units, but it went considerably beyond identifying simple shortages. in estimating the number of black officers needed, the group demonstrated not only how far the gillem board policy had committed the army, but in view of contemporary manpower shortages just how impossible this commitment was of being fulfilled. the manpower group discovered that according to circular , which prescribed more officers for units containing a preponderance of men with low test scores, the seventy-eight units should have additional officers beyond their regular allotment. also taking into account circular 's provision that black officers should command black troops, the group discovered that these units would need another black officer replacements. the group temporized. it recommended that the additional officers be assigned to units in which percent or more of the men were in grades iv and v and without mentioning specific numbers noted that high priority be given to the replacement of white officers with negroes. assuming the shortages discovered in the seventy-eight units would be mirrored in the black units overseas as well as other temporary units at home, the group also wanted general paul to order a comprehensive survey of all black units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, manpower survey gp, for paul, apr , sub: assignment of officers of negro t/o&e units in compliance with wd cir , , csgpa . ( apr ); "report on negro officer strength in army," incl w/memo, d/p&a for dcofs, jun , sub: report of negro publishers and editors on tour of european installations, csusa . negroes ( may ).] paul complied with the group's request by ordering the major commanders in may to list the number of officers by branch, grade, and specialty needed to fill the vacant spaces in their black units.[ - ] but there was really little need for further surveys because the (p.  ) key to all the group's recommendations--the availability of suitable black officers--was beyond the immediate reach of the army. general paul was able to fill the existing vacancies in the seventy-eight continental units by recalling black officers from inactive duty, but the number eligible for recall or available from other sources was limited. as of may , personnel officials could count on only , black reserve and national guard officers who could be assigned to extended active duty. this number was far short of current needs; negroes would have to approximate . percent ( , officers) of the army's officer corps if all the whites in black units were replaced. as for the other provisions of the gillem board, the organization and training division urged restraint, arguing that circular was not an authorization for officers in excess of organization table ceilings, but rather that the presence of many low-scoring men constituted a basis for requesting more officers.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, d/p&a for tag, may , sub: negro officers in to&e units, csgpa . ( may ).] [footnote - : ibid.; "report on negro officer strength in army," incl w/memo, d/p&a for dcofs, jun , sub: report of negro publishers and editors..., csusa . negroes ( may ).] general paul did not argue the point. admitting that the . percent figure was "an objective to be achieved over a period of time," he could do little but instruct the commanders concerned to indicate in future requisitions that they wanted black officers as fillers or replacements in black units. clearly, as long as the number of black officers remained so low, the provisions of circular calling for black officers to replace whites or supplement the officer strength of units containing men with low test scores would have to be ignored. there were other long-range possibilities for procuring more black officers, the most obvious the expansion of the reserve officers' training corps. as of january the army had rotc units at nine predominantly black colleges and universities with a total enrollment of , cadets. the organization and training division contemplated adding one more unit during , but after negotiations with officials from secretary royall's office, themselves under considerable congressional and public pressure, the division added three more advanced rotc units, one service and two combat, at predominantly black institutions.[ - ] at the same time some hope existed for increasing the number of black cadets at west point. the academy had nine black cadets in , including five plebes. general paul hoped that the graduation of these cadets would stimulate further interest and a corresponding increase in applications from negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asst secy, gs, for dcofs, jun , sub: negro rotc units, csusa . negroes ( jun ); see also department of national defense, "national defense conference on negro affairs," apr , morning session, pp. - , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : "report on negro officer strength in army," incl w/memo, d/p&a for dcofs, jun , sub: report of negro publishers and editors..., csusa . negroes ( may ).] it was probably naive to assume that an increase of black cadets from four to nine would stir much interest when other statistics suggested that black officers had a limited future in the service. as secretary royall pointed out, even if the total number of black officers could not be quickly increased, the percentage of black officers in the (p.  ) regular army could.[ - ] yet by april the army had almost completed the conversion of reservists into regulars, and few black officers had been selected. in june , for example, there were black officers in the regular army; by april they numbered only , including west point graduates and converted reservists.[ - ] the army had also recently nominated young negroes, designated distinguished military graduates of the advanced rotc program, for regular army commissions. [footnote - : department of national defense, "national defense conference on negro affairs," apr , morning session, pp. - . prior to world war ii, an officer held a commission in the regular army, in the army reserve, or in the national guard. another type of commission, one in the army of the united states (aus), was added during world war ii, and all temporary promotions granted during the war were to aus rank. for example, a regular army captain could become an aus major but would retain his regular army captaincy. many reservists and some national guard officers remaining on active duty sought conversion to, or "integration" into, the regular army for career security.] [footnote - : these black officers were converted to regular army officers in the following arms and services: infantry, ; chaplain corps, ; medical service corps, ; army nurse corps, ; field artillery, ; quartermaster, ( of whom were transferred later to the transportation corps). these figures include the first black doctor and nurse converted to regular army officers.] during the regular army integration program, negroes and , whites applied for the regular army; the army and the air force awarded commissions to , white officers ( . percent of those applying) and black officers ( . percent of the applicants). preliminary rejections based on efficiency and education ran close to percent of the applicants of both races. the disparity in rejections by race appeared when applicants went before the selection board itself; only . percent of the remaining black applicants were accepted while . percent of the white applicants were selected for regular army commissions.[ - ] [footnote - : "analysis of negro officers in the army," incl w/memo, d/p&a for dcas, jun , sub: report of negro publishers and editors..., csusa . negroes ( may ).] given statistics like these, it was difficult to stimulate black interest in a career as an army officer, as general paul was well aware. he had the distribution of black officers appointed to the regular army studied in to see if it was in consonance with the new racial policy. while most of the arms and services passed muster with the personnel and administration division, paul felt compelled to remind the chief of engineers, whose corps had so far awarded no regular army commission to the admittedly limited number of black applicants, that officers were to be accepted in the regular army without regard to race. he repeated this warning to the quartermaster general and the chief of transportation; both had accepted black officers for the regular army but had selected only the smallest fraction of those applying. although the black applicants did score slightly below the whites, paul doubted that integration would lower the standards of quality in these branches, and he wanted every effort made to increase the number of black officers.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/p&a to chief of engrs, jul , sub: appointment of negro officers to the regular army, w/attached memo for rcd, wdgpa . ( jul ).] the chief of engineers, quick to defend his record, explained that the race of candidates was difficult to ascertain and had not been considered in the selection process. nevertheless, he had reexamined all rejected applications and found two from negroes whose (p.  ) composite scores were acceptable. both men, however, fell so short of meeting the minimum professional requirements that to appoint either would be to accord preferential treatment denied to hundreds of other underqualified applicants.[ - ] it would appear that bias and prejudice were not the only governing factors in the shortage of black officers, but rather that in some ways at least circular was making impossible demands on the army's personnel system. [footnote - : df, chief of engrs to d/p&a, aug , sub: appointment of negro officers to the regular army, copy in wpgpa . ( jul ).] _discrimination and the postwar army_ training black soldiers and trying to provide them with black officers was a practical move demanded by the army's new race policy. at the same time, often with reluctance and only after considerable pressure had been brought to bear, the army also began to attack certain practices that discriminated against the black soldier. one was the arbitrary location of training camps after the war. in november , for example, the army ground forces reorganized its training centers for the army, placing them at six installations: fort dix, new jersey; fort bragg, north carolina; fort knox, kentucky; fort jackson, south carolina; fort lewis, washington, and fort ord, california. white enlisted and reenlisted men were sent to the training centers within the geographical limits of the army area of their enlistment. because it was impossible for the army ground forces to maintain separate black training cadres of battalion size at each of the six centers, all negroes, except those slated for service in the army air forces, were sent to fort jackson.[ - ] [footnote - : wd memo - - , nov , sub: flow of enlisted personnel from induction centers and central examining stations.] the gillem board had called for the assignment of negroes to localities where community attitudes were favorable, and marcus ray protested the ground forces action. "it is in effect a restatement of policy and ... has implications which will affect adversely the relationship of the army and our negro manpower potential.... i am certain that this ruling will have the immediate effect of crystallizing negro objections to the enlistment of qualified men and also universal military training."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, marcus ray for asw, jan , asw . .] ray reminded assistant secretary of war petersen that the fort jackson area had been the scene of many racial disturbances since and that an increase in the black troop population would only intensify the hostile community attitude. he wanted to substitute fort dix and fort ord for fort jackson. he also had another suggestion: why not assign black training companies to white battalions, especially in those training centers that drew their populations from northern, eastern, and western communities? petersen ignored for the time being ray's suggestion for composite training groups, but he readily agreed on training black soldiers at more congenial posts, particularly after ray's views were aired in the black press. petersen also urged the deputy chief of staff to (p.  ) coordinate staff actions with ray whenever instructions dealing with race relations in the army were being prepared.[ - ] at the same time, secretary of war patterson assured walter white of the naacp, who had also protested sending negroes to fort jackson, that the matter was under study.[ - ] within a matter of months negroes entering the army from civilian life were receiving their training at fort dix and fort ord. [footnote - : memo, asw for dcofs, feb , asw . .] [footnote - : ltr, sw robert p. patterson to walter white, feb , sw . .] turning its back on the overt racism of some southern communities, the army unwittingly exposed an example of racism in the west. the plan to train negroes at fort ord aroused the combined opposition of the citizens around monterey bay, who complained to senator william f. knowland that theirs was a tourist area unable to absorb thousands of black trainees "without serious threat of racial conflict." the army reacted with forthright resistance. negroes would be trained at fort ord, and the secretary of the army would be glad to explain the situation and cooperate with the local citizenry.[ - ] [footnote - : telg, hugh f. dormody, mayor of monterey, calif., et al., to sen. william f. knowland, jul ; ltr, sa to sen. knowland, may ; both in csusa . negroes ( aug ).] on the recommendation of the civilian aide, the assistant secretary of war introduced another racial reform in january that removed racial designations from overseas travel orders and authorizations issued to dependents and war department civilian employees.[ - ] the order was strongly opposed by some members of the army staff and had to be repeated by the secretary of the army in .[ - ] branding racial designations on travel orders a "continuous source of embarrassment" to the army, secretary frank pace, jr., sought to include all travel orders in the prohibition, but the army staff persuaded him it was unwise. while the staff agreed that orders involving travel between reception centers and training organizations need not designate race, it convinced the secretary that to abolish such designations on other orders, including overseas assignment documents, would adversely affect strength and accounting procedures as well as overseas replacement systems.[ - ] the modest reform continued in effect until the question of racial designation became a major issue in the 's. [footnote - : ag memo for office of sw et al., jan , sub: designation of race on overseas travel orders, agao-c . ( jan ), wdgsp; memo for rcd attached to memo, d/ssp for tag, jan , same sub, ag . ( jan ).] [footnote - : memo, sa for cofsa, apr , sub: racial designations on travel orders, cs . ( apr ).] [footnote - : g- summary sheet, apr , sub: racial designations on travel orders; memo, cofs for sa, may , same sub; both in cs . ( apr ).] not all the reforms that followed the gillem board's deliberations were so quickly adopted. for in truth the army was not the monolithic institution so often depicted by its critics, and its racial directives usually came out of compromises between the progressive and traditional factions of the staff. the integration of the national cemeteries, an emotion-laden issue in , amply demonstrated that sharp differences of opinion existed within the department. although long-standing regulations provided for segregation by rank only, local custom, and in one case--the long island national cemetery--a order by secretary of war george h. dern, dictated racial (p.  ) segregation in most of the cemeteries. the quartermaster general reviewed the practice in and recommended a new policy specifically opening new sections of all national cemeteries to eligible citizens of all races. he would leave undisturbed segregated grave sites in the older sections of the cemeteries because integration would "constitute a breach of faith with the next of kin of those now interred."[ - ] as might be expected, general paul supported the quartermaster suggestion, as did the commander of the army ground forces. the army air forces commander, on the other hand, opposed integrating the cemeteries, as did the chief of staff, who on february rejected the proposal. the existing policy was reconfirmed by the under secretary of war three days later, and there the matter rested.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, qmg for dcofs, apr , csusa, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : wdsp summary sheet, jan , sub: staff study--segregation of grave sites, wdgsp/c .] not for long, for civil rights spokesmen and the black press soon protested. the naacp confessed itself "astonished" at the army's decision and demanded that secretary patterson change a practice that was both "un-american and un-democratic."[ - ] marcus ray predicted that continuing agitation would require further army action, and he reminded under secretary royall that cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the navy, veterans administration, and department of the interior had been integrated with considerable publicity. he urged adoption of the quartermaster general's recommendation.[ - ] that was enough for secretary patterson. on april he directed that the new sections of national cemeteries be integrated.[ - ] [footnote - : telg, secy veterans affairs, naacp, to sw, attached to memo, sw for dcofs, apr , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, civilian aide for usw, mar , sub: segregation in grave site assignment, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, sw for dcofs, apr , copy in cmh. the secretary's directive was incorporated in the _national cemetery regulations_, august , and army regulation - , october .] it was a hollow victory for the reformers because the traditionalists were able to cling to the secretary's proviso that old sections of the cemeteries be left alone, and the army continued to gather its dead in segregation and in bitter criticism. five months after the secretary's directive, the american legion protested to the secretary of war over segregation at the fort snelling national cemetery, minnesota, and in august the governor's interracial commission of the state of minnesota carried the matter to the president, calling the policy "a flagrant disregard of human dignity."[ - ] the army continued to justify segregation as a temporary and limited measure involving the old sections, but a decade after the directive the commander of the atlanta depot was still referring to segregation in some cemeteries.[ - ] the controversial practice would drag on into the next decade before the department of defense finally ruled that there would be no lines drawn by rank or race in national cemeteries. [footnote - : ltr, royall to rep. edward j. devitt of minnesota, sep ; ltr, clifford rucker to the president, aug ; both in sw . .] [footnote - : ltr, cg, atlanta depot, to dqmg, mar , mgme-p. see also memo, asa (m&rf) for cofs, sep , sub: segregation of national cemeteries; df, qmf to g- , oct , same sub; both in cs ( sep ).] an attempt to educate the rank and file in the army's racial (p.  ) policy met some opposition in the army staff. at general paul's request, the information and education division prepared a pamphlet intended to improve race relations through troop indoctrination.[ - ] _army talk _, published on april , was, like its world war ii predecessors, _command of negro troops_ and _the negro soldier_, progressive for the times. while it stressed the reforms projected in the army's policy, including eventual integration, it also clearly defended the army's continued insistence on segregation on the grounds that segregation promoted interracial harmony. the official position of the service was baldly stated. "the army is not an instrument of social reform. its interest in matters of race is confined to considerations of its own effectiveness." [footnote - : memo, d/p&a for cofs, feb , sub: army talks on "utilization of negro manpower," wdgpa . ( jan ).] even before publication the pamphlet provoked considerable discussion and soul-searching in the army staff. the deputy chief of staff, lt. gen. thomas t. handy, questioned some of the information and education division's claims for black combatants. in the end the matter had to be taken to general eisenhower for resolution. he ordered publication, reminding local commanders that if necessary they should add further instructions of their own, "in keeping with the local situation" to insure acceptance of the army's policy. the pamphlet was not to be considered an end in itself, he added, but only one element in a "progressive process toward maximum utilization of manpower in the army."[ - ] [footnote - : wd cir , mar ; see also ltrs, col david lane (author of _army talk _) to martin blumenson, dec , and to author, mar , cmh files.] _segregation in theory and practice_ efforts to carry out the policy set forth in circular reached a high-water mark in mid- . by then black troops, for so long limited to a few job categories, could be found in a majority of military occupational fields. the officer corps was open to all without the restrictions of a racial quota, and while a quota for enlisted men still existed all racial distinctions in standards of enlistment were gone. the army was replacing white officers in black units with negroes as fast as qualified black replacements became available. and more were qualifying every day. by june the army had almost , black commissioned officers, warrant officers, and nurses serving with over , enlisted men and women.[ - ] [footnote - : stm- , strength of the army, jul . for an optimistic report on the execution of circular , see _annual report of the secretary of the army, _ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - , , .] but here, in the eyes of the army's critics, was the rub: after three years of racial reform segregation not only remained but had been perfected. no longer would the army be plagued with the vast all-black divisions that had segregated thousands of negroes in an admittedly inefficient and often embarrassing manner. instead, negroes would be segregated in more easily managed hundreds. by limiting (p.  ) integration to the battalion level (the lowest self-sustaining unit in the army system), the army could guarantee the separation of the races in eating, sleeping, and general social matters and still hope to escape some of the obvious discrimination of separate units by making the black battalions organic elements of larger white units. the army's scheme did not work. schooling and specialty occupations aside, segregation quite obviously remained the essential fact of military life and social intercourse for the majority of black soldiers, and all the evidence of reasonable and genuine reform that came about under the gillem board policy went aglimmering. the army was in for some rough years with its critics. but why were the army's senior officers, experienced leaders at the pinnacle of their careers and dedicated to the well-being of the institution they served, so reluctant to part with segregation? why did they cling to an institution abandoned by the navy and the air force,[ - ] the target of the civil rights movement and its allies in congress, and by any reasonable judgment so costly in terms of efficient organization? the answers lie in the reasoned defense of their position developed by these men during the long controversy over the use of black troops and so often presented in public statements and documents.[ - ] arguments for continued segregation fell into four general categories. [footnote - : the air force became a separate service on september .] [footnote - : unless otherwise noted, the following paragraphs are based on nichols' interviews in with generals eisenhower, bradley, and lee and with lt. col. steve davis (a black officer assigned to the p&a division during the gillem board period); author's interview with general wade h. haislip, mar , and with general j. lawton collins, apr ; all in cmh files; and u.s. congress, senate, hearings before the u.s. senate committee on _armed services, universal military training_, th cong., d sess., , pp. - . see also morris janowitz, _the professional soldier: a social and political portrait_ (new york: free press, ), pp. ff.] first, segregation was necessary to preserve the internal stability of the army. prejudice was a condition of american society, general of the army dwight d. eisenhower told a senate committee in , and the army "is merely one of the mirrors that holds up to our faces the united states of america." since society separated the races, it followed that if the army allowed black and white soldiers to live and socialize together it ran the very real risk of riots and racial disturbances which could disrupt its vital functions. remembering the contribution of black platoons to the war in europe, general eisenhower, for his part, was willing to accept the risk and integrate the races by platoons, believing that the social problems "can be handled," particularly on the large posts. nevertheless he made no move toward integrating by platoons while he was chief of staff. later he explained that the possibility of applying this lesson [world war ii integration of negro platoons] to the peacetime army came up again and again. objection involved primarily the social side of the soldier's life. it was argued that through integration we would get into all kinds of difficulty in staging soldiers' dances and other social events. at that time we were primarily occupied in responding to america's determination "to get the soldiers home"--so, as i recall, little progress toward integration was made during that period.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dde to gen bruce clarke (commander of the d constabulary brigade when it was integrated in ), may , copy in cmh.] [illustration: inspection by the chief of staff. _general dwight d. eisenhower talks with a soldier of the th combat team motor pool during a tour of fort benning, georgia, ._] "liquor and women," lt. gen. john c. h. lee pronounced, were the (p.  ) major ingredients of racial turmoil in the army. although general lee had been a prime mover in the wartime integration of combat platoons, he wanted the army to avoid social integration because of the disturbances he believed would attend it. as general omar n. bradley saw it, the army could integrate its training programs but not the soldier's social life. hope of progress would be destroyed if integration was pushed too fast. bradley summed up his postwar attitude very simply: "i said let's go easy--as fast as we can." second, segregation was an efficient way to isolate the poorly educated and undertrained black soldier, especially one with a combat occupational specialty. to integrate negroes into white combat units, already dangerously understrength, would threaten the army's fighting ability. when he was chief of staff, eisenhower thought many of the problems associated with black soldiers, problems of morale, health, and discipline, were problems of education, and that the negro was capable of change. "i believe," he said, "that a negro can improve his standing and his social standing and his respect for certain of the standards that we observe, just as well as we can." lt. gen. wade h. haislip, the deputy chief of staff for administration, concluded that the army's racial mission was education. all that circular meant, he explained, "was that we had to begin educating the negro soldiers so they could be mixed sometime in the future." bradley observed in agreement that "as you begin to get better educated negroes in the service," there is "more reason to integrate." the army was pledged to accept negroes and to give them a wide choice of assignment, but until their education and training improved they had to be isolated. third, segregation was the only way to provide equal treatment and opportunity for black troops. defending this paternalistic argument, eisenhower told the senate: in general, the negro is less well educated ... and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every company the negro is going to be relegated to the minor jobs, and he is never going to get his promotion to such grades as technical sergeant, master sergeant, and so on, because the competition is too tough. if, on the other hand, he is in (p.  ) smaller units of his own, he can go up to that rate, and i believe he is entitled to the chance to show his own wares. fourth, segregation was necessary because segments of american society with powerful representatives in congress were violently opposed to mixing the races. bradley explained that integration was part of social evolution, and he was afraid that the army might move too fast for certain sections of the country. "i thought in that they were ready in the north," he added, "but not in the south." the south "learned over the years that mixing the races was a vast problem." bradley continued, "so any change in the army would be a big step in the south." general haislip reasoned, you "just can't do it all of a sudden." as for the influence of those opposed to maintaining the army's social _status quo_, haislip, who was the vice chief of staff during part of the gillem board period, recalled that "everybody was floundering around, trying to find the right thing to do. i didn't lose any sleep over it [charges of discrimination]." general eisenhower, as he did so often during his career, accurately distilled the thinking of his associates: i believe that the human race may finally grow up to the point where it [race relations] will not be a problem. it [the race problem] will disappear through education, through mutual respect, and so on. but i do believe that if we attempt merely by passing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble. on the other hand, i do not by any means hold out for this extreme segregation as i said when i first joined the army years ago. these arguments might be specious, as a white house committee would later demonstrate, but they were not necessarily guileful, for they were the heartfelt opinions of many of the army's leaders, opinions shared by officials of the other services. these men were probably blind to the racism implicit in their policies, a racism nurtured by military tradition. education and environment had fostered in these career officers a reverence for tradition. why should the army, these traditionalists might ask, abandon its black units, some with histories stretching back almost a century? why should the ordered social life of the army post, for so long a mirror of the segregated society of most civilian communities, be so uncomfortably changed? the fact that integration had never really been tried before made it fraught with peril, and all the forces of military tradition conspired to support the old ways. what had gone unnoticed by army planners was the subtle change in the attitude of the white enlisted man toward integration. opinion surveys were rare in an institution dedicated to the concept of military discipline, but nevertheless in the five years following the war several surveys were made of the racial views of white troops (the views of black soldiers were ignored, probably on the assumption that all negroes favored integration). in , just as the gillem board policy was being enunciated, the army staff found enlisted men in substantial agreement on segregation. although most of those surveyed supported the expanded use of negroes in the army, an overwhelming majority voted for the principle of having racially separate working and living arrangements. yet the pollsters found much less opposition to integration when they put their questions on a personal basis--"how do _you_ feel about...?" only southerners as a group registered a clear majority for segregated working conditions. the survey also (p.  ) revealed another encouraging portent: most of the opposition to integration existed among older and less educated men.[ - ] [footnote - : the survey is contained in cinfo, "supplementary rpt on attitudes of whites toward serving with negro em," incl to memo, col charles s. johnson, exec off, cofs, for dcofs, may , sub: segregation in the army, csusa . negroes ( may ).] [illustration: general davis.] three years later the secretary of defense sponsored another survey of enlisted opinion on segregation. this time less than a third of those questioned were opposed to integrated working conditions and some percent were not "definitely opposed" to complete integration of both working and living arrangements. again men from all areas tended to endorse integration as their educational level rose; opposition, on the other hand, centered in among the chronic complainers and those who had never worked with negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : armed forces i&e div, osd, rpt no. , "morale attitudes of enlisted men, may-june ," pt. ii, attitude toward integration of negro soldiers in the army, copy in cmh.] in discussing prejudice and discrimination it is necessary to compare the army with the rest of american society. examining the question of race relations in the army runs the risk of distorting the importance given the subject by the nation as a whole in the postwar period. while resistance to segregation was undoubtedly growing in the black community and among an increasing number of progressives in the white community, there was as yet no widespread awareness of the problem and certainly no concerted public effort to end it. this lack of perception might be particularly justified in the case of army officers, for few of them had any experience with black soldiers and most undoubtedly were not given to wide reading and reflecting on the subject of race relations. moreover, the realities of military life tended to insulate army officers from the main currents of american society. frequently transferred and therefore without roots in the civilian community, isolated for years at a time in overseas assignments, their social life often centered in the military garrison, officers might well have been less aware of racial discrimination. perhaps because of the insulation imposed on officers by their duties, the army's leaders were achieving reforms far beyond those accepted elsewhere in american society. few national organizations and industries could match the army in for the number of negroes employed, the breadth of responsibility given them, and the variety of their training and occupations. looked at in this light, the (p.  ) army of and the men who led it could with considerable justification be classed as a progressive force in the fight for racial justice. _segregation: an assessment_ the gap between the army's stated goal of integration and its continuing practices had grown so noticeable in , a presidential election year, that most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the press had become disillusioned with army reforms. benjamin o. davis, still the army's senior black officer and still after eight years a brigadier general, called the army staff's attention to the shift in attitude. most had greeted publication of circular as "the dawn of a new day for the colored soldier"--general davis's words--and looked forward to the gradual eradication of segregation. but army practices in subsequent months had brought disappointment, he warned the under secretary, and the black press had become "restless and impatient." he wanted the army staff to give "definite expression of the desire of the department of national defense for the elimination of all forms of discrimination-segregation from the armed services."[ - ] the suggestion was disapproved. general paul explained that the army could not make such a policy statement since circular permitted segregated units and a quota that by its nature discriminated at least in terms of numbers of negroes assigned.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, brig gen b. o. davis, sp asst to sa, for under sa, jan , sub: negro utilization in the postwar army, wdgpa - ; ibid., nov ; both in sa files. the quotations are from the latter document.] [footnote - : memo, d/p&a for under sa, apr , sub: negro utilization in the postwar army, wdgpa . .] in february the chief of information tried to counter criticism by asking personnel and administrative officials to collect favorable opinions from prominent civilians, "particularly negroes and sociologists." but this antidote to public criticism failed because, as the deputy personnel director had to admit, "the division does not have knowledge of any expressed favorable opinion either of individuals or organizations, reference our negro policy."[ - ] [footnote - : df's, cinfo to d/p&a, feb , and dep d/p&a to cinfo, feb ; both in wdgpa . ( feb ).] a constant concern because it marred the army's public image, segregation also had a profound effect on the performance and well-being of the black soldier. this effect was difficult to measure but nevertheless real and has been the subject of considerable study by social scientists.[ - ] their opinions are obviously open to debate, and in fact most of them were not fully formulated during the period under discussion. yet their conclusions, based on modern sociological techniques, clearly reveal the pain and turmoil suffered by black soldiers because of racial separation. rarely did the army staff bother to delve into these matters in the years before korea, (p.  ) although the facts on which the scientists based their conclusions were collected by the war department itself. this indifference is the more curious because the army had always been aware of what the war department policies and programs review board called in "that intangible aspect of military life called prestige and spirit."[ - ] [footnote - : for a detailed discussion of this point, see mandelbaum, _soldier groups and negro soldiers_; stouffer et al., _the american soldier: adjustment during army life_, ch. xii; eli ginzberg, _the negro potential_ (new york: columbia university press, ); ginzberg et al., _the ineffective soldier_, vol. iii, _patterns of performance_ (new york: columbia university press, ); _to secure these rights: the report of the president's committee on civil rights_ (washington: government printing office, ); dollard and young, "in the armed forces."] [footnote - : final rpt, wd policies and programs review board, aug , csusa files.] burdened with the task of shoring up its racial policy, the army staff failed to concern itself with the effect of segregation. yet by ignoring segregation the staff overlooked the primary cause of its racial problems and condemned the army to their continuation. it need not have been, because as originally conceived, the gillem board policy provided, in the words of the assistant secretary of war, for "progressive experimentation" leading to "effective manpower utilization without regard to race or color."[ - ] this reasonable approach to a complex social issue was recognized as such by the war department and by many black spokesmen. but the gillem board's original goal was soon abandoned, and in the "interest of national defense," according to secretary royall, integration was postponed for the indefinite future.[ - ] extension of individual integration below the company level was forbidden, and the lessons learned at the kitzingen training center were never applied elsewhere; in short, progressive experimentation was abandoned. [footnote - : ltr, howard c. petersen, asw, to william m. taylor, may , asw . .] [footnote - : department of national defense, "national defense conference on negro affairs," apr , morning session, p. .] the gillem board era began with secretary patterson accepting the theory of racially separate but equal service as an anodyne for temporary segregation; it ended with secretary royall embracing a permanent separate but equal system as a shield to protect the racial _status quo_. while patterson and his assistants accepted restriction on the number of negroes and their assignment to segregated jobs and facilities as a temporary expedient, military subordinates used the gillem board's reforms as a way to make more efficient a segregation policy that neither they nor, they believed, society in general was willing to change. thus, despite some real progress on the periphery of its racial problem, the army would have to face the enemy in korea with an inefficient organization of its men. the army's postwar policy was based on a false premise. the gillem board decided that since negroes had fought poorly in segregated divisions in two world wars, they might fight better in smaller segregated organizations within larger white units. few officers really believed this, for it was commonly accepted throughout the army that negroes generally made poor combat soldiers. it followed then that the size of a unit was immaterial, and indeed, given the manpower that the army received from reenlistments and selective service, any black unit, no matter its size, would almost assuredly be an inefficient, spiritless group of predominately class iv and v men. for in addition to its educational limitations, the typical black unit suffered a further handicap in the vital matter of motivation. the gillem board disregarded this fact, but it was rarely overlooked by the black soldier: he was called upon to serve as a second-class (p.  ) soldier to defend what he often regarded as his second-class citizenship. in place of unsatisfactory black divisions, circular made the army substitute three unsatisfactorily mixed divisions whose black elements were of questionable efficiency and a focus of complaint among civil rights advocates. commanders at all levels faced a dilemma implicit in the existence of white and black armies side by side. overwhelmed by regulations and policies that tried to preserve the fiction of separate but equal opportunity, these officers wasted their time and energy and, most often in the case of black officers, lost their self-confidence. in calling for the integration of small black units rather than individuals, the gillem board obviously had in mind the remarkably effective black platoons in europe in the last months of world war ii. but even this type of organization was impossible in the postwar army because it demanded a degree of integration that key commanders, especially the major army component commanders, were unwilling to accept. these real problems were intensified by the normal human failings of prejudice, vested interest, well-meaning ignorance, conditioned upbringing, shortsightedness, preoccupation with other matters, and simple reluctance to change. the old ways were comfortable, and the new untried, frightening in their implications and demanding special effort. nowhere was there enthusiasm for the positive measures needed to implement the gillem board's recommendations leading to integration. this unwillingness to act positively was particularly noticeable in the organization and training division, in the army ground forces, and even to some extent in the personnel and administration division itself. the situation might have improved had the gillem board been able or willing to spell out intermediate goals. for the ultimate objective of using black soldiers like white soldiers as individuals was inconceivable and meaningless or radical and frightening to many in the army. interim goals might have provided impetus for gradual change and precluded the virtual inertia that gripped the army staff. but at best circular served as a stopgap measure, allowing the army to postpone for a few more years any substantial change in race policy. this postponement cost the service untold time and effort devising and defending a system increasingly under attack from the black community and, significantly, from that community's growing allies in the administration. chapter (p.  ) the postwar navy that army concerns and problems dominated the discussions of race relations in the armed forces in the postwar years is understandable since the army had the largest number of negroes and the most widely publicized segregation policy of all the services. at the same time the army bore, unfairly, the brunt of public criticism for all the services' race problems. the navy, committed to a policy of integration, but with relatively few negroes in its integrated general service or in the ranks of the segregated marine corps and the new air force, its racial policy still fluid, merely attracted less attention and so escaped many of the charges hurled at the army by civil rights advocates both in and out of the federal government. but however different or unformed their racial policies, all the services for the most part segregated negroes in practice and all were open to charges of discrimination. although the services developed different racial policies out of their separate circumstances, all three were reacting to the same set of social forces and all three suffered from race prejudice. they also faced in common a growing indifference to military careers on the part of talented young negroes who in any case would have to compete with an aging but persistent group of less talented black professionals for a limited number of jobs. of great importance was the fact that the racial practices of the armed forces were a product of the individual service's military traditions. countless incidents support the contention that service traditions were a transcendent factor in military decisions. marx leva, forrestal's assistant, told the story of a forrestal subordinate who complained that some admirals were still opposed to naval aviation, to which forrestal replied that he knew some admirals who still opposed steam engines.[ - ] forrestal's humorous exaggeration underscored the tenacity of traditional attitudes in the navy. although self-interest could never be discounted as a motive, tradition also figured prominently, for example, in the controversy between proponents of the battleship and proponents of the aircraft carrier. certainly the influence of tradition could be discerned in the antipathy of navy officials toward racial change.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, lee nichols with marx leva, , in nichols collection, cmh.] [footnote - : on the survival of traditional attitudes in the navy, see karsten, _naval aristocracy_, ch. v; waldo h. heinricks, jr., "the role of the u.s. navy," in dorothy borg and shumpei okamoto, eds., _pearl harbor as history_ (new york: columbia university press, ); david rosenberg, "arleigh burke and officer development in the inter-war navy," _pacific historical review_ (november ).] the army also had its problems with tradition. it endured tremendous inner conflict before it decided to drop the cavalry in favor of mechanized and armored units. nor did the resistance to armor die quickly. former chief of staff peyton c. march reported that a (p.  ) previous chief of cavalry told him in that the army had betrayed the horse.[ - ] president roosevelt was also a witness to how military tradition frustrated attempts to change policy. he picked his beloved navy to make the point: "to change anything in the na-a-vy is like punching a feather bed. you punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted, and then you find the damn bed just as it was before you started punching."[ - ] many senior officers resisted equal treatment and opportunity simply because of their traditional belief that negroes needed special treatment and any basic change in their status was fraught with danger.[ - ] [footnote - : edward m. coffman, _the hilt of the sword_ (madison: university of wisconsin press, ), p. .] [footnote - : quoted in marriner s. eccles, _beckoning frontiers: public and personal recollections_, ed. sidney hyman (new york: knopf, ), p. .] [footnote - : the influence of tradition on naval racial practices was raised during the hearings of the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, january , pages - , - .] still, tradition could work two ways, and in the case of the navy, at least, the postwar decision to liberalize racial practices can be traced in part to its sense of tradition. when james forrestal started to integrate the general service in , his appeals to his senior military colleagues, the president, and the public were always couched in terms of military efficiency. but if military efficiency made the new policy announced in february inevitable, military tradition made partial integration acceptable. black sailors had served in significant numbers in an integrated general service during the nation's first century and a half, and those in the world war ii period who spoke of a traditional navy ban against negroes were just as wrong as those who spoke of a traditional ban on liquor. the same abstemious secretary who completely outlawed alcohol on warships in initiated the short-lived restrictions on the service of negroes in the navy.[ - ] both limited integration and liquor were old traditions in the american navy, and the influence of military tradition made integration of the general service relatively simple. [footnote - : secnav (josephus daniels) general order , jul . alcohol had been outlawed for enlisted men at sea by secretary john d. long more than a decade earlier. the prohibition rule infuriated the officers. one predicted that the ruling would push officers into "the use of cocaine and other dangerous drugs." quoted in ronald spector, _admiral of the new empire_ (baton rouge: university of louisiana press, ), pp. - .] forrestal was convinced that in order to succeed racial reform must first be accepted by the men already in uniform; integration, if quietly and gradually put into effect, would soon demonstrate its efficiency and make the change acceptable to all members of the service. quiet gradualism became the hallmark of his effort. in august the navy had some , negroes, almost . percent of its total strength. sixty-four of them, including six women, were commissioned officers.[ - ] presumably, these men and women would be the first to enjoy the fruits of the new integration order. their number could also be expected to increase because, as secretary forrestal reported in august , the only quotas on enlistment were those determined by the needs of the navy and the limitation of (p.  ) funds.[ - ] even as he spoke, at least some black sailors were being trained in almost all naval ratings and were serving throughout the fleet, on planes and in submarines, working and living with whites. the signs pointed to a new day for negroes in the navy. [footnote - : unless otherwise noted the statistical information used in this section was supplied by the office, assistant chief for management information, bupers. see also bupers, "enlisted strength--u.s. navy," jul , pers -bl, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to harvard chapter, avc, aug , p - mm genrecsnav.] [illustration: shore leave in korea. _men of the uss topeka land in inch'on, ._] but during the chaotic months of demobilization a different picture began to emerge. although negroes continued to number about percent of the navy's enlisted strength, their position altered radically. the average strength figures for showed , negroes, percent of the total black strength, serving in the integrated general service while , , or percent, were classified as stewards. by mid- the outlook was somewhat brighter, but still on the average only percent of the negroes in the navy held jobs in the general service while percent remained in the nonwhite steward's branch. at this time only three black officers remained on active duty. again, what navy officials saw as military efficiency helps explain this postwar retreat. because of its rapidly sinking manpower needs, the navy could afford to set higher enlistment standards than the army, and the fewer available spaces in the general service went overwhelmingly to the many more eligible whites who applied. only in the steward's branch, with its separate quotas and lower enlistment standards, did the (p.  ) navy find a place for the many black enlistees as well as the thousands of stewards ready and willing to reenlist for peacetime service. if efficiency explains why the navy's general service remained disproportionately white, tradition explains how segregation and racial exclusion could coexist with integration in an organization that had so recently announced a progressive racial policy. along with its tradition of an integrated general service, the navy had a tradition of a white officer corps. it was natural for the navy to exclude black officers from the regular navy, secretary john l. sullivan said later, just as it was common to place negroes in mess jobs.[ - ] a _modus vivendi_ could be seen emerging from the twin dictates of efficiency and tradition: integrate a few thousand black sailors throughout the general service in fulfillment of the letter of the bureau of naval personnel circular; as for the nonwhite steward's branch and the lack of black officers, these conditions were ordinary and socially comfortable. since most navy leaders agreed that the new policy was fair and practical, no further changes seemed necessary in the absence of a pressing military need or a demand from the white house or congress. [footnote - : interv, nichols with secretary john l. sullivan, dec , in nichols collection, cmh. sullivan succeeded james forrestal as secretary on september .] to black publicists and other advocates of civil rights, the navy's postwar manpower statistics were self-explanatory: the navy was discriminating against the negro. time and again the navy responded to this charge, echoing secretary forrestal's contention that the navy had no racial quotas and that all restrictions on the employment of black sailors had been lifted. as if suggesting that all racial distinctions had been abandoned, personnel officials discontinued publishing racial statistics and abolished the special programs unit.[ - ] cynics might have ascribed other motives for these decisions, but the civil rights forces apparently never bothered. for the most part they left the navy's apologists to struggle with the increasingly difficult task of explaining why the placement of negroes deviated so markedly from assignment for whites. [footnote - : the bupers progress report (pers ), the major statistical publication of the department, terminated its statistical breakdown by race in march . the navy's racial affairs office was closed in june . see bupers, "narrative of bureau of naval personnel, september to october " (hereafter "bupers narrative"), : .] the navy's difficulty in this regard stemmed from the fact that the demobilization program under which it geared down from a . million-man service to a peacetime force of less than half a million was quite straightforward and simple. consequently, the latest state of the negro in the navy was readily apparent to the black serviceman and to the public. the key to service in the postwar navy was acceptance into the regular navy. the wartime navy had been composed overwhelmingly of reservists and inductees, and shortly after v-j day the navy announced plans for the orderly separation of all reservists by september . in april it discontinued volunteer enlistment in the naval reserve for immediate active duty, and in may it (p.  ) issued its last call for draftees through selective service.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., p. ; selective service system, _special groups_ (monograph ), : . between september and may the navy drafted , men, including , negroes.] at the same time the bureau of naval personnel launched a vigorous program to induce reservists to switch to the regular navy. in october it opened all petty officer ratings in the regular navy to such transfers and offered reservists special inducements for changeover in the form of ratings, allowance extras, and, temporarily, short-term enlistments. so successful was the program that by july the strength of the regular navy had climbed to , , only a few thousand short of the postwar authorization. the navy ended its changeover program in early .[ - ] while it lasted, black reservists and inductees shared in the program, although the chief of the personnel recruiting division found it necessary to amplify the recruiting instructions to make this point clear.[ - ] the regular navy included , enlisted negroes on v-j day, . percent of the total enlisted strength. this figure nearly tripled in the next year to , , although the percentage of negroes only doubled.[ - ] [footnote - : "bupers narrative," : , ; see also bupers cir ltr - , feb .] [footnote - : see ltr, chief, navpers, to co, naval barracks, nad, seal beach, calif., oct , sub: eligibility of negroes for enlistment in usn, p mm, bupersrecs; recruiting dir, bupers, directive to recruiting officers, jan , quoted in nelson, "integration of the negro," p. .] [footnote - : bupers, "enlisted strength--u.s. navy," jul , pers -bl.] _the steward's branch_ the major concern of the civil rights groups was not so much the number of negroes in the regular navy, although this remained far below the proportion of negroes in the civilian population, but that the majority of negroes were being accepted for duty in the nonwhite steward's branch. more than percent of all black sailors in the regular navy in december were in this branch. the ratio improved somewhat in the next six months when , black general service personnel (out of a wartime high of , ) transferred into the regular navy while more than , black reservists and draftees joined the , regulars already in the steward's branch.[ - ] the statistical low point in terms of the ratio of negroes in the postwar regular general service and the steward's branch occurred in fiscal year when only . percent of the navy's regular black personnel were assigned outside the steward's branch.[ - ] in short, more than eight out of every ten negroes in the navy trained and worked separately from white sailors, performing menial tasks and led by noncommissioned officers denied the perquisites of rank. [footnote - : memo, dir of planning and control, bupers, for chief, navpers (ca. jan ), sub: negro personnel, pers b, bupersrecs.] [footnote - : bupers, memo on discrimination of the negro, jan . filed in bupers technical library.] the navy itself had reason to be concerned. the steward's branch created efficiency problems and was a constant source of embarrassment to the service's public image. because of its low standards, the branch attracted thousands of poorly educated and underprivileged individuals who had a high rate of venereal disease but were (p.  ) engaged in preparing and serving food. leaders within the branch itself, although selected on the basis of recommendations from superiors, examinations, and seniority, were often poor performers. relations between the individual steward and the outfit to which he was assigned were often marked by personal conflicts and other difficulties. consequently, while stewards eagerly joined the branch in the regular navy, the incidence of disciplinary problems among them was high. the branch naturally earned the opprobrium of civil rights groups, who were sensitive not only to the discrimination of a separate branch for minorities but also to the unfavorable image these men created of negroes in the service.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, lt dennis d. nelson for dep dir. pub relations. mar , sub: problems of the stewards' branch, pr - , genrecsnav. on mental standards for stewards, sec bupers cir ltr - , feb .] [illustration: mess attendants, uss bushnell, .] [illustration: mess attendants, uss wisconsin, .] the navy had a ready defense for its management of the branch. its spokesmen frequently explained that it performed an essential function, especially at sea. since this function was limited in scope, they added, the navy was able to reduce the standards for the branch, thus opening opportunities for many men otherwise ineligible to join the service. in order to offer a chance for advancement the navy had to create a separate recruiting and training system for (p.  ) stewards. this separation in turn explained the steward's usual failure to transfer to branches in the regular command channels. since there were no minimum standards for the branch, it followed that most of its noncommissioned officers remained unqualified to exercise military command over personnel other than their branch subordinates. lack of command responsibility was also present in a number of other branches not directly concerned with the operation of ships. it was not the result of race prejudice, therefore, but of standards for enlistment and types of duties performed. nor was the steward's frequent physical separation based on race; berthing was arranged by department and function aboard large vessels. separation did not exist on smaller ships. messmen were usually berthed with other men of the supply department, including bakers and storekeepers. chief stewards, however, as under secretary kimball later explained, had not been required to meet the military qualifications for chief petty officer, and therefore it was "considered improper that they should be accorded the same messing, berthing, club facilities, and other privileges reserved for the highest enlisted grade of the navy."[ - ] stewards of the lower ranks received the same chance for advancement as members of other enlisted branches, but to grant them command responsibility would necessitate raising qualifications for the whole branch, (p.  ) thus eliminating many career stewards and extending steward training to include purely military subjects.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, under secnav for congressman clyde doyle of california. aug , mm( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : for examples of the navy's official explanation of steward duties, see ltr, actg secnav to lester granger, apr , qn/mm( ), and ltr, under secnav to congressman clyde doyle of california, aug ; both in genrecsnav. see also ltr, chief, navpers, to dr. carl yaeger, oct , p - , bupersrecs, and testimony of capt fred r. stickney, bupers, and vice adm william m. fechteler, chief of naval personnel, before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services (fahy cmte), jan and mar .] there was truth in these assertions. stewards had taken advantage of relaxed regulations, flocking into the regular navy during the first months of the changeover program. many did so because they had many years invested in a naval career. some may have wanted the training and experience to be gained from messman's service. in fact, some stewards enjoyed rewarding careers in restaurant, club, and hotel work after retirement. more surprising, considering the numerous complaints about the branch from civil rights groups, the steward's branch consistently reported the highest reenlistment rate in the navy. understandably, the navy constantly reiterated these statistics. actually, the stewards themselves were a major stumbling block to reform of the branch. few of the senior men aspired to other ratings; many were reluctant to relinquish what they saw as the advantages of the messman's life. whatever its drawbacks, messman's duty proved to be a popular assignment.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, nelson to author, feb .] the navy's defense was logical, but not too convincing. technically the steward's branch was open to all, but in practice it remained strictly nonwhite. civil rights activists could point to the fact that there were six times as many illiterate whites as negroes in the wartime navy, yet none of these whites were ever assigned to the steward's branch and none transferred to that branch of the regular navy after the war.[ - ] moreover, shortly after the war the bureau of naval personnel predicted a , -man shortage in the steward's branch, but the navy made no attempt to fill the places with white sailors. instead, it opened the branch to filipinos and guamanians, recruiting , of the islanders before the program was stopped on july , the date of philippine independence. some navy recruiters found other ways to fill steward quotas. the urban league and others reported cases in which black volunteers were rejected by recruiters for any assignment but steward duty.[ - ] nor did civil rights spokesmen appreciate the distinction in petty officer rank the navy made between the steward and other sailors; they continued to interpret it as part and parcel of the "injustices, lack of respect and the disregard for the privileges accorded rated men in other branches of the service."[ - ] they also resented the paternalism implicit in the secretary's assurances that messman's duty was a haven for men unable to compete. [footnote - : ltr, dir, plans and oper div, bupers, to richard lueking, berea college, dec , p . , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : department of national defense, "national defense conference on racial affairs," apr , morning session, pp. - .] [footnote - : memo, lt d. d. nelson, office of public relations, for capt e. b. dexter, office of public relations, aug , sub: negro stewards, petty officer ratings, status of, pr - , genrecsnav.] some individuals in the department were aware of this resentment in the black community and pushed for reform in the steward's branch. the assistant secretary of the navy for air, john nicholas brown, (p.  ) wanted more publicity given both in and outside the service to the fact that the branch was not restricted to any one race and, conversely, that negroes were welcome in the general service.[ - ] in view of the strong tradition of racial separateness in the stewards rating, such publicity might be considered sheer sophistry, but no more so than the suggestion made by a senior personnel official that the commissary branch and steward's branch be combined to achieve a racially balanced specialty.[ - ] lester granger, now outside the official navy family but still intimately concerned with the department's racial affairs, also pleaded for a merger of the commissary and steward functions. he reasoned that, since members of the commissary branch could advance to true petty officer rating, such a merger would provide a new avenue of advancement for stewards. [footnote - : ltr, asst secnav to lester granger, apr , qn-mm ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : interv, nichols with capt george a. holderness, jr., usn, in nichols collection, cmh.] but more to the point granger also pushed for reform in the standards of the steward's branch. he recognized that educational and other requirements had been lowered for stewards, but, he told forrestal's successor, secretary john l. sullivan, there was little wisdom in "compounding past error." he also pointed out that not all messmen were in the lower intelligence classifications and recommended that the higher scoring men be replaced with low-scoring whites.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, mar , so- - - , secnav files, genrecsnav.] from within the navy itself lt. dennis d. nelson, one of the first twelve negroes commissioned and still on active duty, added his voice to the demand for reform of the steward's branch. an analogy may be drawn between the navy career of nelson and that of the legendary christopher sargent. lacking sargent's advantages of wealth and family connection, nelson nevertheless became a familiar of secretary sullivan's and, though not primarily assigned to the task, made equal opportunity his preeminent concern. a highly visible member of the navy's racial minority in washington, he made himself its spokesman, pressing senior officials to bring the department's manpower practices closer to its stated policy. once again the navy experienced the curious phenomenon of a lieutenant firing off memos and letters to senior admirals and buttonholing the secretary of the navy.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with sullivan; intervs, author with lt cmdr d. d. nelson, sep , and with james c. evans, counselor to the secdef, jan ; ltr, nelson to author, feb . all in cmh files.] nelson had a host of suggestions for the steward's branch: eliminate the branch as a racially separate division of labor in the navy, provide permanent officer supervision for all steward units, develop capable noncommissioned officers in the branch with privileges and responsibilities similar to those of other petty officers, indoctrinate all personnel in the ramifications of the navy's stated integration policy, and create a committee to work out the details of these changes. on several occasions nelson tried to show his superiors how nuances in their own behavior toward the stewards reinforced, perhaps as much as separate service itself, the image of discrimination. he recommended that the steward's uniform be changed, eliminating the white jacket and giving the steward a regular (p.  ) seaman's look. he also suggested that petty officer uniforms for stewards be regularized. at one poignant moment this lonely officer took on the whole service, trying to change singlehandedly a thoughtless habit that demeaned both blacks and whites. he admonished the service: "refrain from the use of 'boy' in addressing stewards. this has been a constant practice in the service and is most objectionable, is in bad taste, shows undue familiarity and pins a badge of inferiority, adding little to the dignity and pride of adults."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, lt nelson for capt dexter, pub rels office, aug , sub: negro stewards, petty officer ratings, status of, pr - ; idem for dep dir, off of pub relations, mar , sub: problems of the stewards' branch, pr - ; both in genrecsnav. the quotation is from the latter document.] in summing up these recommendations for the secretary of the navy in january , nelson reminded sullivan that only percent of the navy's negroes were in the general service, in contrast to percent of the negroes in the marine corps. he warned that this imbalance perturbed the members of the recently convened national defense conference on negro affairs and predicted it would interest those involved in the forthcoming presidential inquiry on equality in the armed forces.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, nelson to secnav, jan , secnav files, genrecsnav. for discussion of the presidential inquiry, see chapter .] despite its continued defense of the _status quo_ in the steward's branch, the bureau of naval personnel was not insensitive to criticism. to protect negroes from overzealous recruiters for the branch, the bureau had announced in october that any negro in the general service desiring transfer to the steward's branch had to make his request in writing.[ - ] in mid- it closed the branch to first enlistment, thereby abolishing possible abuses in the recruiting system.[ - ] later in the year the bureau tried to upgrade the quality of the branch by instituting a new and more rigorous training course for second-and third-class stewards and cooks at bainbridge, maryland. finally, in june it removed from its personnel manual all remaining mention of restrictions on the transfer of messmen to the general service.[ - ] these changes were important, but they failed to attack racial separation, the major problem of the branch. thus the controversy over messmen, in which tradition, prejudice, and necessity contended, went on, and the steward's branch, a symbol of discrimination in the navy, remained to trouble both the service and the civil rights groups for some time. [footnote - : bupers cir ltr, oct .] [footnote - : testimony of capt fred stickney at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , morning session, p. .] [footnote - : change to ankle d- , bupers manual, .] _black officers_ the navy had a racial problem of more immediate concern to men like lieutenant nelson, one of three black officers remaining on active duty. these were the survivers of a most exclusive group that had begun its existence with much hope. in the months following graduation of the first twelve black officers and one warrant officer in march , scores of negroes had passed through the navy's training school. by the end of the war the v- program had thirty-six black candidates, with three others attending the supply corps school at harvard. (p.  ) the number of black officers had grown at an agonizingly slow rate, although in june the secretary of the navy approved a personnel bureau request that in effect removed any numerical quotas for black officers. unfortunately, black officers were still limited to filling "needs as they appeared," and the need for black officers was curtailed by the restricted range of activities open to them in the segregated wartime service. further, most nominees for commissions were selected from the ranks and depended on the sponsorship of their commanding officer who might not be able to spare a competent enlisted man who deserved promotion. putting the matter in the best possible light, one navy historian blamed the dearth of black officers on bureaucratic inertia.[ - ] [footnote - : "bupers hist," pp. - , and supplement (ln), pp. - , copy in cmh. unless otherwise noted the data for this section on black officers in world war ii are from this source.] [illustration: commander nelson.] despite procurement failures and within the limitations of general segregation policy, the navy treated black officers with scrupulous fairness during the war. the bureau of naval personnel insisted they be given the privileges of rank in wardroom and ashore, thus crushing an attempt by authorities at great lakes to underwrite a tacit ban on the use of the officers' club by negroes. in fact, integration proved to be more the rule than the exception in training black officers. the small number of black candidates made segregated classes impractical, and after graduation of the first group of black officers at great lakes, negroes were accepted in all officer candidate classes. as part of this change, the special programs unit successfully integrated the navy's officer candidate school in the posh hotels of still-segregated miami beach. the officers graduated into a number of assignments. some saw duty aboard district and yard craft, others at departmental headquarters in washington. a few served in recruit training assignments at great lakes and hampton institute, but the majority went overseas to work in logistical and advanced base companies, the stevedore-type outfits composed exclusively of negroes. nelson, for example, was sent to the marshall islands where he was assigned to a logistic support company composed of some three hundred black sailors and noncommissioned officers with a racially mixed group of officers. black staff officers, engineers, doctors, dentists, and chaplains were also attached to these units, where they had limited responsibilities and little chance for advancement.[ - ] [footnote - : nelson, "integration of the negro," pp. - .] exceptions to the assignment rule increased during the last months (p.  ) of the war. the special programs unit had concluded that restricting black officers to district craft and shore billets might further encourage the tendency to build an inshore black navy, and the bureau of naval personnel began assigning black officers to seagoing vessels when they completed their sea duty training. by july several were serving in the fleet. to avoid embarrassment, the chief of naval personnel made it a practice to alert the commanding officers of a ship about to receive a black officer so that he might indoctrinate his officers. as his assistant, rear adm. william m. fechteler, explained to one such commander, "if such officers are accorded the proper respect and are required to discharge the duties commensurate with their rank they should be equally competent to white officers of similar experience."[ - ] [footnote - : "bupers hist," p. . the quotation is from ltr, chief, navpers, to co, uss _laramie_, jul , bupersrecs.] fechteler's prediction proved accurate. by v-j day, the navy's black officers, both line and staff, were serving competently in many occupations. the bureau reported that the "personnel relationship aspect" of their introduction into the service had worked well. black officers with white petty officers and enlisted men under them handled their command responsibilities without difficulty, and in general bureau reports and field inspections noted considerable satisfaction with their performance.[ - ] but despite this satisfactory record, only three black officers remained on active duty in . the promise engendered by the navy's treatment of its black officers in the closing months of the war had not been fulfilled during the demobilization period that followed, and what had been to the civil rights movement a brightening situation rapidly became an intolerable one. [footnote - : "bupers hist," p. .] there were several reasons for the rapid demobilization of black officers. some shared the popular desire of reserve officers to return to civilian life. among them were mature men with substantial academic achievements and valuable technical experience. many resented in particular their assignment to all-black labor units, and wanted to resume their civilian careers.[ - ] but a number of black officers, along with over , white reservists, did seek commissions in the regular navy.[ - ] yet not one negro was granted a regular commission in the first eighteen months after the war. lester granger was especially upset by these statistics, and in july he personally took up the case of two black candidates with secretary forrestal.[ - ] [footnote - : nelson "integration of the negro," p. .] [footnote - : alnav - , may , sub: transfer to regular navy.] [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, jul , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav. one of these applicants was nelson, then a lieutenant, who received a promotion upon assignment as commanding officer of a logistic support company in the marshall islands. the grade became permanent upon nelson's assignment to the public relations bureau in washington in .] the bureau of naval personnel offered what it considered a reasonable explanation. as a group, black reserve officers were considerably overage for their rank and were thus at a severe disadvantage in the fierce competition for regular commissions. the average age of the first class of black officers was over thirty-one years. all had been commissioned ensigns on march , and all had received one (p.  ) promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, by the end of the war. when age and rank did coincide, black reservists were considered for transfer. for example, on march ens. john lee, a former v- graduate assigned as gunnery officer aboard a fleet auxiliary craft, received a regular commission, and on january lt. (jg.) edith devoe, one of the four black nurses commissioned in march , was transferred into the regular navy. the following october ens. jessie brown was commissioned and assigned to duty as the first black navy pilot. in a sense, the black officers had the cards stacked against them. as nelson later explained, the bureau did not extend to its black line officers the same consideration given other reservists. while the first twelve black officers were given unrestricted line officer training, the bureau assigned them to restricted line positions, an added handicap when it came to promotions and retention in the postwar navy. all were commissioned ensigns, although the bureau usually granted rank according to the candidate's age, a practice followed when it commissioned its first black staff officers, one of whom became a full lieutenant and the rest lieutenants, junior grade. as an overage reservist himself, nelson remained on active duty after the war through the personal intervention of secretary forrestal. his tour in the navy's public relations office was repeatedly extended until finally on january , thanks to secretary sullivan, he received a regular commission.[ - ] [footnote - : nelson, "integration of the negro," pp. - ; ltr, nelson to author, feb ; interv, nichols with sullivan.] prospects for an increase in black officers were dim. with rare exception the navy's officers came from the academy at annapolis, the officer candidate program, or the naval reserve officers' training corps (nrotc) program. ens. wesley a. brown would graduate in the academy's class of , the sixth negro to attend and the first to graduate in the academy's -year history. only five other negroes were enrolled in the academy's student body in , and there was little indication that this number would rapidly increase. for the most part the situation was beyond the control of the bureau of naval personnel. competition was keen for acceptance at annapolis. the american civil liberties union later asserted that the exclusion of negroes from many of the private prep schools, which so often produced successful academy applicants, helped explain why there were so few negroes at the academy.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr. exec dir. aclu, to secnav, nov , genrecsnav.] nor were many black officers forthcoming from the navy's two other sources. officer candidate schools, severely reduced in size after the war and a negligible source of career officers, had no negroes in attendance from through . perhaps most disturbing was the fact that in just fourteen negroes were enrolled among more than , students in the nrotc program, the usual avenue to a regular navy commission.[ - ] the holloway program, the basis for the navy's reserve officer training system, offered scholarships at fifty-two colleges across the nation, but the number of these scholarships was small, the competition intense, and black applicants, often burdened by inferior schooling, did not fare well. [footnote - : "bupers narrative," : .] statistics pointed at least to the possibility that racial (p.  ) discrimination existed in the nrotc system. unlike the army and air force programs, reserve officer training in the navy depended to a great extent on state selection committees dominated by civilians. these committees exercised considerable leeway in selecting candidates to fill their state's annual nrotc quota, and their decisions were final. not one negro served on any of the state committees. in fact, fourteen of the fifty-two colleges selected for reserve officer training barred negroes from admission by law and others--the exact number is difficult to ascertain--by policy. one black newspaper charged that only thirteen of the participating institutions admitted negroes.[ - ] in all, only six black candidates survived this process to win commissions in . [footnote - : norfolk _journal and guide_, august , .] lester granger blamed the lack of black candidates on the fact that so few negroes attended the schools; undoubtedly, more negroes would have been enrolled in reserve officer training had the program been established at one of the predominantly black colleges. but black institutions were excluded from the wartime v- program, and when the program was extended to include fifty-two colleges in november the navy again rejected the applications of black schools, justifying the exclusion, as it did for many white schools, on grounds of inadequacies in enrollment, academic credentials, and physical facilities.[ - ] some black spokesmen called the decision discriminatory. president mordecai johnson of howard university ruefully wondered how the navy's unprejudiced and nondiscriminatory selection of fifty-two colleges managed to exclude so neatly all black institutions.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to william t. farley, chmn, civilian components policy bd, dod, mar , q , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : statement of dr. mordecai johnson at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , morning session, p. .] others disagreed. from the first the special programs unit had rejected the clamor for forming v- units in predominantly black colleges, arguing that in the long run this could be considered enforced segregation and hardly contribute to racial harmony. although candidates were supposed to attend the nrotc school of their choice, black candidates were restricted to institutions that would accept them. if a black school was added to the program, all black candidates would very likely gravitate toward it. several black spokesmen, including nelson, took this attitude and urged instead a campaign to increase the number of negroes at the various integrated schools in the nrotc system.[ - ] whatever the best solution, a significant and speedy increase in the number of black officers was unlikely. [footnote - : ltr, nelson to author, feb ; see also "bupershist," p. .] of lesser moment because of the small size of the waves and the nurse corps, the role of black women in the postwar navy nevertheless concerned several civil rights leaders. roy wilkins, for one, concluded that the navy's new policy which "hasn't worked out on the officer level ... hadn't worked on the women's level" either.[ - ] the navy's statistics seemed to proved his contention. the service had (p.  ) black enlisted women and officers (including nurses) on v-j day; a year later the number had been reduced to black waves and nurse. the navy sought to defend these statistics against charges of discrimination. a spokesman explained that the paucity of black waves resulted from the fact that negroes were barred from the waves until december , just months before the navy stopped recruiting all waves. black waves who had remained in the postwar navy had been integrated and were being employed without discrimination.[ - ] [footnote - : statement of roy wilkins at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , morning session p. .] [footnote - : testimony of stickney at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , morning session, p. .] but criticism persisted. in february the navy could count six black waves out of a total enlisted force of , , and during hearings on a bill to regularize the women's services several congressmen joined with a representative of the naacp to press for a specific anti-discrimination amendment. the amendment was defeated, but not before congressman adam clayton powell charged that the status of black women in the navy proved discrimination and demonstrated that the administration was practicing "not merely discrimination, segregation, and jim crowism, but total exclusion."[ - ] the same critics also demanded a similar amendment to the companion legislation on the wac's, but it, too, was defeated. [footnote - : u.s. congress, house, committee on armed services, subcommittee no. , organization and mobilization, _hearings on s. , to establish the women's army corps in the regular army, to authorize the enlistment and appointment of women in the regular navy and marine corps and the naval and marine corps reserve and for other purposes_, th cong., d sess., feb , pp. - , , , - . the powell quotation is on page .] black nurses presented a different problem. two of the wartime nurses had resigned to marry and the third was on inactive status attending college. the navy, secretary forrestal claimed in july , was finding it difficult to replace them or add to their number. observing that black leaders had shown considerable interest in the navy's nursing program, forrestal noted that a similar interest had not been forthcoming from black women themselves. during the navy's recruitment drive to attract , new nurses, only one negro applied, and she was disqualified on physical grounds.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to congresswoman margaret chase smith (maine), jul , og/p - , genrecsnav.] _public image and the problem of numbers_ individual black nurses no doubt had cogent reasons for failing to apply for navy commissions, but the fact that only one applied called attention to a phenomenon that first appeared about . black americans were beginning to ignore the navy. attempts by black reserve officers to procure nrotc applicants in black high schools and colleges proved largely unproductive. nelson spoke before , potential candidates in , and a special recruiting team reached an equal number the following year, but the combined effort brought fewer than ninety black applicants to take the competitive examination.[ - ] recruiters had similar problems in the enlistment of negroes (p.  ) for general service. viewed from a different perspective, even the complaints and demands of black citizens, at flood tide during the war, now merely trickled into the secretary's office, reflecting, it could be argued, a growing indifference. that such unwillingness to enlist, as lester granger put it, should occur on the heels of a widely publicized promise of racial equality in the service was ironic. the navy was beginning to welcome the negro, but the negro no longer seemed interested in joining.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, pol div, bupers, for capt william c. chapman, office of information, navy dept, sep ; memo, chief, navpers, for chief, bur of public relations, dec . qr ; both in bupersrecs.] [footnote - : see testimony of lester granger and assistant secretary brown at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , morning session, pp. - ; and memo, nelson for marx leva, may , copy in nelson archives.] [illustration: naval unit passes in review, _naval advanced base, bremerhaven, germany, _.] several reasons were suggested for this attitude. assistant secretary brown placed the blame, at least in part, on the gap between policy and practice. because of delay in abolishing old discriminatory practices, he pointed out to the deputy chief of naval operations, "the navy's good public relations are endangered."[ - ] the personnel bureau promptly investigated, found justification for complaints (p.  ) of discrimination, and took corrective action.[ - ] yet, as nelson pointed out, such corrections, often in the form of "clarifying directives," were usually directed to specific commanders and tied to specific incidents and were ignored by other commanders as inapplicable to their own racial experiences.[ - ] despite the existence of the racially separate steward's branch, the navy's policy seemed so unassailable to the chief of naval personnel that when his views on a congressional measure to abolish segregation in the services were solicited he reported without reservation that his bureau interposed no objection.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asst secnav for air for dep cno, feb , sub: racial discrimination, p - ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : see memo, chief, navpers, for co, uss _grand canyon_ (ad ), dec , sub: navy department's non discrimination policy--alleged violation of, p ; ltr, chief, navpers, to cmdt, twelfth nav dist, feb , sub: officer screening procedure and indoctrination course in the supervision of negro personnel--establishment of, pers ; both in bupersrecs.] [footnote - : memo, nelson for chief, navpers, nov , sub: complaint of navy enlisted man made to pittsburgh courier..., pr , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for jag, feb , sub: hr : to prohibit race segregation in the armed forces of the united states, genrecsnav.] the navy's major racial problem by was the shockingly small number of negroes in the service. in november , a presidential election month, negroes accounted for . percent of the navy's strength. not only were there few negroes in the navy, but there were especially too few in the general service and practically no black officers, a series of statistics that made the predominately black and separate stewards more conspicuous. the navy rejected an obvious solution, lowering recruitment standards, contending that it could not run its ships and aircraft with men who scored below ninety in the general classification test.[ - ] the alternative was to recruit among the increasing numbers of educated negroes, as the personnel bureau had been trying to do. but here, as nelson and others could report, the navy faced severe competition from other employers, and here the navy's public image had its strongest effect. [footnote - : for discussion of the problem of comparative enlistment standards, see chapter .] lt. comdr. edward hope, a black reserve officer assigned to officer procurement, concluded that the black community, especially veterans, distrusted all the services. consequently, negroes tended to disregard announced plans and policies applicable to all citizens unless they were specially labeled "for colored." negroes tried to avoid the humiliation of applying for certain rights or benefits only to be arbitrarily rejected.[ - ] compounding the suspicion and fear of humiliation, hope reported, was a genuine lack of information on navy policy that seriously limited the number of black applicants. [footnote - : ltr, lt cmdr, e. s. hope to secdef, may , with attached rpt, d - - , genrecsnav.] the cause of confusion among black students over navy policy was easy to pinpoint, for memories of the frustrations and insults suffered by black seamen during the war were still fresh. negroes remembered the labor battalions bossed by whites--much like the old plantation system, lester granger observed. unlike the army, the navy had offered few black enlisted men the chance of serving in vital jobs under black commanders. this slight, according to granger, robbed the black sailor of pride in service, a pride that could hardly be restored by the postwar image of the black sailor not as a fighting man but as a servant or laborer. always a loyal member of the navy team, (p.  ) granger was anxious to improve the navy's public image in the black community, and he and others often advanced plans for doing so.[ - ] but any discussion of image quickly foundered on one point: the navy would remain suspect in the eyes of black youth and be condemned by civil rights leaders as long as it retained that symbol of racism, the racially separate steward's branch. [footnote - : see, for example, ltr, granger to secnav, jun , - - , forrestal file, genrecsnav, and granger's extensive comments and questions at the national defense conference on negro affairs, apr .] [illustration: submariner.] here the practical need for change ran headlong into strong military tradition. an integrated general service was traditional and therefore acceptable; an integrated servants' branch was not. faced with the choice of a small number of negroes in the navy and the attendant charges of racism or a change in its traditions, the navy accepted the former. lack of interest on the part of the black community was not a particularly pressing problem for the navy in the immediate postwar years. indeed, it might well have been a source of comfort for the military traditionalists who, armed with an unassailable integration policy, could still enjoy a navy little changed from its prewar condition. nevertheless, the lack of black volunteers for general service was soon to be discussed by a presidential commission, and in the next fifteen years would become a pressing problem when the navy, the first service with a policy of integration, would find itself running behind in the race to attract minority members. chapter (p.  ) the postwar marine corps unlike the army and navy, the all-white marine corps seemed to consider the wartime enlistment of over , negroes a temporary aberration. forced by the navy's nondiscrimination policy to retain negroes after the war, marine corps officials at first decided on a black representation of some , men, roughly the same proportion as during the war. but the old tradition of racial exclusion remained strong, and this figure was soon reduced. the corps also ignored the navy's integration measures, adopting instead a pattern of segregation that marine officials claimed was a variation on the army's historic "separate but equal" black units. in fact, separation was real enough in the postwar corps; equality remained elusive. _racial quotas and assignments_ the problem was that any "separate but equal" race policy, no matter how loosely enforced, was incompatible with the corps' postwar manpower resources and mission and would conflict with its determination to restrict black units to a token number. the dramatic manpower reductions of were felt immediately in the two major elements of the marine corps. the fleet marine force, the main operating unit of the corps and usually under control of the chief of naval operations, retained three divisions, but lost a number of its combat battalions. the divisions kept a few organic and attached service and miscellaneous units. under such severe manpower restrictions, planners could not reserve one of the large organic elements of these divisions for black marines, thus leaving the smaller attached and miscellaneous units as the only place to accommodate self-contained black organizations. at first the plans and policies division decided to assign roughly half the black marines to the fleet marine force. of these some were slated for an antiaircraft artillery battalion at montford point which would provide training as well as an opportunity for negroes' overseas to be rotated home. others were placed in three combat service groups and one service depot where they would act as divisional service troops, and the rest went into slots, later increased to , for stewards, the majority in aviation units. the other half of the black marines was to be absorbed by the so called non-fleet marine force, a term used to cover training, security, and miscellaneous marine units, all noncombat, which normally remained under the control of the commandant. this part of the corps was composed of many small and usually self-contained units, but in a number of activities, particularly in the logistical establishment and the units afloat, reductions in manpower would (p.  ) necessitate considerable sharing of living and working facilities, thus making racial separation impossible. the planners decided, therefore, to limit black assignments outside the fleet marine force to naval ammunition depots at mcalester, oklahoma, and earle, new jersey, where negroes would occupy separate barracks; to guam and saipan, principally as antiaircraft artillery; and to a small training cadre at montford point. eighty stewards would also serve with units outside the fleet marine force. with the exception of the depot at earle, all these installations had been assigned negroes during the war. speaking in particular about the assignment of negroes to mcalester, the director of the plans and policies division, brig. gen. gerald c. thomas, commented that "this has proven to be a satisfactory location and type of duty for these personnel."[ - ] thomas's conception of "satisfactory" duty for negroes became the corps' rationale for its postwar assignment policy. [footnote - : memos, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, sep and oct , sub: post war personnel requirements, a - , mc files. unless otherwise noted, all the documents cited in this chapter are located in hist div, hqmc. the quotation is from the september memo.] [illustration: marine artillery team. _men of the st defense battalion in training at montford point with -mm. antiaircraft gun._] to assign negroes to unskilled jobs because they were accustomed to such duties and because the jobs were located in communities that would accept black marines might be satisfactory to marine officials, but it was considered racist by many civil rights spokesmen and left the marine corps open to charges of discrimination. the policy of tying the number of negroes to the number of available, appropriate slots also meant that the number of black marines, and consequently the acceptability of black volunteers, was subject to chronic fluctuation. more important, it permitted if not encouraged further restrictions on the use of the remaining black marines who had combat training, thereby allowing the traditionalists to press for a segregated service in which the few black marines would be mostly servants and laborers. the process of reordering the assignment of black marines began just eleven weeks after the commandant approved the staff's postwar policy recommendations. informing the commandant on january that "several changes have been made in concepts upon which such (p.  ) planning was based," general thomas explained that the requirement for antiaircraft artillery units at guam and saipan had been canceled, along with the plan for maintaining an artillery unit at montford point. because of the cancellation his division wanted to reduce the number of black marines to , . these men could be assigned to depot companies, service units, and marine barracks--all outside the fleet marine force--or they could serve as stewards. the commandant's approval of this plan reduced the number of negroes in the corps by percent, or men. coincidental with this reduction was a percent rise in spaces for black stewards to .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, g. c. thomas, div of plans and policies, for cmc, jan , sub: negro requirements, a - .] approval of this plan eliminated the last negroes from combat assignments, a fact that general thomas suggested could be justified as "consistent with similar reductions being effected elsewhere in the corps." but the facts did not support such a palliative. in june the corps had some , men serving in three antiaircraft artillery battalions and an antiaircraft artillery group headquarters. in june the corps still had white antiaircraft artillery units on guam and at camp lejeune totaling , men. the drop in numbers was explained almost entirely by the elimination of the black units.[ - ] [footnote - : usmc muster rolls of officers and enlisted men, and .] a further realignment of black assignments occurred in june when general vandegrift approved a plans and policies division decision to remove more black units from security forces at naval shore establishments. the men were reassigned to montford point with the result that the number of black training and overhead billets at that post jumped percent--a dubious decision at best considering that black specialist and recruit training was virtually at a standstill. general thomas took the occasion to advise the commandant that maintaining an arbitrary quota of black marines was no longer a consideration since a reduction in their strength could be "adequately justified" by the general manpower reductions throughout the corps.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, g. c. thomas for cmc, jun , sub: negro requirements and assignments, a - .] actually the marine corps was not as free to reduce the quota of , negroes as general thomas suggested. to make further cuts in what was at most a token representation, approximately percent of the corps in august , would further inflame civil rights critics and might well provoke a reaction from secretary forrestal. even thomas's accompanying recommendation carefully retained the black strength figure previously agreed upon and actually raised the number of negroes in the ground forces by seventy-six men. the , -man minimum quota for black enlistment survived the reorganization of the fleet marine force later in , and the plans and policies division even found it necessary to locate some more billets for negroes to maintain the figure. in august the commandant approved plans to add slots for stewards and general duty billets overseas, the latter to facilitate rotation and provide a broader range of assignments for negroes.[ - ] only once before the korean war, (p.  ) and then only briefly, did the authorized strength of negroes drop below the , mark, although because of recruitment lags actual numbers never equaled authorized strength.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, aug , sub: requirements for general duty negro marines, a - .] [footnote - : idem for div, pub info, nov , sub: information relating to negro marines, a - .] by mid- , therefore, the marine corps had abandoned its complex system of gearing the number of black marines to available assignments and, like the army and the air force, had adopted a racial quota--but with an important distinction. although they rarely achieved it, the army and the air force were committed to accepting a fixed percentage of negroes; in an effort to avoid the problems with manpower efficiency plaguing the other services, the marine corps established a straight _numerical_ quota. authorized black strength would remain at about , men until the korean war. during that same period the actual percentage of negroes in the marine corps almost doubled, rising from . percent of the , -man corps in june to slightly more than percent of the , -man total in june .[ - ] [footnote - : unless otherwise noted, statistics in this section are from na pers, (a), _report, navy and marine corps military statistics_, jun , bupers. official figures on black marines are from reports of the usmc personnel accounting section.] yet neither the relatively small size of the marine corps nor the fact that few black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of segregation. over the next three years the personnel planning staff tried to find a solution to the problem of what it considered to be too many negroes in the general service. first it began to reduce gradually the number of black units accommodated in the operating force plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the number of stewards. this course was not without obvious public relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact that the marine corps, unlike the navy, never employed a majority of its black recruits as stewards. in may the commandant approved new plans for a percent decrease in the number of general duty assignments and a corresponding increase in spaces for stewards.[ - ] the trend away from assigning negroes to general service duty continued until the korean war, and in october a statistical high point was reached when some percent of all black marines were serving as stewards. the doctrine that all marines were potential infantrymen stood, but it was small comfort to civil rights activists who feared that what at best was a nominal black representation in the corps was being pushed into the kitchen. [footnote - : memo, dir, plans and policies div, for cmc, may , sub: procurement and assignment of negro enlisted personnel, a - .] but they had little to fear since the number of negroes that could be absorbed in the steward's branch was limited. in the end the marine corps still had to accommodate two-thirds of its black strength in general duty billets, a course with several unpalatable consequences. for one, negroes would be assigned to new bases reluctant to accept them and near some communities where they would be unwelcome. for another, given the limitations in self-contained units, there was the possibility of introducing some integration in the men's living or working arrangements. certainly black billets would have to be created at the expense of white billets. the director of plans and policies warned in august that the reorganization of the fleet marine (p.  ) force, then under way, failed to allocate spaces for some negroes with general duty contracts. while he anticipated some reduction in this number as a result of the campaign to attract volunteers for the steward's branch, he admitted that many would remain unassigned and beyond anticipating a reduction in the black "overage" through attrition, his office had no long-range plans for creating the needed spaces.[ - ] when the attrition failed to materialize, the commandant was forced in december to redesignate white billets for black marines with general duty contracts.[ - ] the problem of finding restricted assignments for black marines in the general service lasted until it was overtaken by the manpower demands of the korean war. meanwhile to the consternation of the civil rights advocates, as the corps' definition of "suitable" assignment became more exact, the variety of duties to which negroes could be assigned seemed to decrease.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., aug , sub: requirements for general duty negro marines, a - .] [footnote - : ibid., nov , sub: designation of units for assignment of negro marines, a - .] [footnote - : for criticism of assignment restrictions, see comments and questions at the national defense conference on negro affairs, apr (afternoon session), pp. - , copy in cmh.] _recruitment_ postwar quotas and assignments for negroes did nothing to curb the black community's growing impatience with separate and limited opportunities, a fact brought home to marine corps recruiters when they tried to enlist the negroes needed to fill their quota. at first it seemed the traditionalists would regain their all-white corps by default. the marine corps had ceased drafting men in november and launched instead an intensive recruiting campaign for regular marines from among the thousands of reservists about to be discharged and regulars whose enlistments would soon expire. included in this group were some , negroes from among whom the corps planned to recruit its black contingent. to charges that it was discriminating in the enlistment of black civilians, the corps readily admitted that no new recruits were being accepted because preference was being given to men already in the corps.[ - ] in truth, the black reservists were rejecting the blandishments of recruiters in overwhelming numbers. by may only negroes, less than a quarter of the small postwar black complement, had enlisted in the regular service. [footnote - : g- , div of plans and policies, operational diary, sep -oct , apr ; memo, dir of personnel (div of recruiting) for off in charge, northeastern recruiting div, jan , sub: enlistment of negro ex-marines, mc . see also _afro-american_, february , .] the failure to attract recruits was particularly noticeable in the antiaircraft battalions. to obtain black replacements for these critically depleted units, the commandant authorized the recruitment of reservists who had served less than six months, but the measure failed to produce the necessary manpower. on february the commanding general of camp lejeune reported that all but seven negroes on his antiaircraft artillery roster were being processed for discharge.[ - ] since this list included the black noncommissioned instructors, the commander warned that future training of black (p.  ) marines would entail the use of officers as instructors. the precipitous loss of black artillerymen forced marine headquarters to assign white specialists as temporary replacements in the heavy antiaircraft artillery groups at guam and saipan, both designated as black units in the postwar organization.[ - ] [footnote - : msg, cmc to cg, cp lejeune, feb , mc ; memo, cg, cp lejeune, for cmc, feb , sub: personnel and equipment for antiaircraft artillery training battalion (colored), availability of, rps- , mc files.] [footnote - : memo, g. c. thomas for dir of personnel, mar , sub: replacements for enlisted personnel (colored) assignment of, request for, a - ; msg, cincpac/poa pearl to cno, z apr , mc , mc files.] it was not the fault of the black press if this expression of black indifference went unnoticed. the failure of black marines to reenlist was the subject of many newspaper and journal articles. the reason for the phenomenon advanced by the norfolk _journal and guide_ would be repeated by civil rights spokesmen on numerous occasions in the era before integration. the paper declared that veterans remembered their wartime experiences and were convinced that the same distasteful practices would be continued after the war.[ - ] marine corps officials advanced different reasons. the montford point commander attributed slow enlistment rates to a general postwar letdown and lack of publicity, explaining that montford point "had an excellent athletic program, good chow and comfortable barracks." a staff member of the division of plans and policies later prepared a lengthy analysis of the treatment the marine corps had received in the black press. he charged that the press had presented a distorted picture of conditions faced by blacks that had "agitated" the men and turned them against reenlistment. he recommended a public relations campaign at montford point to improve the corps' image.[ - ] but this analysis missed the point, for while the black press might influence civilians, it could hardly instruct marine veterans. probably more than any other factor, the wartime treatment of black marines explained the failure of the corps to attract qualified, let alone gifted, negroes to its postwar junior enlisted ranks. [footnote - : norfolk _journal and guide_, may , . see also murray, _negro yearbook_, pp. - . on the general accuracy of the press charges, see shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, pp. - .] [footnote - : co, montford point, press conference (ca. may ), quoted in div of plans and policies staff report, "rescinding ltr of instruction # ," mc files; unsigned, untitled memo written in the division of plans and policies on black marines and the black press (ca. aug ).] considering the critical shortages, temporarily and "undesirably" made up for by white marines, and the "leisurely" rate at which black reservists were reenlisting, general thomas recommended in may that the corps recruit some , negroes from civilian sources. this, he explained to the commandant, would accelerate black enlistment but still save some spaces for black reservists.[ - ] the commandant agreed,[ - ] and contrary to the staff's expectations, most negroes in the postwar service were new recruits. the mass departure of world (p.  ) war ii veterans eloquently expressed the attitude of experienced black servicemen toward the marines' racial policy. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, may , sub: enlisting of negroes in the marine corps from civilian sources, a - .] [footnote - : ibid., oct , sub: enlistment of negroes, - ; memo, cmc to off in charge, northeastern recruiting div, et al., oct , sub: negro first enlistments, quota for month of november, , ap- . there was an attempt to stall first enlistment, see memo, dir of personnel, for dir, div of plans and policies, may , sub: enlisting of negroes in the marine corps from civilian sources; but it was overruled, memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for dir of personnel. may , same sub, a - .] the word spread quickly among the new black marines. when in mid- the division of plans and policies was looking for ways to reduce the number of black marines in keeping with the modified manpower ceiling, it discovered that if offered the opportunity about one-third of all negroes would apply for discharge. an even higher percentage of discharge requests was expected from among black marines overseas. the commandant agreed to make the offer, except to the stewards, and in the next six months black strength dropped by men.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, may , sub: program for accelerated attrition of negro marines, a - ; maj s. m. adams, "additional directives from plans and policies-- june ," jun ; speed ltr, cmc to cg, marine corps air station, cherry point, n.c., et al., may , a - ; memo, cmc to depot quartermaster, depot of supplies, jun , sub: discharge for the convenience of the government certain enlisted negro members of the marine corps, - - .] even the recruitment of stewards did not go according to predictions. thomas had assured the commandant in the spring of that a concrete offer of steward duty to black reservists would produce the -man quota for the regular corps. he wanted the offer published at all separation centers and a training program for stewards instituted at camp lejeune.[ - ] general vandegrift approved the proposal, but a month later the commander of camp lejeune reported that only three reservists and one regular had volunteered.[ - ] he advised the commandant to authorize recruitment among qualified civilians. faced with wholesale rejection of such duty by black marines, general thomas in march opened the steward's branch to negroes with previous military service in any of the armed forces and qualifications for such work.[ - ] this ploy also proved a failure. looking for stewards, the recruiters could find but one acceptable applicant in the first weeks of the program. retreating still further, the commandant canceled the requirement for previous military service in april, and in october dropped the requirement for "clearly established qualifications."[ - ] apparently the staff would take a chance on any warm body. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, mar , sub: steward's branch personnel, information concerning, a - , mc files.] [footnote - : ltr, cg, cp lejeune, to cmc, apr , sub: steward's branch personnel, .] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, mar , sub: enlistment of negro personnel, a .] [footnote - : ibid., apr , sub: first enlistment of negro personnel, a - , and oct , sub: procurement and assignment of stewards personnel, box - ; ltr, cmc (div of recruiting) to off in charge, northeastern recruiting div, apr , sub: negro first enlistments, a .] in dropping the requirement for prior military service, the corps introduced a complication. recruits for steward duty would be obliged to undergo basic training and their enlistment contracts would read "general duty"; navy regulations required that subsequent reclassification to "stewards duty only" status had to be made at the request of the recruit. in august three men enlisted under the first enlistment program for stewards refused to execute a change of enlistment contract after basic training.[ - ] although these men could have been discharged "for the good of the service," the commandant (p.  ) decided not to contest their right to remain in the general service. this action did not go unnoticed, and in subsequent months a number of men who signed up with the intention of becoming stewards refused to modify their enlistment contract while others, who already had changed their contract, suddenly began to fail the qualifying tests for stewards school. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, sep , sub: disposition of negro personnel who enlisted with a view toward qualifying for stewards duties..., a .] the possibility of filling the quota became even more distant when in september the number of steward billets was increased to . since only stewards had signed up in the past twelve months, recruiters now had to find some men, at least per month for the immediate future. the commandant, furthermore, approved plans to increase the number of stewards to . in december the plans and policies division, conceding defeat, recommended that the commandant arrange for the transfer of men from the navy's oversubscribed steward's branch. at the same time, to overcome what the division's new director, brig. gen. ray a. robinson, called "the onus attached to servant type duties," the commandant was induced to approve a plan making the rank and pay of stewards comparable to those of general duty personnel.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., dec , sub: procurement of steward personnel, a - ; see also ltr, cmc to chief of naval personnel, jan , sub: discharge of steward personnel from navy to enlist in the marine corps, mc ; memo, chief of naval personnel for cmc, jan , sub: discharge of certain steward branch personnel for purpose of enlistment in the marine corps.] these measures seemed to work. the success of the transfer program and the fact that first enlistments had finally begun to balance discharges led the recruiters to predict in march that their steward quota would soon be filled. unfortunately, success tempted the planners to overreach themselves. assured of a full steward quota, general robinson recommended that approval be sought from the secretary of the navy to establish closed messes, along with the requisite steward billets, at the shore quarters for bachelor officers overseas.[ - ] approval brought another rise in the number of steward billets, this time to , and required a first-enlistment goal of twenty men per month.[ - ] the new stewards, however, were not forthcoming. after three months of recruiting the corps had netted ten men, more than offset by trainees who failed to qualify for steward school. concluding that the failures represented to a great extent a scheme to remain in general service and evade the ceiling on general enlistment, the planners wanted the men failing to qualify discharged "for the good of the service."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, mar , sub: procurement and distribution of steward personnel, a - .] [footnote - : ibid., aug , sub: steward personnel, allowances and procurement, a - ; ltr, cmc to cg, marine barracks, cp lejeune, aug , sub: negro recruits, a .] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, oct , sub: disposition of negro personnel who enlist "for steward duty only" and subsequently fail to qualify for such duty, study # - ; ltr, qmg of mc to cmc, sep , same sub, ca .] the lack of recruits for steward duty and constant pressure by stewards for transfer to general duty troubled the marine corps throughout the postwar period. reviewing the problem in december , the commanding general of camp lejeune saw three causes: (p.  ) "agitation from civilian sources," which labeled steward duty degrading servant's work; lack of rapid promotion; and badgering from black marines on regular duty.[ - ] but the commander's solution--a public relations campaign using black recruits to promote the attractions of steward duty along with a belated promise of more rapid promotion--failed. it ignored the central issue, the existence of a segregated branch in which black marines performed menial, nonmilitary duties. [footnote - : msg, cg, cp lejeune, n.c., to cmc, dec .] headquarters later resorted to other expedients. it obtained seventy-five more men from the navy and lowered the qualification test standards for steward duty. but like earlier efforts, these steps also failed to produce enough men.[ - ] ironically, while the corps aroused the ire of the civil rights groups by maintaining a segregated servants' branch, it was never able to attract a sufficient number of stewards to fill its needs in the postwar period. [footnote - : memo, chief of naval personnel and cmc for all ships and stations, feb , sub: discharge of stewards, usn, for the purpose of immediate enlistment in marine corps, pers- , genrecsnav; memo, cmc for dir of recruiting, feb , sub: mental requirements for enlistment for "steward duty only," a - ; ltr, cmc (div of recruiting) to off in charge, northeastern recruiting div, mar , sub: mental standards for enlistment for steward duty only, mc ; msg, cmc to div of recruiting, apr .] many of the corps' critics saw in the buildup of the steward's branch the first step in an attempt to eliminate negroes from the general service. if such a scheme had ever been contemplated, it was remarkably unsuccessful, for the corps would enter the korean war with most of its negroes still in the general service. nevertheless, the apprehension of the civil rights advocates was understandable because during most of the postwar period enlistment in the general service was barred to negroes or limited to a very small number of men. closed to negroes in early , enlistment was briefly reopened at the rate of forty men per month later that year to provide the few hundred extra men called for in the reorganization of the operating force plan.[ - ] enlistment was again opened in may when the recruiting office established a monthly quota for black recruits at ten men for general duty and eight for the steward's branch. the figure for stewards quickly rose to thirty per month, but effective may the recruitment of negroes for general service was closed.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmc for cg, marine barracks, cp lejeune, n.c., dec , sub: negro recruits, a .] [footnote - : ltr, cmc to cg, cp lejeune, may , a - ; memo, cmc for off in charge of recruiting div, jan , sub: enlistment of negroes, d ; msg, cmc to offs in charge of recruiting divs, apr .] these rapid changes, indeed the whole pattern of black enlistment in the postwar marine corps, demonstrated that the staff's manpower practices were out of joint with the times. not only did they invite attack from the increasingly vocal civil rights forces, but they also fostered a general distrust among black marines themselves and among those young negroes the corps hoped to attract. _segregation and efficiency_ the assignment policies and recruitment practices of the corps were the inevitable result of its segregation policy. prejudice and discrimination no doubt aggravated the situation, but the policy of separation limited the ways negroes could be employed and places (p.  ) to which they might be assigned. segregation explained, for example, why negroes were traditionally employed in certain types of combat units, and why, when changing missions and manpower restrictions caused a reduction in the number of such units, negroes were not given other combat assignments. most negroes with combat military occupational specialties served in defense battalions during world war ii. these units, chiefly antiaircraft artillery, were self-contained and could therefore be segregated; at the same time they cloaked a large group of men with the dignity of a combat assignment. but what was possible during the war was no longer practical and efficient in the postwar period. some antiaircraft artillery units survived the war, but they no longer operated as battalions and were divided instead into battery-size organizations that simply could not be segregated in terms of support and recreational facilities. in fact, the corps found it impossible after the war to maintain segregation in any kind of combat unit. even if segregated service had been possible, the formation of all-black antiaircraft artillery battalions would have been precluded by the need of this highly technical branch for so many kinds of trained specialists. not only would separate training facilities for the few negroes in the peacetime corps be impossibly expensive and inefficient, but not enough black recruits were eligible for such training. a wartime comparison of the general classification test and mechanical aptitude test scores of the men in the d defense battalion with those of men in two comparable white units showed the negroes averaging considerably lower than the whites.[ - ] it was reasonable to expect this difference to continue since, on the whole, black recruits were scoring lower than their world war ii counterparts.[ - ] under current policies, therefore, the marine corps saw little choice but to exclude negroes from antiaircraft artillery and other combat units. [footnote - : ltr, co, d defense battalion, to cmc, jan , sub: employment of colored personnel as antiaircraft artillery troops, recommendations on, - , mc files.] [footnote - : memo, dir of personnel for dir, div of plans and policies, jul , sub: general classification test scores of colored enlisted marines, dz . the gct distribution of black marines as of march was as follows: group i ( - ), %; group ii ( - ), . %; group iii ( - ), . %; group iv ( - ), . %; and group v ( - ), . %. memo, dir of personnel to dir, div of plans and policies, may , sub: marines--tests and testing.] obviously the corps had in its ranks some negroes capable of performing any task required in an artillery battalion. yet because the segregation policy demanded that there be enough qualified men to form and sustain a whole black battalion, the abilities of these high-scoring individuals were wasted. on the other hand, many billets in antiaircraft artillery or other types of combat battalions could be filled by men with low test scores, but less gifted black marines were excluded because they had to be assigned to one of the few black units. segregation, in short, was doubly inefficient, it kept both able and inferior negroes out of combat units that were perpetually short of men. segregation also promoted inefficiency in the placement of black marine units. while the assignment of an integrated unit with a few black marines would probably go unnoticed in most naval districts--witness the experience of the navy itself--the task of (p.  ) finding a naval district and an american community where a large segregated group of black marines could be peacefully assimilated was infinitely more difficult. the original postwar racial program called for the assignment of black security units to the marine barracks at mcalester, oklahoma, and earle, new jersey. noting that the station was in a strict jim crow area where recreational facilities for negroes were limited and distant, the commanding officer of the marine barracks at mcalester recommended that no negroes be assigned. he reminded the commandant that guard duty required marines to question and apprehend white civilian employees, a fact that would add to the racial tension in the area. his conclusions, no doubt shared by commanders in many parts of the country, summed up the problem of finding assignments for black marines: any racial incident which might arise out of disregard for local racial custom, he wrote, would cause the marine corps to become involved by protecting such personnel as required by federal law and navy regulations. it is believed that if one such potential incident occurred, it would seriously jeopardize the standing of the marine corps throughout the southwest. to my way of thinking, the marine corps is not now maintaining the high esteem of public opinion, or gaining in prestige, by the manner in which its uniform and insignia are subjected to such laws. the uniform does not count, it is relegated to the background and made to participate in and suffer the restrictions and limitations placed upon it by virtue of the wearer being subject to the jim crow laws.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, co, mb, nad, mcalester, okla., to cmc, nov , sub: assignment of colored marines, .] the commander of the mcalester ammunition depot endorsed this recommendation, adding that oklahoma was a "border" state where the negro was not accepted as in the north nor understood and tolerated as in the south. this argument moved the director of plans and policies to recommend that mcalester be dropped and the black unit sent instead to port chicago, california.[ - ] with the approval of the commandant and the chief of naval operations, plans for the assignment were well under way in june when the commandant of the twelfth naval district intervened.[ - ] the presence of a black unit, he declared, was undesirable in a predominantly white area that was experiencing almost constant labor turmoil. the possibility of clashes between white pickets and black guards would invite racial conflict. his warnings carried the day, and port chicago was dropped in favor of the marine barracks, naval shipyard, brooklyn, new york, with station at bayonne, new jersey. at the same time, because of opposition from naval officials, the plan for assigning negroes to earle, new jersey, was also dropped, and the commandant launched inquiries about the (p.  ) depots at hingham, massachusetts, and fort mifflin, pennsylvania.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, co, nad, mcalester, okla., to cmc, nov , st ind to ltr, co, mb, mcalester, ; memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, dec , sub: assignment of negro marines to mb, naval magazine, port chicago, calif., in lieu of mb, nad, mcalester, okla., a - .] [footnote - : memo, cmc for cno, dec , sub: assignment of negro marines to mb, naval magazine, port chicago, calif., and mb, nad, earle, n.j., a - ; idem for co, mb, nad, earle, n.j., jan , sub: assignment of colored marines to marine barracks, naval ammunition depot, earle, n.j.; idem for co, department of the pacific, and co, mb, nad, mcalester, okla., a - ; memo, cno for cmc, jan , same sub, op m.] [footnote - : speed ltr, cmc to cmdt, twelfth naval district, jun ; memo, cmc for co, mb, naval shipyard, brooklyn, n.y., jun , sub: assignment of negro marines to second guard company, marine barracks naval shipyard, brooklyn, n.y., a - ; idem for co, mb, usnad, hingham, mass., jun , sub: assignment of negro marines, a - ; speed ltr, cmc to cmdt, twelfth naval district, jun , a ; memo, cmc for co, mb, nad, ft. mifflin, pa., jun , sub: assignment of negro marines, a - ; memo, cmdt, fourth naval district for co, mb, nad, ft. mifflin, pa., jun , same sub.] fort mifflin agreed to take fifty black marines, but several officials objected to the proposed assignment to hingham. the marine commander, offering what he called his unbiased opinion in the best interests of the service, explained in considerable detail why he thought the assignment of negroes would jeopardize the fire-fighting ability of the ammunition depot. the commanding officer of the naval depot endorsed these reasons and added that assigning black marines to guard duty that included vehicle search would create a problem in industrial relations.[ - ] the commandant of the first naval district apparently discounted these arguments, but he too voted against the assignment of negroes on the grounds that the hingham area lacked a substantial black population, was largely composed of restricted residential neighborhoods, and was a major summer resort on which the presence of black units would have an adverse effect.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, co, mb, nad, hingham, mass., for cmc, jun , sub: comments on assignment of negro marines, ab- ; memo, co, nad, hingham, mass., for cmc, jun , st ind to ab- , jun .] [footnote - : ltr, cmdt, first naval district, to cmc, jun , sub: assignment of negro marines, d ind to ab- , jun .] the commander of the naval base, new york, meanwhile had refused to approve a plan to assign a black unit to bayonne, new jersey, and suggested that it be sent to earle, new jersey, instead because there the unit "presented fewer problems and difficulties than at any other naval activity." the commander noted that stationing negroes at bayonne would necessitate a certain amount of integration in mess and ship service facilities. bayonne was also reputed to have the toughest gate duty in the new york area, and noncommissioned officers had to supervise a white civilian police force. at earle, on the other hand, the facilities were completely separate, and although some complaints from well-to-do summer colonists in the vicinity could be expected, men could be bused to newark or jersey city for recreation. moreover, earle could absorb a -man unit.[ - ] but chief of the navy's bureau of ordnance wanted to retain white marines at earle because a recent decision to handle ammonium nitrate fertilizer there made it unwise to relieve the existing trained detachment. earle was also using contract stevedores and expected to be using army troops whose use of local facilities would preclude plans for a segregated barracks and mess.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, co, naval base, new york, to cmc, july , sub: assignment of negro marines to second guard company, marine barracks, new york naval shipyard, brooklyn, n.y., nb- .] [footnote - : ltr, chief, bur of ord, to cno, aug , sub: naval ammunition depot, earle, n.j.--assignment of negro marine complement, nti- .] the commandant accepted these arguments and on august revoked the assignment of a black unit to earle. still, with its ability to absorb men and its relative suitability in terms of separate (p.  ) living facilities, the depot remained a prime candidate for black units, and in november general vandegrift reversed himself. the chief of naval operations supported the commandant's decision over the renewed objections of the chief of the bureau of ordnance.[ - ] with hingham, massachusetts, ruled out, the commandant now considered the substitution of marine barracks at trinidad, british west indies; scotia, new york; and oahu, hawaii. he rejected trinidad in favor of oahu, and officials in hawaii proved amenable.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, nov , sub: first enlistments of negro personnel, a - ; memo, chief, bur of ord, for cno, dec , sub: assignment of negro marines at naval ammunition depot, earle, red bank, n.j.; memo, cno for chief, bur of ord, jan , same sub.] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, jul , sub: negro requirements and assignments, a - , mc files.] the chief of the navy's bureau of supplies and accounts objected to the use of black marines at the supply depot in scotia, claiming that such an assignment to the navy's sole installation in upper new york state would bring about a "weakening of the local public relations advantage now held by the navy" and would be contrary to the navy's best interests. he pointed out that the assignment would necessitate billeting white marine graves registration escorts and black marines in the same squad rooms. the use of black marines for firing squads at funerals, he thought, would be "undesirable." he also pointed out that the local black population was small, making for extremely limited recreational and social opportunities.[ - ] the idea of using scotia with all these attendant inconveniences was quietly dropped, and the black marines were finally assigned to earle, new jersey; fort mifflin, pennsylvania; and oahu, hawaii. [footnote - : memo, chief, bur of supplies and accounts, for cno, oct , sub: assignment of negro marines, p- - ; memo, cno to cmc, nov , same sub, op d.] approved on november , the postwar plan to assign black units to security guard assignments in the united states was not fully put into practice until august , almost two years later. this episode in the history of discrimination against americans in uniform brought little glory to anyone involved and revealed much about the extent of race prejudice in american society. it was an indictment of people in areas as geographically diverse as oklahoma, new york, massachusetts, and new jersey who objected to the assignment of black servicemen to their communities. it was also an indictment of a great many individual commanders, both in the navy and marine corps, some perhaps for personal prejudices, others for so readily bowing to community prejudices. but most of all the blame must fall on the marine corps' policy of segregation. segregation made it necessary to find assignments for a whole enlisted complement and placed an intolerable administrative burden on the corps. the dictum that black marines could not deal with white civilians, especially in situations in which they would give orders, further limited assignments since such duties were routine in any security unit. thus, bound to a policy that was neither just nor practical, the commandant spent almost two years trying to place four hundred men. despite the obvious inefficiency and discrimination involved, the (p.  ) commandant, general vandegrift, adamantly defended the marine segregation policy before secretary of the navy forrestal. wartime experience showed, he maintained, oblivious to overwhelming evidence to the contrary since , "that the assignment of negro marines to separate units promotes harmony and morale and fosters the competitive spirit essential to the development of a high esprit."[ - ] his stand was bound to antagonize the civil rights camp; the black press in particular trumpeted the theme that the corps was as full of race discrimination as it had been during the war.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, gen vandegrift to secnav, aug , sub: assignment of negro marines, - - , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : see, for example, the analysis that appeared in the chicago _defender_, august , .] _toward integration_ but even as the commandant defended the segregation policy, the corps was beginning to yield to pressure from outside forces and the demands of military efficiency. the first policy breach concerned black officers. although a proposal for commissions had been rejected when the subject was first raised in , three black candidates were accepted by the officer training school at quantico in april . one failed to qualify on physical and two on scholastic grounds, but they were followed by five other negroes who were still in training on v-j day. one of this group, frederick branch of charlotte, north carolina, elected to stay in training through the demobilization period. he was commissioned with his classmates on november and placed in the inactive reserves. meanwhile, three negroes in the v- program graduated and received commissions as second lieutenants in the inactive marine corps reserve. officer training for all these men was integrated.[ - ] [footnote - : shaw and donnelly, _blacks and the marine corps_, pp. - ; see also selective service system, _special groups_ (monograph ), i: .] the first negro to obtain a regular commission in the marine corps was john e. rudder of paducah, kentucky, a marine veteran and graduate of the naval reserve officers' training corps. analyzing the case for the commandant in may , the director of plans and policies noted that the law did not require the marine corps to commission rudder, but that he was only the first of several negroes who would be applying for commissions in the next few years through the naval reserve officers' training corps. since the reserve corps program was a vital part of the plan to expand marine corps officer strength, rejecting a graduate on account of race, general robinson warned, might jeopardize the entire plan. he thought that rudder should be accepted for duty. rudder was appointed a second lieutenant in the regular marine corps on may and ordered to quantico for basic schooling.[ - ] in lieutenant rudder resigned. indicative of the changing civil rights scene was the apprehension shown by some marine corps officials about public reaction to the resignation. but although rudder reported instances of discrimination at quantico--stemming for the most (p.  ) part from a lack of military courtesy that amounted to outright ostracism--he insisted his decision to resign was based on personal reasons and was irreversible. the director of public information was anxious to release an official version of the resignation,[ - ] but other voices prevailed, and rudder's exit from the corps was handled quietly both at headquarters and in the press.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, may , sub: appointment to commissioned rank in the regular marine corps, case of midshipman john earl rudder, a - ; see also dept of navy press release, aug .] [footnote - : memo, dir of public information for cmc, feb , sub: publicity on second lieutenant john rudder, usmc, ag ; see also ltr, lt cmdr dennis nelson to james c. evans, feb , cmh files.] [footnote - : memo, oliver smith for cmc, feb , with attached cmc note.] [illustration: lieutenant and mrs. branch.] the brief active career of one black officer was hardly evidence of a great racial reform, but it represented a significant breakthrough because it affirmed the practice of integrated officer training and established the right of negroes to command. and rudder was quickly followed by other black officer candidates, some of whom made careers in the corps. rudder's appointment marked a permanent change in marine corps policy. enlistment of black women marked another change. negroes had been excluded from the women's reserve during world war ii, but in march a. philip randolph asked the commandant, in the name of the committee against jim crow in military service and training, if black women could join the corps. the commandant's reply was short and direct: "if qualified for enlistment, negro women will be accepted on the same basis as other applicants."[ - ] in september annie n. graham and ann e. lamb reported to parris island for integrated training and subsequent assignment. [footnote - : ltr, a. philip randolph to gen c. b. cates, mar ; ltr, cmc to randolph, mar , aw .] yet another racial change, in the active marine corps reserve, could be traced to outside pressure. until all black reservists were assigned to inactive and unpaid volunteer reserve status, and applications for transfer to active units were usually disapproved by commanding officers on grounds that such transfers would cost the unit a loss in whites. rejections did not halt applications, however, and in may the director of marine corps reserve decided to seek a policy decision. while he wanted each commander of an active unit left free to decide whether he would take negroes, the director also wanted units with black enlisted men formed in the organized reserve, all-black voluntary training units recognized, and integrated active duty training provided for reservists.[ - ] a group of negroes (p.  ) in chicago had already applied for the formation of a black voluntary training unit. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of reserve, for cmc, may , sub: general policy governing negro reservists, af ; ltr, william griffin to cmc, mar ; ltr, col r. mcpate to william griffin, mar .] general thomas, director of plans and policies, was not prepared to go the whole way. he agreed that within certain limitations the local commander should decide on the integration of black reservists into an active unit, and he accepted integrated active duty training. but he rejected the formation of black units in the organized reserve and the voluntary training program; the latter because it would "inevitably lead to the necessity for negro officers and for authorizing drill pay" in order to avoid charges of discrimination. although thomas failed to explain why black officers and drill pay were unacceptable or how rejecting the program would save the corps from charges of discrimination, his recommendations were approved by the commandant over the objection of the reserve division.[ - ] but the director of reserves rejoined that volunteer training units were organized under corps regulations, the chicago group had met all the specifications, and the corps would be subject to just criticism if it refused to form the unit. on the other hand, by permitting the formation of some all-black volunteer units, the corps might satisfy the wish of negroes to be a part of the reserve and thus avoid any concerted attempt to get the corps to form all-black units in the organized reserve.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, may , sub: general policy governing negro reservists, a - .] [footnote - : memo, dir of reserve for cmc, may , sub: general policy concerning negro reservists, af .] at this point the division of plans and policies offered to compromise. general robinson recommended that when the number of volunteers so warranted, the corps should form black units of company size or greater, either separate or organic to larger reserve units around the country. he remained opposed to integrated units, explaining that experience proved--he neglected to mention what experience, certainly none in the marine corps--that integrated units served neither the best interests of the individual nor the corps.[ - ] while the commandant's subsequent approval set the stage for the formation of racially composite units in the reserve, the stipulation that the black element be of company size or larger effectively limited the degree of reform. [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, mar , sub: enlistment of negro ex-marines in organized reserve, a - .] the development of composite units in the reserve paralleled a far more significant development in the active forces. in the marine corps began organizing such units along the lines established in the postwar army. like the army, the corps discovered that maintaining a quota--even when the quota for the corps meant maintaining a minimum number of negroes in the service--in a period of shrinking manpower resources necessitated the creation of new billets for negroes. at the same time it was obviously inefficient to assign combat-trained negroes, now surplus with the inactivation of the black defense battalions, to black service and supply units when the fleet marine force battalions were so seriously understrength. thus the strictures against integration notwithstanding, the corps was forced to begin (p.  ) attaching black units to the depleted fleet marine force units. in january , for example, members of headquarters unit, montford point camp, and men of the inactivated d antiaircraft artillery battalion were transferred to camp geiger, north carolina, and assigned to the all-black d medium depot company, which, along with eight white units, was organized into the racially composite d combat service group in the d marine division.[ - ] although the units of the group ate in separate mess halls and slept in separate barracks, inevitably the men of all units used some facilities in common. after negroes were assigned to camp geiger, for instance, recreational facilities were open to all. in some isolated cases, black noncommissioned officers were assigned to lead racially mixed details in the composite group.[ - ] [footnote - : usmc muster rolls, .] [footnote - : interv, martin blumenson with st sgt jerome pressley, feb , cmh files.] [illustration: training exercises. _black marine unit boards ship at morehead city, north carolina, ._] but these reforms, which did very little for a very few men, scarcely dented the marine corps' racial policy. corps officials were still firmly committed to strict segregation in , and change seemed very distant. any substantial modification in racial policy would require a revolution against marine tradition, a movement dictated by higher civilian authority or touched off by an overwhelming military need. chapter (p.  ) the postwar air force the air force was a new service in , but it was also heir to a long tradition of segregation. most of its senior officers, trained in the army, firmly supported the army's policy of racially separate units and racial quotas. and despite continuing objections to what many saw as the gillem board's far too progressive proposals, the air force adopted the army's postwar racial policy as its own. yet after less than two years as an independent service the air force in late stood on the threshold of integration. this sudden change in attitude was not so much the result of humanitarian promptings by service officials, although some of them forcibly demanded equal treatment and opportunity. nor was it a response to civil rights activists, although negroes in and outside the air force continued to exert pressure for change. rather, integration was forced upon the service when the inefficiency of its racial practices could no longer be ignored. the inefficiency of segregated troops was less noticeable in the army, where a vast number of negroes could serve in a variety of expandable black units, and in the smaller navy, where only a few negroes had specialist ratings and most black sailors were in the separate steward's branch. but the inefficiency of separatism was plainly evident in the air force. like the army, the air force had its share of service units to absorb the marginal black airman, but postwar budget restrictions had made the enlargement of service units difficult to justify. at the same time, the gillem board policy as well as outside pressures had made it necessary to include a black air unit in the service's limited number of postwar air wings. however socially desirable two air forces might seem to most officials, and however easy it had been to defend them as a wartime necessity, it quickly became apparent that segregation was, organizationally at least, a waste of the air force's few black pilots and specialists and its relatively large supply of unskilled black recruits. thus, the inclination to integrate was mostly pragmatic; notably absent were the idealistic overtones sounded by the navy's special programs unit during the war. considering the magnitude of the air force problem, it was probably just as well that efficiency rather than idealism became the keynote of change. on a percentage basis the air force had almost as many negroes as the army and, no doubt, a comparable level of prejudice among its commanders and men. at the same time, the air force was a new service, its organization still fluid and its policies subject to rapid modification. in such circumstances a straightforward appeal to efficiency had a chance to succeed where an idealistic call for justice and fair play might well have floundered. _segregation and efficiency_ (p.  ) many officials in the army air forces had defended segregated units during the war as an efficient method of avoiding dangerous social conflicts and utilizing low-scoring recruits.[ - ] general arnold himself repeatedly warned against bringing black officers and white enlisted men together. unless strict unit segregation was imposed, such contacts would be inevitable, given the air forces' highly mobile training and operations structure.[ - ] but if segregation restricted contacts between the races it also imposed a severe administrative burden on the wartime air forces. it especially affected the black flying units because it ordained that not only pilots but the ground support specialists--mechanics, supply clerks, armorers--had to be black. throughout most of the war the air forces, competing with the rest of the army for skilled and high-scoring negroes, was unable to fill the needs of its black air units. at a time when the air forces enjoyed a surplus of white air and ground crews, the black fighter units suffered from a shortage of replacements for their combat veterans, a situation as inefficient as it was damaging to morale.[ - ] [footnote - : for a comprehensive and authoritative account of the negro in the army air forces during world war ii, sec osur's _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii_.] [footnote - : see memo, cs/ac for g- , may , sub: employment of negro personnel in the air corps units, g- / -gen .] [footnote - : for the effect on unit morale, see charles e. francis, _the tuskegee airmen: the story of the negro in the u.s. air force_ (boston: bruce humphries, ), p. ; see also usaf oral history program, interview with lt gen b. o. davis, jr., jan .] the shortage was compounded in the penultimate year of the war when the all-black th bombardment group was organized. (black airmen and civil rights spokesmen complained that restricting negroes to fighter units excluded them from many important and prestigious types of air service.) in the end the new bombardment group only served to limit black participation in the air war. already short of black pilots, the army air forces now had to find black navigators and bombardiers as well, thereby intensifying the competition for qualified black cadets. the stipulation that pilots and bombardiers for the new unit be trained at segregated tuskegee was another obvious cause for the repeated delays in the operational date of the th, and its crews were finally assembled only weeks before the end of the war. competition for black bomber crews also led to a ludicrous situation in which men highly qualified for pilot training according to their stanine scores (achievements on the battery of qualifying tests taken by all applicants for flight service) were sent instead to navigator-bomber training, for which they were only barely qualified.[ - ] [footnote - : lee, _employment of negro troops_, pp. - ; see also interv, author with lt gen benjamin o. davis, jr., jun , cmh files.] unable to obtain enough negroes qualified for flight training, the army air forces asked the ground and service forces to screen their personnel for suitable candidates, but a screening early in produced only about one-sixth of the men needed. finally, the air forces recommended that the army staff lower the general classification test score for pilot training from to , a recommendation the service and ground forces opposed because such a move would eventually mean the mass transfer of high-scoring negroes to the air forces, (p.  ) thus depriving the service and ground forces of their proportionate share. although the secretary of war approved the air forces proposal, the change came too late to affect the shortage of black pilots and specialists before the end of the war. [illustration: damage inspection. _a squadron operations officer of the d fighter group points out a cannon hole to ground crew, italy, ._] while short of skilled negroes, the army air forces was being inundated with thousands of undereducated and unskilled negroes from selective service. it tried to absorb these recruits, as it absorbed some of its white draftees, by creating a great number of service and base security battalions. a handy solution to the wartime quota problem, the large segregated units eventually caused considerable racial tension. some of the tension might have been avoided had black officers commanded black squadrons, a logical course since the air force had a large surplus of nonrated black officers stationed at tuskegee.[ - ] most were without permanent assignment or were assigned such duties as custodial responsibility for bachelor officer quarters, occupations unrelated to their specialties.[ - ] [footnote - : a nonrated officer is one not having or requiring a currently effective aeronautical rating; that is, an officer who is not a pilot, navigator, or bombardier.] [footnote - : interv, author with davis; see also osur's _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii_, ch. v.] few of these idle black officers commanded black service units because the units were scattered worldwide while the nonrated officers were almost always assigned to the airfield at tuskegee. approximately one-third of the air forces' , black officers were stationed at tuskegee in june . most others were assigned to the fighter group in the mediterranean theater or the new bombardment group in flight training at godman field, kentucky. only twenty-five black (p.  ) officers were serving at other stations in the united states. the second, third, and fourth air forces and i troop carrier command, for example, had a combined total of seventeen black officers as against , black enlisted men.[ - ] col. noel f. parrish, the wartime commander at tuskegee, explained that the principal reason for this restriction was the prevailing fear of social conflict. if assigned to other bases, black officers might try to use the officers' clubs and other base facilities. thus, despite the surplus of black officers only too evident at tuskegee, their requests for transfer to other bases for assignment in their rating were usually denied on the grounds that the overall shortage of black officers made their replacement impossible.[ - ] [footnote - : "summary of aaf post-war surveys," prepared by noel parrish, copy in naacp collection, library of congress.] [footnote - : noel f. parrish, "the segregation of the negro in the army air forces," thesis submitted to the usaf air command and staff school, maxwell afb, ala., , pp. - .] fearing trouble between black and white officers and assuming that black airmen preferred white officers, the air forces assigned white officers to command black squadrons. actually, such assignments courted morale problems and worse because they were extremely unpopular with both officers and men. moreover, the air forces eventually had to admit that there was a tendency to assign white officers "of mediocre caliber" to black squadrons.[ - ] yet few assignments demanded greater leadership ability, for these officers were burdened not only with the usual problems of a unit commander but also with the complexities of race relations. if they disparaged their troops, they failed as commanders; if they fought for their men, they were dismissed by their superiors as "pro-negro." consequently, they were generally a harassed and bewildered lot, bitter over their assignments and bad for troop morale.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, hq aaf, to cg, tactical training cmd, aug , sub: professional qualities of officers assigned to negro units, . - , afshrc.] [footnote - : parrish, "segregation of the negro in the army air forces," pp. - . the many difficulties involved in the assignment of white officers to black units are discussed in osur's _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii_, ch v.] the social problems predicted for integration proved inevitable under segregation. commanders found it prohibitively expensive to provide separate but equal facilities, and without them discrimination became more obvious. the walk-in protest at the freeman field officers club was but one of the natural consequences of segregation rules. and such demonstrations were only the more spectacular problems. just as time-consuming and perhaps more of a burden were the many administrative difficulties. the air transport command admitted in that it was too expensive to maintain, as the command was obligated to do, separate and equal housing and messing, including separate orderly and day rooms for black airmen. at the same time it complained of the disproportionately high percentage of black troops violating military and civil law. although negroes accounted for percent of the command's troops, they committed more than percent of its law infractions. the only connection the command was able to make between the separate, unequal facilities and the high misconduct rate was to point out that, while it had done its best to provide for negroes, they "had not earned a very enviable record by themselves."[ - ] [footnote - : aaf transport cmd, "history of the command, july - december " pp. - .] in one crucial five-month period of the war, army air forces (p.  ) headquarters processed twenty-two separate staff actions involving black troops.[ - ] to avoid the supposed danger of large-scale social integration, the air forces, like the rest of the army during world war ii, had been profligate in its use of material resources, inefficient in its use of men, and destructive of the morale of black troops. [footnote - : parrish, "segregation of the negro in the army air forces."] [illustration: colonel parrish. (_ photograph_).] the air staff was not oblivious to these facts and made some adjustments in policy as the war progressed. notably, it rejected separate training of nonrated black officers and provided for integrated training of black navigators and bombardiers. in the last days of the war general arnold ordered his commanders to "take affirmative action to insure that equity in training and assignment opportunity is provided all personnel."[ - ] and when it came to postwar planning, the air staff demonstrated it had learned much from wartime experience: the degree to which negroes can be successfully employed in the post-war military establishment largely depends on the success of the army in maintaining at a minimum the feeling of discrimination and unfair treatment which basically are the causes for irritation and disorders ... in the event of a future emergency the arms will employ a large number of negroes and their contribution in such an emergency will largely depend on the training, treatment and intelligent use of negroes during the intervening years.[ - ] [footnote - : aaf ltr - , aug .] [footnote - : rpt, acs/as- to wdss, sep , sub: participation of negro troops in the post-war military establishment, wdss . .] but while admitting that discrimination was at the heart of its racial problem, the air staff failed to see the connection between discrimination and segregation. instead it adopted the recommendations of its senior commanders. the consensus was that black combat (flying) units had performed "more or less creditably," but required more training than white units, and that the ground echelon and combat support units had performed below average. rather than abolish these below average units, however, commanders wanted them preserved and wanted postwar policy to strengthen segregation. the final recommendation of the army air forces to the gillem board was that blacks be trained according to the same standards as whites but that they be employed in separate units and segregated for recreation, messing, and social activities "on the post as well as off," in (p.  ) keeping with prevailing customs in the surrounding civilian community.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid. for an analysis of these recommendations, see gropman's _the air force integrates_, ch. ii.] the army air forces' postwar use of black troops was fairly consonant with the major provisions of the gillem board report. to reduce black combat units in proportion to the reduction of its white units, it converted the th bombardment group (m) into the th composite group. this group, under the command of the army's senior black pilot, col. benjamin o. davis, jr., included a fighter, a bombardment, and a service squadron. to provide segregated duty for its black specialists, the army air forces organized regular black squadrons, mostly ammunition, motor transport, and engineer throughout its commands. to absorb the large number of unskilled negroes, it organized one black squadron (squadron f) in each of the ninety-seven base units in its worldwide base system to perform laboring and housekeeping chores. finally, it promised "to the fullest possible extent" to assign negroes with specialized skills and qualifications to overhead and special units.[ - ] [footnote - : wd bureau of public relations, memo for the press, sep ; office of public relations, godman field, ky., "col. davis issues report on godman field," oct ; memo, chief, programs and manpower section, troop basis branch, organization division, d/t&r, for dir of military personnel, apr , no sub; all in negro affairs, secaf files. see also "history of godman field, ky., mar-- oct ," afshrc.] in the summer of , the army air forces integrated aviation training at randolph field, texas, and quietly closed tuskegee airfield, thus ending the last segregated officer training in the armed forces. the move was unrelated to the gillem board report or to the demands of civil rights advocates. the tuskegee operation had simply become impractical. in the severe postwar retrenchment of the armed forces, tuskegee's cadet enrollment had dropped sharply, only nine men graduated in the october class.[ - ] to the general satisfaction of the black community, the few black cadets shared both quarters and classes with white students.[ - ] nine black cadets were in training at the end of .[ - ] [footnote - : "history of the d aaf base unit, pilot school, basic, advanced, and tuskegee army air field, sep - oct ," afshrc.] [footnote - : for an example of black reaction see _ebony_ magazine v (september ).] [footnote - : memo, james c. evans, adviser to the secdef, for capt robert w. berry, feb , secdef . files.] another postwar reduction was not so advantageous for negroes. by february the th composite group had been reduced to sixteen b- bombers, twelve p- fighter-bombers, and only men--a percent drop in four months.[ - ] although the tactical air command rated the unit's postwar training and performance satisfactory, and its transfer to the more hospitable surroundings and finer facilities of lockbourne field, ohio, raised morale, the th, like other understaffed and underequipped organizations, faced inevitable conversion to specialized service. in july the th was inactivated and replaced by the d fighter group composed of the th, th, and st fighter squadrons. black bomber pilots were converted to fighter pilots, and the bomber crews were removed from flying status. [footnote - : "history of the th composite group," sep - feb , feb-mar , and mar- jul , afshrc.] [illustration: officers' softball team _representing the th composite group, godwin field, kentucky_.] these changes flew in the face of the gillem board report, for (p.  ) however slightly that document may have changed the army's segregation policy, it did demand at least a modest response to the call for equal opportunity in training, assignment, and advancement. the board clearly looked to the command of black units by qualified black officers and the training of black airmen to serve as a cadre for any necessary expansion of black units in wartime. certainly the conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these modest demands. in its defense the army air forces in effect pleaded that there were too many negroes for its present force, now severely reduced in size and lacking planes and other equipment, and too many of the black troops lacked education for the variety of assignments recommended by the board. the army air forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate postwar period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically. it was drafting men to replace departing veterans, and in it was taking anyone who qualified, including many negroes. in seven months the air arm lost over half its black strength, going from a wartime high of , on august to , on march , but in the same period the black percentage almost doubled, climbing from . to . .[ - ] the war department predicted that all combat arms would have a black strength of percent by july .[ - ] [footnote - : all figures from stm- , sep and apr .] [footnote - : memo, tag for cg's et al., feb , sub: utilization of negro personnel, ag . ( jan ).] this prophecy never materialized in the air forces. changes in enlistment standards, curtailment of overseas assignments for negroes, and, finally, suspension of all black enlistments in the regular army except in certain military specialist occupations turned the percentage of negroes downward. by the fall of , when the air (p.  ) force became a separate service,[ - ] the proportion of black airmen had leveled off at nearly percent. nor did the proportion of negroes ever exceed the gillem board's percent quota during the next decade. [footnote - : under the terms of the national security act of the u.s. air force was created as a separate service in a department of the air force on september . the new service included the old army air forces; the air corps, u.s. army; and general headquarters air force. the strictures of wd circular , like those of many other departmental circulars, were adopted by the new service. for convenience' sake the terms _air force_ and _service_ will be employed in the remaining sections of this chapter even where the terms _army air forces_ and _component_ would be more appropriate.] the air force seemed on safer ground when it pleaded that it lacked the black airmen with skills to carry out the variety of assignments called for by the gillem board. the air force was finding it impossible to organize effective black units in appreciable numbers; even some units already in existence were as much as two-thirds below authorized strength in certain ground specialist slots.[ - ] yet here too the statistics do not reveal the whole truth. despite a general shortage of negroes in the high test score categories, the air force did have black enlisted men qualified for general assignment as specialists or at least eligible for specialist training, who were instead assigned to labor squadrons.[ - ] in its effort to reduce the number of negroes, the service had also relieved from active duty other black specialists trained in much needed skills. finally, the air force still had a surplus of black specialists in some categories at lockbourne field who were not assigned to the below-strength units. [footnote - : "tactical air command (tac) history, jan- dec ," pp. - , afshrc; see also lawrence j. paszek, "negroes and the air force, - ," _military affairs_ (spring ), p. .] [footnote - : memo, dcofs/personnel, tac, for cg, tac, mar , afshrc.] again it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers or specialists but the policy of strict segregation that kept the air force from using black troops efficiently. insistence on segregation, not the number of negroes, caused maldistribution among the commands. in , for example, the tactical air command contained some , black airmen, close to percent of the command's strength. this situation came about because the command counted among its units the one black air group and many of the black service units whose members in an integrated service would have been distributed throughout all the commands according to needs and abilities. the air force segregation policy restricted all but forty-five of the black officers in the continental united states to one base,[ - ] just as it was the air force's attempt to avoid integration that kept black officers from command. in november , , black enlisted men and only two black officers were stationed at macdill field; at san antonio there were , black airmen and again two black officers. these figures provide some clue to the cause of the riot involving black airmen at macdill field on october .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dcofs/p&a, usaf, for asst secaf, dec , sub: air force negro troops in the zone of interior, negro affairs, secaf files.] [footnote - : "history of macdill army airfield, oct ," pp. - , afshrc. for a detailed analysis of the macdill riot and its aftermath, see gropman, _the air force integrates_, ch. i; see also ch. , above.] segregation also prevented the use of negroes on a broader professional scale. in april , . percent of negroes in the air force were working in an occupational specialty as against . (p.  ) percent of whites, but the number of negroes in radar, aviation specialist, wire communications, and other highly specialized skills required to support a tactical air unit was small and far below the percentage of whites. the air force argued that since negroes were assigned to black units and since there was only one black tactical unit, there was little need for negroes with these special skills. [illustration: checking ammunition. _an armorer in the d fighter group inspects the p- mustang, italy, ._] the fact that rated black officers and specialists were restricted to one black fighter group particularly concerned civil rights advocates. without bomber, transport, ferrying, or weather observation assignments, black officers qualified for larger aircraft had no chance to diversify their careers. it was essentially the same story for black airmen. without more varied and large black combat units the air force had no need to assign many black airmen to specialist training. in december , for example, only of approximately , black airmen were attending specialist schools.[ - ] when asked about the absence of negroes in large aircraft, especially bombers, air force spokesmen cited the conversion of the th composite group, which contained the only black bomber unit, to a specialized fighter group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the needs (p.  ) of a -wing organization.[ - ] that the one black bomber unit happened to be organized out of existence was pure accident. [footnote - : memo, unsigned (probably dcofs/p&a), for asst secaf zuckert, apr , secaf files.] [footnote - : see air force testimony before the national defense conference on negro affairs (afternoon session), pp. - , cmh files.] the gillem board had sought to expand the training and placement of skilled negroes by going outside the regular black units and giving them overhead assignments. after the war some base commanders made such assignments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of airmen in the overmanned, all-black squadron f's and assigning them to skilled duties. in one instance the base commander's secretary was a member of his black unit; in another, black mechanics from squadron f worked on the flight line with white mechanics. but whatever their work, these men remained members of squadron f, and often the whole black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found itself functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the gillem board. even the few negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the gillem board's intention of training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an emergency. the alternative to expanded overhead assignments was continuation of segregated service units and squadron f's, but, as some manpower experts pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled airmen were disappearing from the postwar air force. experience gained through the assignment of large numbers of marginal men to such units in peacetime would be of questionable value during large-scale mobilization.[ - ] as colonel parrish, the wartime commander of training at tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dcofs/p&a, tac, for cg, tac, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower, afshrc.] [footnote - : parrish, "segregation of the negro in the army air forces," pp. - .] the air staff tried to carry out the gillem board's suggestion that negroes be stationed "where attitudes are most favorable for them insofar as military factors permit," but even here the service lagged behind civilian practice. when marcus h. ray arrived at wright field, ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in july , he found almost , black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside , white civilians, all assigned to their jobs without regard to race. "i would rate this installation," ray reported, "as the best example of efficient utilization of manpower i have seen." he went on to explain: "the integration has been accomplished without publicity and simply by assigning workers according to their capabilities and without regard to race, creed, or color." but ray also noted that there were no black military men on the base.[ - ] assistant secretary of war petersen was impressed. "in view of the fact that the racial climate seems exceptionally favorable at wright field," he wrote general carl spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment of carefully selected negro military personnel with specialist ratings for work in that installation."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, ray for asw, jul , asw . .] [footnote - : memo, petersen for cg, aaf, jul , asw . .] the air force complied. in the fall of it was forming black (p.  ) units for assignment to air materiel command stations, and it planned to move a black unit to wright field in the near future.[ - ] in assigning an all-black unit to wright, however, the air force was introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of the gillem board policy. [footnote - : memo, brig gen reuben c. hood, jr., office of cg, aaf, for asw, sep , asw . .] _impulse for change_ the problems associated with efficient use of black airmen intensified when the air force became an independent service in . the number of negroes fluctuated during the transition from army air forces to air force, and as late as april the army still retained a number of specialized black units whose members had the right to transfer to the air force. estimates were that some , black airmen would eventually enter the air force from this source. air force officials believed that when these men were added to the , negroes already in the new service, including rated and nonrated male officers and female officers, the total would exceed the percent quota suggested by the gillem board. accordingly, soon after it became an independent service, the air force set the number of black enlistments at per month until the necessary adjustments to the transfer program could be made.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, unsigned, for asst secaf zuckert, apr , secaf files. the figures cited in this memorandum were slightly at variance with the official strength figures as compiled later in the _unites states air force statistical digest i_ ( ). the _digest_ put the air force's strength (excluding army personnel still under air force control) on march at , , including , negroes ( . percent of the total). the percent plus estimate mentioned in the memorandum, however, was right on the mark when statistics for enlisted strength alone are considered.] in addition to the chronic problems associated with black enlistments and quotas, four very specific problems demonstrated clearly to air force officials the urgent need for a change in race policy. the first of these was the distribution of black airmen which threatened the operational efficiency of the tactical air command. a second, related to the first, revolved around the personnel shortages in black tactical units that necessitated an immediate reorganization of those units, a reorganization both controversial and managerially inefficient. the third and fourth problems were related; the demands of black leaders for a broader use of black servicemen suddenly intensified, dovetailing with the personal inclinations of the secretary of the air force, who was making the strict segregation of black officers and specialists increasingly untenable. these four factors coalesced during and led to a reassessment of policy and, finally, to a _volte-face_. limiting black enlistment to per month did little to ease the situation in the tactical air command. there, the percentage of black personnel, although down from its postwar high of percent to . percent by the end of , remained several points above the gillem board's percent quota throughout . in march the command's deputy chief of staff for personnel, col. john e. barr, found that the large number of negroes gave the command a surplus of "marginal (p.  ) individuals," men who could not be trained economically for the various skills needed. he argued that this theoretical surplus of negroes was "potentially parasitic" and threatened the command's mission.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dcofs/p&a, tac, for cg, tac, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower, afshrc.] [illustration: squadron f, th aaf battalion, _in review, lockbourne air force base, ohio, _.] at the same time, the command's personnel director found that negroes were being inefficiently used. with one squadron designated for their black airmen, most commanders deemed surplus any negroes in excess of the needs of that squadron and made little attempt to use them effectively. even when some of these men were given a chance at skilled jobs in the tactical air command their assignments proved short-lived. because of a shortage of white airmen at shaw air force base, south carolina, in early , for example, negroes from the base's squadron f were assigned to fill all the slots in squadron c, the base fire department. the negroes performed so creditably that when enough white airmen to man squadron c became available the commander suggested that the black fire fighters be transferred to lockbourne rather than returned to their menial assignments.[ - ] the advantage of leaving the all-black squadron c at shaw was apparently overlooked by everyone. [footnote - : memo, adj, th fighter wing, for cg, ninth af, undated, sub: transfer of structural firefighters; d ind, hq d fighter wing, lockbourne, to cg, ninth af, apr , hist of ninth af, afshrc.] even this limited chance at occupational preferment was exceptional for black airmen in the tactical air command. the command's personnel staff admitted that many highly skilled black technicians were performing menial tasks and that measures taken to raise the performance levels of other black airmen through training were inadequate. the staff also concluded that actions designed by the command to raise morale among black airmen left much to be desired. it mentioned specifically the excessively high turnover of officers assigned to black units, officers who for the most part proved mediocre as leaders. most devastating of all, the study admitted that promotions and other rewards for duties performed by black airmen were not commensurate with those received by whites.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dcofs/p&a, tac, for cg, tac, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower, afshrc.] colonel barr offered a solution that echoed the plea of air force (p.  ) commanders everywhere: revise circular to allow his organization to reduce the percentage of negroes. among a number of "compromise solutions" he recommended raising enlistment standards to reduce the number of submarginal airmen; designating squadron e, the transportation squadron of the combat wings, a black unit; assigning all skilled black technicians to lockbourne or declaring them surplus to the command; and selecting only outstanding officers to command black units. one of these recommendations was under fire in colonel barr's own command. all-black transportation squadrons had already been discussed in the ninth air force and had brought an immediate objection from maj. gen. william d. old, its commander. old explained that few black airmen in his command were qualified for "higher echelon maintenance activities," that is, major motor and transmission overhaul, and he had no black officers qualified to command such troops. on-the-job training would be impossible during total conversion of the squadrons from white to black; formal schooling for whole squadrons would have to be organized. besides, old continued, making transportation squadrons all black would only aggravate the command's race problems, for it would result in a further deviation from the "desired ratio of one to ten." old wanted to reduce the number of black airmen in the ninth air force by , men. the loss would not materially affect the efficiency of his command, he concluded. it would leave the ninth air force with a ratio of one black officer to ten white and one black airman to eight white, and still permit the manning of black tactical units at full strength.[ - ] in the end none of these recommendations was followed. they needed the approval of air force headquarters, and as lt. gen. elwood r. quesada, commander of the tactical air command, explained to general old, the headquarters was in the midst of a lengthy review of circular . in the meantime the command would have to carry on without guidance from higher headquarters.[ - ] carry on it did, but the problems associated with the distribution of black airmen, problems the command constantly shared with air force headquarters, lingered throughout .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, maj gen old for cg, tac, jan , sub: utilization of negro manpower, af . , hist of ninth af, afshrc.] [footnote - : ltr, lt gen quesada to maj gen old, ninth af, apr , hist of ninth af, afshrc.] [footnote - : ltrs, cg, tac, to cs/usaf, sep , sub: reception of submarginal enlisted personnel; vcs/usaf to cg, tac, sep , sub: elimination of undesirable or substandard airmen; cg, tac, to cs/usaf, sep , same sub. all in afshrc.] the air force's segregation policy had meanwhile created a critical situation in the black tactical units. the old d, now the d fighter wing, shared with the rest of the command the burden of too many low-scoring men-- percent of lockbourne's airmen were in the two lowest groups, iv and v--but here the problem was acute since the presence of so many persons with little ability limited the number of skilled black airmen that the tactical air command could transfer to the wing from other parts of the command. under direction of the command, the ninth air force was taking advantage of a regulation that restricted the reenlistment of low-scoring airmen, but the high percentage of unskilled negroes persisted at lockbourne. negroes (p.  ) in the upper test brackets were not reenlisting while the low scorers unquestionably were.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dcofs/p&a, tac, to cg, ninth af, may , sub: submarginal enlisted personnel; record of dir of per staff, tac, mtg, oct ; both in afshrc.] at the same time there was a shortage of rated black officers. the d fighter wing was authorized officers, but only were assigned in february . there was no easy solution to the shortage, a product of many years of neglect. segregation imposed the necessity of devising a broad and long-range recruitment and training program for black officers, but not until april did the tactical air command call for a steady flow of negroes through officer candidate and flight training schools.[ - ] it hoped to have another thirty-one black pilot graduates by march and planned to recall thirty-two others from inactive status.[ - ] even these steps could not possibly alleviate the serious shortage caused by the perennial failure to replace the wing's annual pilot attrition. [footnote - : ltr, cg, tac, to cg, ninth af, apr , tac ( apr ), afshrc.] [footnote - : hq tac, record and routing sheet, apr , sub: supervisory visit d ftr gp, lockbourne afb, afshrc.] the chronic shortage of black field grade officers in the d was the immediate cause of the change in air force policy. by february the d had only thirteen of its forty-eight authorized field grade officers on duty. the three tactical units of the wing were commanded by captains instead of the authorized lieutenant colonels. if colonel davis were reassigned, and his attendance at the air war college was expected momentarily, his successor as wing commander would be a major with five years' service.[ - ] the tactical air commander was trying to have all field grade negroes assigned to the d, but even that expedient would not provide enough officers.[ - ] finally, general quesada decided to recommend that "practically all" the key field grade positions in the d wing be filled by whites.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, cg, ninth af, to cg, tac, feb , sub: assignment of negro personnel, hist of ninth af, afshrc.] [footnote - : hq tac, record and routing sheet, apr , sub: supervisory visit d ftr gp, lockbourne afb, afshrc.] [footnote - : ltrs, cg, tac, to cg, ninth af, apr , and dcg, tac, to cg, ninth af, may , tac . ; both in hist of ninth af, afshrc.] subsequent discussions at air force headquarters gave the air force chief of staff, general hoyt s. vandenberg, three choices: leave lockbourne manned exclusively by black officers; assign a white wing commander with a racially mixed staff; or permit colonel davis to remain in command with a racially mixed staff. believing that general vandenberg would approve the last course, the tactical air command proceeded to search for appropriate white officers to fill the key positions under davis.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, a- , ninth af, for c/s, ninth af, may , sub: manning of d fighter wing, hist of ninth af; record of the tac staff conf, may ; both in afshrc.] the deputy commander of the ninth air force, brig. gen. jarred v. crabb, predicted that placing whites in key positions in the d would cause trouble, but leaving davis in command of a mixed staff "would be loaded with dynamite."[ - ] the commander of the ninth (p.  ) air force called the proposal to integrate the d's staff contrary to air force policy, which prescribed segregated units of not less than company strength. general old was forthright: [integration] would be playing in the direction in which the negro press would like to force us. they are definitely attempting to force the army and air force to solve the racial problem. as you know, they have been strongly advocating mixed companies of white and colored. for obvious reasons this is most undesirable and to do so would definitely limit the geographical locations in which such units could be employed. if the air forces go ahead and set a precedent, most undesirable repercussions may occur. regardless of how the problem is solved, we would certainly come under strong criticism of the negro press. that must be expected. in view of the combat efficiency demonstrated by colored organizations during the last war, my first recommendation in the interest of national defense and saving the taxpayer's money is to let the organization die on the vine. we make a big subject of giving the taxpayers the maximum amount of protection for each dollar spent, then turn around and support an organization that would contribute little or nothing in an emergency. it is my own opinion that it is an unnecessary drain on our national resources, but for political reasons i presume the organization must be retained. therefore, my next recommended solution is to transfer all of the colored personnel from the wing headquarters staff to the tactical and service organizations within the wing structure and replace it with a completely white staff.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, brig gen j. v. crabb to maj gen robert m. lee, hq tac, may , hist of ninth af, afshrc.] [footnote - : ltr, cg, ninth af, to maj gen r. m. lee, tac, may , hist of ninth af, afshrc.] it is difficult to estimate the extent to which these views were shared by other senior commanders, but they were widespread and revealed the tenacious hold of segregation.[ - ] [footnote - : for discussion of these views and their influence on officers, see usaf oral history program, interviews with brig gen noel parrish, mar , col jack marr, oct , and eugene zuckert, apr .] the ninth air force's deputy commander offered another solution: use "whatever colored officers we have" to run lockbourne. he urged that colonel davis's absence at the air war college be considered a temporary arrangement. meanwhile, the general added, "we can carry lockbourne along for that period of time by close supervision from this headquarters."[ - ] as davis later put it, cost effectiveness, not prejudice, was the key factor in the air force's wish to get rid of the d. the air force, he concluded, "wasn't getting its money's worth from negro pilots in a black air force."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, brig gen j. v. crabb to maj gen robert m. lee, hq tac, may , hist of ninth af, afshrc.] [footnote - : interv, author with davis.] the tactical air command's use of black troops is always singled out because of the numbers involved, but the problem was common to nearly all commands. most negroes in the strategic air command, for example, were assigned to aviation engineer units where, as construction workers, they built roads, runways, and housing for the command's far-flung bases. these duties were transient, however, and like migrant workers at home, black construction crews were shifted from base to base as the need arose; they had little chance for promotion, let alone the opportunity to develop other skills.[ - ] [footnote - : see history of various aviation air units in "history of the strategic air command, ," vols vi and viii, afshrc.] the distribution of negroes in all commands, and particularly the shortage of black specialists and officers in the d fighter wing, strongly influenced the air force to reexamine its racial policy, (p.  ) but pressures came from outside the department as well as from the black community which began to press its demands on the new service.[ - ] the prestigious pittsburgh _courier_ opened the campaign in march by directing a series of questions on air force policy to the chief of staff. general carl spaatz responded with a smooth summary of the gillem board report, leaning heavily on that document's progressive aims. "it is the feeling of this headquarters," the chief of staff wrote, "that the ultimate air force objective must be to eliminate segregation among its personnel by the unrestricted use of negro personnel in free competition for any duty within the air force for which they may qualify."[ - ] unimpressed with this familiar rhetoric, the _courier_ headlined its account of the exchange, "air force to keep segregated policy." [footnote - : for discussion of the strength of this outside pressure, see usaf oral history program. interviews with davis and brig gen lucius theus, jan .] [footnote - : ltr, lemuel graves to gen carl spaatz, mar ; ltr, spaatz to graves, apr . a copy of the correspondence was also sent to the secaf. see col jack f. marr, "a report on the first year of implementation of current policies regarding negro personnel," n.d., ppb . .] [illustration: colonel davis.] assistant secretary eugene m. zuckert followed general spaatz's line when he met with black leaders at the national defense conference on negro affairs in april , but his audience also showed little interest in future intentions. putting it bluntly, they wanted to know why segregation was necessary in the air force. zuckert could only assure them that segregation was a "practical military expediency," not an "endorsement of belief in racial distribution."[ - ] but the black leaders pressed the matter further. why was it expedient in a system dedicated to consideration of the individual, asked the president of howard university, to segregate a negro of superior mentality? at yale or harvard, dr. mordecai johnson continued, he would be kept on the team, but if he entered the air force he would be "brigaded with all the people from mississippi and alabama who had had education that costs $ a year."[ - ] [footnote - : department of national defense, "national defense conference on negro affairs," apr (morning session) p. . the conference, convened by secretary of defense forrestal, provided an opportunity for a group of black leaders to question major defense officials on the department's racial policies. see ch. .] [footnote - : department of national defense, "national defense conference on negro affairs," apr , (morning session), p. .] answering for the air force, lt. gen. idwal h. edwards, the deputy chief of staff for personnel, admitted segregation was unnecessary, promised eventual integration, but stated firmly that for the present segregation remained air force policy. as evidence of progress, (p.  ) edwards pointed to the peaceful integration of black officers in training at randolph field. for one conferee this "progress" led to another conclusion: resistance to integration had to emanate from the policymakers, not from the fighting men. all edwards could manage in the way of a reply was that air force policy was considered "the best way to make this thing work under present conditions."[ - ] later edwards, who was not insensitive to the arguments of the black leaders, told secretary of the air force w. stuart symington that perhaps some recommendation "looking toward the integration of whites and negroes in the same units may be forthcoming" from the air board's study of racial policy which was to commence the first week in may.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] [footnote - : memo, edwards for secaf, apr , sub: conference with group of prominent negroes, negro affairs , secaf files.] if the logic of the black leaders impressed general edwards, the demands themselves had little effect on policy. it remained for james c. evans, now the adviser to secretary of defense forrestal, to translate these questions and demands into recommendations for specific action. taking advantage of a long acquaintance with the secretary of the air force, evans discussed the department's race problem with him in may . symington was sympathetic. "put it on paper," he told evans.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with evans, apr ; note, evans to col marr, jun , sd . .] couching his recommendations in terms of the gillem board policy, evans faithfully summarized for the secretary the demands of black leaders. specifically, he asked that colonel davis, the commander of lockbourne air force base, be sent for advanced military schooling without delay. diversification of career was long overdue for davis, the ranking black officer in the air force, as it was for others who were considered indispensable because of the small number of qualified black leaders. for davis, most of all, the situation was unfair since he had always been in command of practically all rated black officers. nor was it good for his subordinates. the air force should not hesitate to assign a white replacement for davis. in effect, evans was telling symington that the black community would understand the necessity for such a move. besides, under the program evans was recommending, the all-black wing would soon cease to exist. he wanted the air force to "deemphasize" lockbourne as the black air base and scatter the black units concentrated there. he wanted to see negroes dispersed throughout the air force, either individually or in small units contemplated by the gillem board, but he wanted men assigned on the basis of technical specialty and proficiency rather than race. it was unrealistic, he declared, to assume all black officers could be most effectively utilized as pilots and all enlisted men as squadron f laborers. limiting training and job opportunity because of race reduced fighting potential in a way that never could be justified. the air force should open to its negroes a wide variety of training, experience, and opportunity to acquire versatility and proficiency.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, evans for secaf, jun , sub: negro air units, d - - . secdef files.] if followed, this program would fundamentally alter air force (p.  ) racial practices. general edwards recommended that the reply to evans should state that certain policy changes would be forthcoming, although they would have to await the outcome of a departmental reevaluation currently under way. the suggestions had been solicited by symington, and edwards was anxious for evans to understand the delay was not a device to defer action.[ - ] [footnote - : dcofs/p summary sheet for cofs, jul , sub: negro air units, negro affairs , secaf files.] [illustration: general edwards.] edwards was in a position to make such assurances. he was an influential member of the air staff with considerable experience in the field of race relations. as a member of the army staff during world war ii he had worked closely with the old mccloy committee on black troops and had strongly advocated wartime experiments with the integration of small-scale units.[ - ] his background, along with his observations as chief personnel officer in the new air force, had taught him to avoid abstract appeals to justice and to make suggestions in terms of military efficiency. concern with efficiency led him, soon after the air force became a separate service, to order lt. col. jack f. marr, a member of his staff, to study the air force's racial policy and practices. testifying to edwards's pragmatic approach, marr later said of his own introduction to the subject: "there was no sociology involved. it was merely a routine staff action along with a bunch of other staff actions that were taking place."[ - ] [footnote - : during world war ii, edwards served as the army's assistant chief of staff, g- . for a discussion of his opposition at that time to the concentration of large groups of men in categories iv and v, see edwin w. kenworthy, "the case against army segregation," _the annals of the american academy of political and social science_ (may ): . see also lee's _employment of negro troops_, p. . edward's part in the integration program is based on usaf oral history program, interviews with zuckert, general william f. mckee, davis, senator stuart symington, and marr. see also interv, author with lt gen idwal h. edwards, nov , cmh files.] [footnote - : ltr, marr to author, jun , cmh files.] a similar concern for efficiency, this time triggered by criticism at the national defense conference on negro affairs in april and evans's discussions with secretary symington the following month, led edwards, after talking it over with assistant secretary zuckert, to raise the subject of the employment of negroes in the air board in may.[ - ] in the wake of the air board discussion the chief of staff appointed a group under maj. gen. richard e. nugent, then director (p.  ) of civilian personnel, to reexamine the service's race policy.[ - ] nugent was another air force official who viewed the employment of negroes as a problem in military efficiency.[ - ] these three, edwards, nugent, and marr, were the chief figures in the development of the air force integration plan, which grew out of the nugent group's study. edwards and nugent supervised its many refinements in the staff while marr, whom zuckert later described as the indispensable man, wrote the plan and remained intimately connected with it until the air force carried it out.[ - ] antedating the truman order to integrate the services, the provisions of this plan eventually became the program under which the air force was integrated.[ - ] [footnote - : a group created to review policy and make recommendations to the chief of staff when called upon, the air board consisted at this time of the assistant chiefs of the air staff, the air inspector, the air comptroller, the director of information, the deputy assistant chief of staff for research and development, and other officials when appropriate.] [footnote - : memo, maj leon bell for zuckert, oct , secaf files. nugent later succeeded edwards as the chief air force personnel officer.] [footnote - : this attitude is strongly displayed in the usaf oral history program, interviews with lt gen richard e. nugent, jun , and marr, oct .] [footnote - : usaf oral hist interv with zuckert.] [footnote - : colonel marr recalled a different chronology for the air force integration plan. according to marr, his proposals were forwarded by edwards to symington who in turn discussed them at a meeting of the secretary of defense's personnel policy board sometime before june . the board rejected the plan at the behest of secretary of the army royall, but later in the year outside pressure caused it to be reconsidered. nothing is available in the files to corroborate marr's recollections, nor do the other participants remember that royall was ever involved in the air force's internal affairs. the records do not show when the air force study of race policy, which originated in the air board in may , evolved into the plan for integration that marr wrote and the chief of staff signed in december , but it seems unlikely that the plan would have been ready before june. see ltrs, marr to author, jun , and jul , cmh files; see also usaf oral hist interv with marr.] [illustration: colonel marr.] as it evolved during the months of deliberation,[ - ] the air force study of black manpower weighed air force practices against the gillem board report and found them "considerably divergent" from the policy as outlined. it isolated several reasons for this divergence. black airmen on the whole, as measured by classification tests, were unsuitable and inadequate for operating all-black air units organized and trained for modern combat. to achieve a balance of skills and training in black units was a "never ending problem for which there appears to be no solution under either the current air force policies or the policies recommended by the gillem board." in short, practices with respect to negroes were "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness and lacking in wartime application." [footnote - : the air force integration plan underwent considerable revision and modification before its submission to the secretary of defense in january . the quotations in the next paragraphs are taken from the version approved by the chief of staff on december .] edwards and his staff saw several advantages in complete (p.  ) integration. wherever qualified black airmen had been permitted to compete with whites on their individual qualifications and abilities, the negroes "achieved a certain amount of acceptance and recognition." students in some schools lived and learned side by side as a matter of practical necessity. "this degree of integration and acceptance on a competitive basis has been eminently successful and has to a remarkable degree solved the 'negro problem' for the training schools involved." at some bases qualified black airmen were administratively assigned to black units but actually performed duties in white units. some commanders had requested that these men be permanently transferred and assigned to the white units because the men deserved higher grades but could not receive them in black units and because it was poor management to have individuals performing duties for one military organization and living under the administrative jurisdiction of another. in the end consideration of full integration was dropped in favor of a program based on the navy's postwar integration of its general service. edwards and his personnel staff dismissed the navy's problems with stewards and its difficulty in enlisting skilled negroes as temporary embarrassments with little practical consequence. this problem apparently allowed an economic and efficient use of negroes and also "relieved the navy of the necessity for repeated efforts to justify an untenable position." they saw several practical advantages in a similar policy for the air force. it would allow the elimination of the percent quota. the inactivation of some black units--"and the pronounced relief of the problems involved in maintaining those units under present conditions"--could be accomplished without injustice to negroes and with benefit to the air force. nor would the integration of qualified negroes in technical and combat units appreciably alter current practices; according to contemporary estimates such skilled men would never total more that percent of the service's manpower. the logic of social justice might have led to total integration, but it would not have solved the air force's pressing problem of too many unskilled blacks. it was consideration of military efficiency, therefore, that led these personnel experts to propose a system of limited integration along the lines of the navy's postwar policy. such a system, they concluded, would release the air force from its quota obligation--and hence its continuing surplus of unskilled men--and free it to assign its relatively small group of skilled black recruits where they were needed and might advance. although limited, the proposed reform was substantial enough to arouse opposition. general edwards reported overwhelming opposition to any form of integration among air force officers, and never during the spring of did the chief of staff seriously consider even partial integration.[ - ] but if integration, even in a small dose, was unpalatable, widespread inefficiency was intolerable. and a new (p.  ) service, still in the process of developing policy, might embrace the new and the practical, especially if pressure were exerted from above. assistant secretary zuckert intimated as much when he finally replied to james evans, "you have my personal assurance that our present position is not in the interest of maintaining the status quo, but it is in anticipation of a more progressive and more satisfactory action in the relatively near future."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, edwards for secaf, apr , sub: conference with group of prominent negroes, negro affairs , secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, zuckert to evans, jul , sub: negro air units, secaf files.] chapter (p.  ) the president intervenes on july president harry s. truman signed executive order , calling on the armed forces to provide equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen. this act has variously been described as an example of presidential initiative, the capstone of the truman civil rights program, and the climax of the struggle for racial equality in the armed forces. but in some ways the order was simply a practical response to a presidential dilemma. the president's order was related to the advent of the cold war. developments in the middle east and europe testified to the ambitions of the soviet union, and many americans feared the spread of communism throughout the world, a threat more ominous with the erosion of american military strength since world war ii. in march truman enunciated a new foreign policy calling for the containment of soviet expansion and pledging economic and military aid to greece and turkey. a year later he asked congress to adopt the marshall plan for economic aid to europe, authorize military training, and enact a new selective service law to maintain the armed forces at expanded levels. that same month his principal military advisers met at key west, florida, to discuss new military roles and missions for the armed forces, grapple with paralyzing divisions among the services, and re-form the military establishment into a genuinely unified whole.[ - ] as if to underscore the urgency of these measures, the soviet union began in april to harass allied troops in berlin, an action that would develop into a full-scale blockade by june. [footnote - : on the development of cold war roles and missions for the services, see timothy w. stanley, _american defense and national security_ (washington: public affairs press, ), chapter viii.] integration of the armed forces hardly loomed large on the international scene, but if the problem of race appeared insignificant to military planners, the sheer number of negroes in the armed forces gave them new prominence in national defense. because of postwar racial quotas, particularly in the army and air force, black servicemen now constituted a significant segment of the service population, and consequently their abilities and well-being had a direct bearing on the nation's cold war defenses. the black community represented percent of the country's manpower, and this also influenced defense planning. black threats to boycott the segregated armed forces could not be ignored, and civil rights demands had to be considered in developing laws relating to selective service and universal training. nor could the administration overlook the fact that the united states had become a leading protagonist in a cold war in which the sympathies of the undeveloped and mostly colored world would soon assume a special importance. inasmuch as integration of the services had become an almost universal demand of the black (p.  ) community, integration became, willy-nilly, an important defense issue. a second stimulus to improvement of the black serviceman's position was the truman administration's strong civil rights program, which gave executive sanction to a national movement started some years before. the civil rights movement was the product of many factors, including the federal government's increased sense of responsibility for the welfare of all its citizens, a sense that had grown out of the new deal and a world war which expanded horizons and increased economic power for much of the black population. the supreme court had recently accelerated this movement by broadening its interpretation of the fourteenth amendment. in the black community itself greater participation in elections and new techniques in community action were eroding discriminatory traditions and practices in many communities. the civil rights movement had in fact progressed by to a stage at which it was politically attractive for a democratic president to assume a vigorous civil rights stance. the urban black vote had become a major goal of truman's election campaign, and he was being pressed repeatedly by his advisers to demonstrate his support for black interests. a presidential order on armed forces integration logically followed because the services, conspicuous practitioners of segregation and patently susceptible to unilateral action on the part of the chief executive, were obvious and necessary targets in the black voters' campaign for civil rights. finally, the integration order resulted in part from the move toward service unification and the emergence of james v. forrestal as secretary of defense. despite misgivings over centralized control of the nation's defense establishment and overconcentration of power in the hands of a secretary of defense, forrestal soon discovered that certain problems rising out of common service experiences naturally converged on the office of the secretary. both by philosophy and temperament he was disposed to avoid a clash with the services over integration. he remained sensitive to their interests and rights, and he frankly doubted the efficacy of social change through executive fiat. yet forrestal was not impervious to the aspirations of the civil rights activists; guided by a humane interest in racial equality, he made integration a departmental goal. his technique for achieving integration, however, proved inadequate in the face of strong service opposition, and finally the president, acting on the basis of these seemingly unrelated motives, had to issue the executive order to strengthen the defense secretary's hand. _the truman administration and civil rights_ executive and legislative interest in the civil rights of black americans reached a level in unmatched since reconstruction. the president himself was the catalyst. by creating a presidential committee on civil rights and developing a legislative program based on its findings, truman brought the black minority into the political arena and committed the federal government to a program of social legislation that it has continued to support ever since. little in (p.  ) the president's background suggested he would sponsor basic social changes. he was a son of the middle border, from a family firmly dedicated to the confederate cause. his appreciation of black aspirations was hardly sophisticated, as he revealed to a black audience in : "i wish to make it clear that i am not appealing for social equality of the negro. the negro himself knows better than that, and the highest types of negro leaders say quite frankly they prefer the society of their own people. negroes want justice, not social relations."[ - ] [footnote - : jonathan daniels, _the man of independence_ (philadelphia: lippincott, ), p. . the quotation is from a speech before the national colored democratic convention, chicago, reprinted in the _congressional record_, th cong., d sess., vol. , aug , appendix, pp. - .] nor did his attitude change drastically in later years. in , seven years after the supreme court's vital school integration decision, truman was calling the freedom riders "meddlesome intruders who should stay at home and attend to their own business." his suggestion to proprietors of lunch counters undergoing sit-ins was to kick out unwelcome customers.[ - ] but if he failed to appreciate the scope of black demands, truman nevertheless demonstrated as early as an acute awareness of the connection between civil rights for blacks and civil liberties for all americans: in giving negroes the rights which are theirs we are only acting in accord with our own ideals of a true democracy. if any class or race can be permanently set apart from, or pushed down below the rest in political and civil rights, so may any other class or race when it shall incur the displeasure of its more powerful associates, and we may say farewell to the principles on which we count our safety.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in james peck, _freedom ride_ (new york: simon and schuster, ), pp. - .] [footnote - : quoted in daniels, _man of independence_, pp. - .] he would repeat these sentiments to other gatherings, including the assembled delegates of the naacp's convention.[ - ] the president's civil rights program would be based, then, on a practical concern for the rights of the majority. neither his social philosophy nor his political use of black demands should detract from his achievements in the field of civil rights. [footnote - : msg, hst to naacp convention, jun , _public papers of the president, _ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - .] it was probably just as well that truman adopted a pragmatic approach to civil rights, for there was little social legislation a reform president could hope to get through the postwar congresses. dominated by a conservative coalition that included the dixiecrats, a group of sometimes racially reactionary southerners, congress showed little interest in civil rights. the creation of a permanent fair employment practices commission, the one piece of legislation directly affecting negroes and the only current test of congressional intent in civil rights, was floundering on capitol hill. truman conspicuously supported the fair employment measure, but did little else specifically in the first year after the war to advance civil rights. instead he seemed content to carry on with the new deal approach to the problem: improve the social condition of all americans and the condition of the minorities will also improve. in this vein his first domestic program concentrated on national projects for housing, health, and veterans' benefits. the conversion of harry truman into a forceful civil rights (p.  ) advocate seems to have come about, at least partially, from his exposure to what he later called the "anti-minority" incidents visited on black servicemen and civilians in .[ - ] although the lynchings, property destruction, and assaults never matched the racial violence that followed world war i, they were enough to convince many civil rights leaders that the pattern of racial strife was being repeated. some of these men, along with a group of labor executives and clergymen, formed a national emergency committee against mob violence to warn the american public against the dangers of racial intolerance. a delegation from this committee, with walter white as spokesman, met with the president on september to demand government action. white described the scene: the president sat quietly, elbows resting on the arms of his chair and his fingers interlocked against his stomach as he listened with a grim face to the story of the lynchings.... when i finished, the president exclaimed in his flat, midwestern accent, "my god! i had no idea it was as terrible as that! we've got to do something!"[ - ] [footnote - : harry s. truman, _memoirs_ (new york: doubleday, ), ii: - ; white, _a man called white_, pp. - . truman's concept of civil rights is analyzed in considerable detail in donald r. mccoy and richard t. ruetten, _quest and response: minority rights and the truman administration_ (lawrence, kansas: university of kansas press, ), chapter iii.] [footnote - : white, _a man called white_, pp. - .] but the truman administration had nearly exhausted the usual remedies open to it. the attorney general had investigated the lynchings and klan activities and the president had spoken out strongly and repeatedly against mob violence but without clear and pertinent civil rights legislation presidential exhortations and investigations counted for very little. civil rights leaders like white understood this, and, given the mood of congress, they were resigned to the lack of legislative support. nevertheless, it was in this context that the president decided to create a committee to investigate and report on the status of civil rights in america. the concept of a federal civil rights group had been circulating in the executive branch for some time. after the detroit race riot in , presidential assistant jonathan daniels had organized a committee to deal with racial troubles. proposals to create a national organization to reduce racial tensions were advanced later in the war, principally by saul k. padover, a minority specialist in the interior department, and david k. niles of the white house staff. little came of the committee idea, however, because roosevelt was convinced that any steps associated with integration would prove divisive and were unwise during wartime.[ - ] with the war over and a different political climate prevailing, niles, now senior white house adviser on minority affairs, proposed the formation of a committee not only to investigate racial violence but also to explore the entire subject of civil rights. [footnote - : intervs, nichols with oscar ewing, former federal security administrator and senior presidential adviser, and jonathan daniels, , in nichols collection, cmh; see also mccoy and ruetten, _quest and response_, p. .] walter white and his friends greeted the idea with some skepticism. they had come demanding action, but were met instead with another promise of a committee and the probability of interminable (p.  ) congressional debate and unproductive hearings.[ - ] but this time, for several reasons, it would be different. in the first place the civil rights leaders underestimated the sincerity of truman's reaction to the racial violence. he had quickly agreed to create niles's committee by executive order to save it from possible pigeonholing at the hands of a hostile congress. he had also given the group, called the president's committee on civil rights, a broad directive "to determine whether and in what respect current law enforcement measures and the authority and means possessed by federal, state, and local governments may be strengthened and improved to safeguard the civil rights of the people."[ - ] the civil rights leaders also failed to gauge the effect republican victories in the congressional elections would have on the administration. finding it necessary to court the negro and other minorities and hoping to confound congressional opposition, the administration sought a strong civil rights program to put before the eightieth congress. thus, the committee's recommendations would get respectful attention in the white house. finally, neither the civil rights leaders nor the president could have foreseen the effectiveness of the committee members. serving under charles e. wilson, president of the general electric company, the group included among its fifteen members distinguished church leaders, public service lawyers, the presidents of dartmouth college and the university of north carolina, and prominent labor executives. the committee had two black members, sadie t. m. alexander, a lawyer from philadelphia, and channing h. tobias, director of the phelps-stokes fund. its members not only prepared a comprehensive survey of the condition of civil rights in america but also presented to the president on october a far-reaching series of recommendations, in effect a program for corrective action that would serve as a bench mark for civil rights progress for many years.[ - ] [footnote - : white, _a man called white_, pp. - .] [footnote - : executive order , dec .] [footnote - : in addition to chairman wilson, the following people served on the committee: sadie t. m. alexander, james b. carey, john s. dickey, morris l. ernst, roland b. gittelsohn, frank p. graham, francis j. haas, charles luckman, francis p. matthews, franklin d. roosevelt, jr., henry knox sherrill, boris shishkin, dorothy tilly, and channing tobias.] [illustration: walter white.] the group recommended the concentration of civil rights work in the department of justice, the establishment of a permanent civil rights commission, a federal antilynching act, a permanent fair employment practices commission, and legislation to correct discrimination in voting and naturalization laws. it also examined the state of (p.  ) civil rights in the armed forces and incidentally publicized the long-ignored survey of black infantry platoons that had fought in europe in .[ - ] it concluded: the injustice of calling men to fight for freedom while subjecting them to humiliating discrimination within the fighting forces is at once apparent. furthermore, by preventing entire groups from making their maximum contribution to the national defense, we weaken our defense to that extent and impose heavier burdens on the remainder of the population.[ - ] [footnote - : parts of the survey of attitudes of participants in the world war ii integration of platoons were included in remarks by congresswoman helen g. douglas, published in the _congressional record_, th cong., d sess., feb , appendix, pp. - .] [footnote - : _to secure these rights_, p. .] the committee called for sweeping change in the armed forces, recommending that congress enact legislation, followed by appropriate administrative action, to end all discrimination and segregation in the services. concluding that the recent service unification provided a timely opportunity for revision of existing policies and practices, the committee proposed a specific ban on discrimination and segregation in all phases of recruitment, assignment, and training, including selection for service schools and academies, as well as in mess halls, quarters, recreational facilities, and post exchanges. it also wanted commissions and promotions awarded on merit alone and asked for new laws to protect servicemen from discrimination in communities adjacent to military bases.[ - ] the committee wanted the president to look beyond the integration of people working and living on military bases, and it introduced a concept that would gain considerable support in a future administration. the armed forces, it declared, _should_ be used as an instrument of social change. world war ii had demonstrated that the services were a laboratory in which citizens could be educated on a broad range of social and political issues, and the administration was neglecting an effective technique for teaching the public the advantages of providing equal treatment and opportunity for all citizens.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., pp. - .] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] president truman deleted the recommendations on civil rights in the services when he transmitted the committee's recommendations to congress in the form of a special message on february . arguing that the services' race practices were matters of executive interest and pointing to recent progress toward better race relations in the armed forces, the president told congress that he had already instructed the secretary of defense to take steps to eliminate remaining instances of discrimination in the services as rapidly as possible. he also promised that the personnel policies and practices of all the services would be made uniform.[ - ] [footnote - : truman, special message to the congress on civil rights, feb , _public papers of the president, _, pp. - .] to press for civil rights legislation for the armed forces or even to mention segregation was politically imprudent. truman had two pieces of military legislation to get through congress: a new draft law and a provision for universal military training. these he considered (p.  ) too vital to the nation's defense to risk grounding on the shoals of racial controversy. for the time being at least, integration of the armed forces would have to be played down, and any civil rights progress in the department of defense would have to depend on the persuasiveness of james forrestal. [illustration: truman's civil rights campaign _as seen by washington star cartoonist clifford k. berryman, march , _.] _civil rights and the department of defense_ the basic postwar reorganization of the national military establishment, the national security act of , created the office of the secretary of defense, a separate department of the air force, the central intelligence agency, and the national security council. it also reconstituted the war department as the department of the army and gave legal recognition as a permanent agency to the joint chiefs of staff. the principle of military unification that underlay the reorganization plan was muted in the legislation that finally emerged from congress. although the secretary of defense was given authority to establish general policies and to exercise general direction (p.  ) and control of the services, the services themselves retained a large measure of autonomy in their internal administration and individual service secretaries retained cabinet rank. in effect, the act created a secretary without a department, a reorganization that largely reflected the viewpoint of the navy. the army had fought for a much greater degree of unification, which would not be achieved until the passage of the national security act amendments of . this legislation redesignated the unified department the department of defense, strengthened the powers of the secretary of defense, and provided for uniform budgetary procedures. although the services were to be "separately administered," their respective secretaries henceforward headed "military departments" without cabinet status. the first secretary of defense, james forrestal, was a man of exceptional administrative talents, yet even before taking office he expressed strong reservations on the wisdom of a unified military department. as early as july , at breakfast with president truman during the potsdam conference, forrestal questioned whether any one man "was good enough to run the combined army, navy, and air departments." what kind of men could the president get in peacetime, he asked, to be under secretaries of war, navy, and air if they were subordinate to a single defense secretary?[ - ] speaking to lester granger that same year on the power of the secretary of the navy to order the marine corps to accept negroes, forrestal expressed uncertainty about a cabinet officer's place in the scheme of things. "some people think the secretary is god-almighty, but he's just a god-damn civilian."[ - ] even after his appointment as defense secretary doubts lingered: "my chief misgivings about unification derived from my fear that there would be a tendency toward overconcentration and reliance on one man or one-group direction. in other words, too much central control."[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in walter millis, ed., _the forrestal diaries_ (new york: viking press, ), p. .] [footnote - : quoted by granger in the interview he gave nichols in .] [footnote - : quoted in millis, _forrestal diaries_, p. .] forrestal's philosophy of management reinforced the limitations placed on the secretary of defense by the national security act. he sought a middle way in which the efficiency of a unified system could be obtained without sacrificing what he considered to be the real advantages of service autonomy. thus, he supported a report of the defense study group under ferdinand eberstadt that argued for a "coordinated" rather than a "unitary" defense establishment.[ - ] practical experience modified his fears somewhat, and by october , convinced he needed greater power to control the defense establishment, forrestal urged that the language of the national security act, which limited the secretary of defense to "general" authority only over the military departments, be amended to eliminate the word _general_. yet he always retained his basic distrust of (p.  ) dictation, preferring to understand and adjust rather than to conclude and order.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., pp. , . timothy stanley describes the eberstadt report as the navy's "constructive alternative" to unification. see stanley's _american defense and national security_, p. ; see also hewes, _from root to mcnamara_, pp. - . for a detailed analysis of defense unification, see lawrence legere, jr., "unification of the armed forces," chapter vi, in cmh.] [footnote - : millis, _forrestal diaries_, pp. , .] nowhere was forrestal's philosophy of government more evident than in his approach to the problem of integration. his office would be concerned with equal opportunity, he promised walter white soon after his elevation to the new post, but "the job of secretary of defense," he warned, "is one which will have to develop in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner." further dashing hopes of sudden reform, forrestal added that specific racial problems, as distinct from general policy matters, would remain the province of the individual services.[ - ] he retained this attitude throughout his tenure. he considered the president's instructions to end remaining instances of discrimination in the services "in accord with my own conception of my responsibilities under unification," and he was in wholehearted agreement with a presidential wish that the national military establishment work out the answer to its racial problems through administrative action. he wanted to see a "more nearly uniform approach to interracial problems by the three services," but experience had demonstrated, he believed, that racial problems could not be solved simply by publishing an executive order or passing a law. racial progress would come from education. such had been his observation in the wartime navy, and he was ready to promise that "even greater progress will be made in the future." but, he added, "progress must be made administratively and should not be put into effect by fiat."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, forrestal to white, oct , day file, forrestal papers, princeton university library.] [footnote - : remarks by james forrestal at dinner meeting of the national urban league, feb , copy in misc file, forrestal papers; see also ltr, forrestal to john n. brown, oct , day file, ibid.] executive fiat was just what some of forrestal's advisers wanted. for example, his executive assistant, john h. ohly, his civilian aide, james c. evans,[ - ] and truman gibson urged the secretary to consider establishing an interservice committee along the lines of the old mccloy committee to prepare a uniform racial policy that he could apply to all the services. they wanted the committee to examine past and current practices as well as the recent reports of the president's advisory commission on universal training and the committee on civil rights and to make specific recommendations for carrying out and policing department policy. truman gibson went to the heart of the matter: the formulation of such an interservice committee would signal to the black community better than anything else the defense establishment's determination to change the racial situation. more and more, he warned, the discrepancies among the services' racial practices were attracting public attention. most important to the administration was the fact that these discrepancies were strengthening opposition to universal military training and the draft.[ - ] [footnote - : in addition to his duties as civilian aide to the secretary of the army, evans was made aide to the secretary of defense on october . (see memo, secdef for sa et al., oct , d - - , files of historian, osd.) evans was subsequently appointed "civilian assistant" to the secretary of defense by secretary louis johnson on apr . (see nme press release, - -a.)] [footnote - : ltr, gibson to ohly, nov , d - - , sec def files.] [illustration: a. philip randolph. (_detail from painting by betsy g. reyneau._)] gibson was no doubt referring to a. philip randolph, president (p.  ) of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters and organizer of the march on washington movement, who had spoken out against the pending legislation. randolph was particularly concerned that the bill did not prohibit segregation, and he quoted a member of the advisory commission on universal training who admitted that the bill ignored the racial issue because "the south might oppose umt if negroes were included." drafting eighteen-year olds into a segregated army was a threat to black progress, randolph charged, because enforced segregation made it difficult to break down other forms of discrimination. convinced that the pentagon was trying to bypass the segregation issue, randolph and grant reynolds, a black clergyman and new york politician, formed a committee against jim crow in military service and training. they planned to submit a proposal to the president and congress for drafting a nondiscrimination measure for the armed forces, and they were prepared to back up this demand with a march on washington--no empty gesture in an election year. randolph had impressive backing from black leaders, among them dr. channing h. tobias of the civil rights committee, george s. schuyler, columnist of the pittsburgh _courier_, l. d. reddick, curator of the schomburg collection of the new york public library, and joe louis.[ - ] [footnote - : new york times, november , ; _herald tribune_, november , . see also l. d. reddick, "the negro policy of the american army since world war ii," _journal of negro history_ (april ): - .] black spokesmen were particularly incensed by the attitude of the secretary of the army and his staff. walter white pointed out that these officials continued to justify segregated units on the grounds that segregation was--he quoted them--"in the interest of national defense." white went to special pains to refute the army's contention that segregation was necessary because the army had to conform to local laws and customs. "how," he asked secretary forrestal, can the imposition of segregation upon northern states having clear-cut laws and policies in opposition to such practices be justified by the army?... in view of president truman's recent report to the congress and in view of the report of his committee on civil rights condemning segregation in the armed forces, i am at a loss to understand the reluctance on the part of the department of defense to immediately eliminate all vestiges of discrimination and (p.  ) segregation in the armed forces of this country. as the foremost defender of democratic principles in international councils, the united states can ill afford to any longer discriminate against its negro citizens in its armed forces solely because they were fortunate or unfortunate enough to be born negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, white to forrestal, feb , d - - , secdef files.] forrestal stubbornly resisted the pleas of his advisers and black leaders that he assume a more active role. in the first place he had real doubts concerning his authority to do so. forrestal was also aware of the consequences an integration campaign would have on capitol hill, where he was in the midst of delicate negotiations on defense measures. but most of all the role of crusader did not fit him. "i have gone somewhat slowly," forrestal had written in late october , "because i believe in the theory of having things to talk about as having been done rather than having to predict them, and ... morale and confidence are easy to destroy but not easy to rebuild. in other words, i want to be sure that any changes we make are changes that accomplish something and not merely for the sake of change."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, forrestal to rear adm w. b. young, oct , quoted in millis, _forrestal diaries_, p. .] to forrestal equal opportunity was not a pious platitude, but a practical means of solving the military's racial problems. equal opportunity was the tactic he had used in the navy where he had encouraged specialized training for all qualified negroes. he understood that on shipboard machinists ate and bunked with machinists, firemen with firemen. inaugurated in the fleet, the practice naturally spread to the shore establishment, and equal opportunity led inevitably to the integration of the general service. given the opportunity to qualify for all specialties, negroes--albeit their number was limited to the small group in the general service--quickly gained equal treatment in off-the-job activities. forrestal intended to apply the same tactic to achieve the same results in the other services.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, blumenson with marx leva, special assistant to the secretary of defense ( - ) and later assistant secretary of defense (legal and legislative affairs), may , cmh files.] as in the past, he turned first to lester granger, his old friend from the national urban league. acting on the recommendation of his special assistant, marx leva, forrestal invited granger to the pentagon to discuss the department's racial problems with a view to holding a general conference and symposium on the subject. as usual, granger was full of ideas, and he and the secretary agreed that forrestal should create a "critics group," which would discuss "army and general defense policies in the use of negro personnel."[ - ] granger suggested a roster of black and white experts, influential in the black community and representing most shades of opinion, but he would exclude those apt to make political capital out of the issues. [footnote - : handwritten memo, leva for forrestal, attached to ltr, white to forrestal, feb ; ltr, leva to granger, feb ; ltr, granger to forrestal, mar . all in d - - , secdef files. the quotation is from the march letter.] the leva-granger conference idea fitted neatly into forrestal's thinking. it offered the possibility of introducing to the services in a systematic and documented way the complaints of responsible black leaders while instructing those leaders in the manpower problems confronting the postwar armed forces. he hoped the conference (p.  ) would modify traditionalist attitudes toward integration while curbing mounting unrest in the black community. granger and forrestal agreed that the conference should be held soon. although granger wanted some "good solid white representation" in the group, forrestal decided instead to invite fifteen black leaders to meet on april in the pentagon; he alerted the service secretaries, asking them to attend or to designate an assistant to represent them in each case.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, marx leva for sa et al., apr ; idem for forrestal, apr ; ltr, secdef to all invited, apr . all in d - - , secdef files. those invited were truman gibson; dr. channing tobias; dr. sadie t. m. alexander; mary mcleod bethune; dr. john w. davis of west virginia state college; dr. benjamin e. mays of morehouse college; dr. mordecai johnson of howard university; p. b. young, jr., of the norfolk _journal and guide_; willard townsend of the united transport service employees; rev. john h. johnson of new york; walter white; hobson e. reynolds of the international order of elks; bishop j. w. gregg of kansas city; loren miller of los angeles; and charles houston of washington, d.c. unable to attend, white sent his assistant roy wilkins, townsend sent george l. p. weaver, and mrs. bethune was replaced by ira f. lewis of the pittsburgh _courier_.] announcement of the conference was upstaged in the press by the activities of some civil rights militants, including those whom granger sought to exclude from the forrestal conference because he thought they would make a political issue of the war against segregation. forrestal first learned of the militants' plans from members of the national negro publishers association, a group of publishers and editors of important black journals who were about to tour european installations as guests of the army.[ - ] at granger's suggestion forrestal had met with the publishers and editors to explain the causes for the delay in desegregating the services. instead, he found himself listening to an impassioned demand for immediate change. ira f. lewis, president of the pittsburgh _courier_ and spokesman for the group, told the secretary that the black community did not expect the services to be a laboratory or clearinghouse for processing the social ills of the nation, but it wanted to warn the man responsible for military preparedness that the united states could not afford another war with one-tenth of its population lacking the spirit to fight. the problem of segregation could best be solved by the policymakers. "the colored people of the country have a high regard for you, mr. secretary, as a square shooter," lewis concluded. and from forrestal they expected action.[ - ] [footnote - : representing eight papers, a cross section of the influential black press, the journalists included ira f. lewis and william g. nunn, pittsburgh _courier_; cliff w. mackay, _afro-american_; louis martin and charles browning, chicago _defender_; thomas w. young and louis r. lautier, norfolk _journal and guide_; carter wesley, houston _defender_; frank l. stanley, louisville _defender_; dowdal h. davis, kansas city _call_; dan burley, _amsterdam news_. see evans, list of publishers and editors of negro newspapers, pentagon, mar , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : sentiments of the meeting were summarized in ltr, ira f. lewis to forrestal, mar ; see also ltr, granger to forrestal, mar ; both in d - - , secdef files.] while black newspapermen were pressing the executive branch, randolph and his committee against jim crow were demanding congressional action. randolph concentrated on one explosive issue, the army's procurement of troops. the first war department plans for postwar manpower procurement were predicated on some form of universal military training, a new concept for the united states. the plans immediately came under fire from negroes because the army, citing the gillem board report as its authority, had specified that black recruits be trained in segregated units. the army had also specified that the black units form parts of larger, racially mixed units and would be trained in racially mixed camps.[ - ] the president's (p.  ) advisory commission on universal training (the compton commission), appointed to study the army's program, strongly objected to the segregation provisions, but to no avail.[ - ] as if to signal its intentions the army trained an experimental universal military training unit in at fort knox that carefully excluded black volunteers. [footnote - : wd ltr, agao-s ( may ), wdgot-m, jun .] [footnote - : _a program for national security: report of the president's advisory commission on universal training, may _ (washington: government printing office, ), p. .] the showdown between civil rights organizations and the administration over universal military training never materialized. faced with chronic opposition to the program and the exigencies of the cold war, the administration quietly shelved universal training and concentrated instead on the reestablishment of the selective service system. when black attention naturally shifted to the new draft legislation, randolph was able to capitalize on the determination of many leaders in the civil rights movement to defeat any draft law that countenanced the army's racial policy. appearing at the senate armed services committee hearings on the draft bill, randolph raised the specter of civil disobedience, pledging to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both white and negro, to quarantine any jim crow conscription system, whether it bear the label of universal military training or selective service.... from coast to coast in my travels i shall call upon all negro veterans to join this civil disobedience movement and to recruit their younger brothers in an organized refusal to register and be drafted.... i shall appeal to the thousands of white youths ... to demonstrate their solidarity with negro youth by ignoring the entire registration and induction machinery.... i shall appeal to the negro parents to lend their moral support to their sons, to stand behind them as they march with heads held high to federal prisons as a telling demonstration to the world that negroes have reached the limit of human endurance, that, in the words of the spiritual, we will be buried in our graves before we will be slaves.[ - ] [footnote - : senate, hearings before the committee on armed services, _universal military training_, th cong., d sess., , p. .] randolph argued that hard-won gains in education, job opportunity, and housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting segregation. how could a fair employment practices commission, he asked, dare criticize discrimination in industry if the government itself was discriminating against negroes in the services? "negroes are just sick and tired of being pushed around," he concluded, "and we just do not propose to take it, and we do not care what happens."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] when senator wayne morse warned randolph that such statements in times of national emergency would leave him open to charges of treason, randolph replied that by fighting for their rights negroes were serving the cause of american democracy. borrowing from the rhetoric of the cold war, he predicted that such was the effect of segregation on the international fight for men's minds that america could never stop communism as long as it was burdened with jim crowism. randolph threw down the gauntlet. "we have to face this thing sooner or (p.  ) later, and we might just as well face it now."[ - ] it was up to the administration and congress to decide whether his challenge was the beginning of a mass movement or a weightless threat by an extremist group. [footnote - : ibid., pp. - . the quotation is from page .] the immediate reaction of various spokesmen for the black community supported both possibilities. also testifying before the senate armed services committee, truman gibson, who was a member of the compton commission that had objected to segregation, expressed "shock and dismay" at randolph's pledge and predicted that negroes would continue to participate in the country's defense effort.[ - ] for his pains gibson was branded a "rubber stamp uncle tom" by congressman adam clayton powell. the black press, for the most part, applauded randolph's analysis of the mood of negroes, but shied away from the threat of civil disobedience. the naacp and most other civil rights organizations took the same stand, condemning segregation but disavowing civil disobedience.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] [footnote - : the philadelphia _inquirer_, april , ; pm, april , . see also mccloy and ruetten, _quest and response_, pp. - ; "crisis in the making: u.s. negroes tussle with the issue," _newsweek_, june , , pp. - ; l. bennett, jr., _confrontation black and white_ (chicago: johnson press, ), pp. - ; grant reynolds, "a triumph for civil disturbance," _nation_ (august , ): - .] although the administration could take comfort in the relatively mild reaction from conservative blacks, an important element of the black community supported randolph's stand. a poll of young educated negroes conducted by the naacp revealed that percent of those of draft age would support the civil disobedience campaign. so impressive was randolph's support--the new york _times_ called it a blunt warning from the black public--that one news journal saw in the campaign the specter of a major national crisis.[ - ] on the other hand, the washington _post_ cautioned its readers not to exaggerate the significance of the protest. randolph's words, the _post_ declared, were intended "more as moral pressure" for nondiscrimination clauses in pending draft and universal military training legislation than as a serious threat.[ - ] [footnote - : new york _times_, april , .] [footnote - : washington _post_, april , .] whatever its ultimate influence on national policy, the randolph civil disobedience pledge had no visible effect on the position of the president or congress. with a draft bill and a national political convention pending, the president was not about to change his hands-off policy toward the segregation issue in the services. in fact he showed some heat at what he saw as a threat by extremists to exploit an issue he claimed he was doing his best to resolve.[ - ] as for members of congress, most of those who joined in the debate on the draft bill simply ignored the threatened boycott. [footnote - : mccoy and ruetten, _quest and response_, p. .] in contrast to the militant randolph, the negroes who gathered at secretary forrestal's invitation for the national defense conference on april appeared to be a rather sedate group. but academic honors, business success, and gray hairs were misleading. these eminent educators, clergymen, and civil rights leaders proved just as (p.  ) determined as randolph and his associates to be rid of segregation and, considering their position in the community, were more likely to influence the administration. that they were their own men quickly became apparent in the stormy course of the pentagon meeting. they subjected a score of defense officials[ - ] to searching questions, submitted themselves to cross-examination by the press, and agreed to prepare a report for the secretary of defense. [footnote - : department of national defense, "national defense conference on negro affairs," apr . this document includes the testimony and transcript of the news conference that followed. officials appearing before the committee included james forrestal, secretary of defense; robert p. patterson, former secretary of war; marx leva, special assistant to the secretary of defense; james evans, adviser to the secretary of defense; kenneth c. royall, secretary of the army; john n. brown, assistant secretary of the navy; w. stuart symington, secretary of the air force; and personnel officials and consultants from each service.] while the group refrained from endorsing randolph's position, it also refrained from criticizing him and strongly supported his thesis that segregation in itself was discrimination. nor were its views soft-pedaled in the press release issued after the conference. the secretary of defense was forced to announce that the black leaders declined to serve as advisers to the national military establishment as long as the services continued to practice segregation. the group unanimously recommended that the armed services eliminate segregation and challenged the army's interpretation of its own policy, insisting that the army could abolish segregation even within the framework of the gillem board recommendations. the members planned no future meetings but adjourned to prepare their report.[ - ] [footnote - : nme press releases, apr and sep .] this adamant stand should not have surprised the secretary of defense. forrestal could appreciate more than most the pressures operating on the group. in the aftermath of the report of the president's committee on civil rights and in the heightened atmosphere caused by the rhetoric of the randolph campaign, these men were also caught up in the militants' cause. if they were reluctant to attack the services too severely lest they lose their chance to influence the course of racial events in the department, they were equally reluctant to accept the pace of reform dictated by the traditionalists. in the end they chose to side with their more radical colleagues. thus despite lester granger's attempt to soften the blow, the conference designed to bring the opponents together ended with yet another condemnation of forrestal's gradualism. forrestal himself agreed with the goals of the conferees, he told granger, but at the same time he refused to abandon his approach, insisting that he could not force people into cooperation and mutual respect by issuing a directive. instead he arranged for granger to meet with army leaders to spread the gospel of equal opportunity and ordered a report prepared showing precisely what the navy did during the late months of the war and "how much of it has stuck--on the question of non-segregation both in messing and barracks." the report, written by lt. dennis d. nelson, was sent to secretary of the army royall along with sixteen photographs picturing blacks and whites (p.  ) being trained together and working side by side.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, forrestal for marx leva, apr ; ltr, nelson to leva, may ; memo, leva for sa, may . all in d - - , secdef files.] [illustration: national defense conference on negro affairs. _conferees prepare to meet with the press, april ._] given the vast size of the army, it was perfectly feasible to open all training to qualified negroes and yet continue for years racial practices that had so quickly proved impossible in the navy's smaller general service. of course, even in the army the number of segregated jobs that could be created was limited, and in time forrestal's tactics might, it could be argued, have succeeded despite the army's size and the intractability of its leaders. time, however, was precisely what forrestal lacked, given the increasing political strength of the civil rights movement. sparked by randolph's stand before the congressional committee, some members of the black community geared up for greater protests. worse still for an administration facing a critical election, the protest was finding some support in the camps of the president's rivals. early in may, for example, a group of prominent civil rights activists formed the commission of inquiry with the expressed purpose of examining the treatment of black servicemen during world war ii. organized by randolph and reynolds, the commission boasted arthur garfield hayes, noted civil libertarian and lawyer, as its counsel. the commission planned to interrogate witnesses and, on the basis of the testimony gathered, issue a report to congress and the public that would include recommendations on conscription legislation. various defense department officials were invited to testify but only james c. evans, who acted as department spokesman, accepted. during the (p.  ) inquiry, which evans estimated was attended by persons, little attention was given to randolph's civil disobedience pledge, but evans himself came in for considerable ridicule, and there were headlines aplenty in the black press.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, grant reynolds and randolph to evans, may ; memo, evans for secdef, may , sub: commission of inquiry; both in secdef files. see also a. philip randolph, statement before commission of inquiry, may , copy in usaf special files , , secaf files.] these attacks were being carried out in an atmosphere of heightened political interest in the civil rights of black servicemen. henry a. wallace, the progressive party's presidential candidate, had for some time been telling his black audiences that the administration was insincere because if it wanted to end segregation it could simply force the resignation of the secretary of the army.[ - ] henry cabot lodge, the republican senator from massachusetts, called on forrestal to make "a real attempt, well thought out and well organized," to integrate a sizable part of the armed forces with soldiers volunteering for such arrangements. quoting from general eisenhower's testimony before the armed services committee, he reminded forrestal that segregation was not only an undeserved and unjustified humiliation to the negro, but a potential danger to the national defense effort. in the face of a manpower shortage, it was inexcusable to view segregation simply as a political question, "of concern to a few individuals and to a few men in public life and to be dealt with as adroitly as possible, always with an eye to the largest number of votes."[ - ] [footnote - : new york _times_, february , .] [footnote - : ltr, sen. henry c. lodge, jr. (mass.), to secdef, apr , d - - , secdef files.] yet as the timing of senator lodge's letter suggests, the political implications of the segregation fight were a prime concern of every politician involved, and forrestal had to act with this fact in mind. the administration considered the wallace campaign a real but minor threat because of his appeal to black voters in the early months of the campaign.[ - ] the republican incursion into the civil rights field was more ominous, and forrestal, having acknowledged lodge's letter, turned to lester granger for help in drafting a detailed reply. it took granger some time to suggest an approach because he agreed with lodge on many points but found some of his inferences as unsound as the army's policy. for instance lodge approved eisenhower's comments on segregation, and the only real difference between eisenhower and the army staff was that eisenhower wanted segregation made more efficient by putting smaller all-black units into racially composite organizations. negroes opposed segregation as an insult to their race and to their manhood. granger wanted forrestal to tell lodge that no group of negroes mindful of its public standing could take a position other than total opposition to segregation. having to choose between randolph's stand and eisenhower's, negroes could not endorse eisenhower. granger also thought forrestal would do well to explain to lodge that he himself favored for the other services the policy followed by the navy in the name of improving efficiency and morale.[ - ] [footnote - : mccoy and ruetten, _quest and response_, pp. - .] [footnote - : ltr, granger to leva, may , d - - , secdef files.] a reply along these line was prepared, but marx leva persuaded (p.  ) forrestal not to send it until the selective service bill had safely passed congress.[ - ] forrestal was "seriously concerned," he wrote the president on may , about the fate of that legislation. he wanted to express his opposition to an amendment proposed by senator richard b. russell of georgia that would guarantee segregated units for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own race. he also wanted to announce his intention of making "further progress" in interracial relations. to that end he had discussed with special counsel to the president clark m. clifford the creation of an advisory board to recommend specific steps his department could take in the race relations field. reiterating a long-cherished belief, forrestal declared that this "difficult problem" could not be solved by issuing an executive order or passing a law, "for progress in this field must be achieved by education, and not by mandate."[ - ] the president agreed to these maneuvers,[ - ] but just three days later forrestal returned to the subject, passing along to truman a warning from senator robert a. taft of ohio that both the russell amendment and one proposed by senator william langer of north dakota to prohibit all segregation were potential roadblocks to passage of the bill.[ - ] in the end congress rejected both amendments, passing a draft bill without any special racial provisions on june . [footnote - : memo, leva to forrestal, may , d - - , secdef files. forrestal's response, suggesting that lodge meet with lester granger to discuss the matter, was finally sent on jun . see also memo, leva for forrestal, jun , and ltr, secdef to sen. lodge, jun , both in d - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : memo, james forrestal for president, may , secretary's file (psf), harry s. truman library.] [footnote - : memo, president for secdef, jun , secretary's file (psf), truman library.] [footnote - : note, secdef for president, may , sub: conversation with senator taft, secretary's file (psf), truman library.] the proposal for an advisory board proved to be forrestal's last attempt to change the racial practices of the armed forces through gradualism. in the next few weeks the whole problem would be taken out of his hands by a white house grown impatient with his methods. there, in contrast to the comparatively weak position of the secretary of defense, who had not yet consolidated his authority, the full force and power of the commander in chief would be used to give a dramatic new meaning to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. given the temper of the times, forrestal's surrender was inevitable, for a successful reform program had to show measurable improvements, and despite his maneuvers with the civil rights activists, the congress, and the services, forrestal had no success worth proclaiming in his first eight months of office. this lack of progress disappointed civil rights leaders, who had perhaps overestimated the racial reforms made when forrestal was secretary of the navy. it can be argued that as secretary of defense forrestal himself was inclined to overestimate them. nevertheless, he could demonstrate some systematic improvement in the lot of the black sailor, enough improvement, according to his gradualist philosophy, to assure continued progress. ironically, considering forrestal's faith in the efficacy of education and persuasion, whatever can be counted as his success in the navy was accomplished by the firm authority he and his immediate subordinates exercised during the last months of (p.  ) the war. yet this authority was precisely what he lacked in his new office, where his power was limited to only a general control over intransigent services that still insisted on their traditional autonomy. in any case, by there was no hope for widespread reform through a step-by-step demonstration of the practicality and reasonableness of integration. too much of the remaining opposition was emotional, rooted in prejudice and tradition, to yield to any but forceful methods. if the services were to be integrated in the short run, integration would have to be forced upon them. _executive order _ although politics was only one of several factors that led to executive order , the order was born during a presidential election campaign, and its content and timing reflect that fact. having made what could be justified as a military decision in the interest of a more effective use of manpower in the armed forces, the president and his advisers sought to capitalize on the political benefits that might accrue from it.[ - ] the work of the president's committee on civil rights and truman's subsequent message to congress had already elevated civil rights to the level of a major campaign issue. as early as november clark clifford, predicting the nomination of thomas dewey and henry wallace, had advised the president to concentrate on winning the allegiance of the nation's minority voters, especially the black, labor, and jewish blocs.[ - ] clifford had discounted the threat of a southern defection, but in the spring of southern democrats began to turn from the party, and the black vote, an important element in the big city democratic vote since the formation of the roosevelt coalition, now became in the minds of the campaign planners an essential ingredient in a truman victory. through the efforts of oscar ewing, head of the federal security administration and white house adviser on civil rights matters, and several other politicians, harry truman was cast in the role of minority rights champion.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with ewing; interv, blumenson with leva.] [footnote - : memo, clark clifford for president, nov ; ibid., aug , sub: the campaign; both in truman library. see also cabell b. phillips, _the truman presidency_ (new york: macmillan, ), pp. - , and mccoy and ruetten, _quest and response_, ch. vi.] [footnote - : interv, nichols with ewing.] theirs was not a difficult task, for the president's identification with the civil rights movement had become part of the cause of his unpopularity in some democratic circles and a threat to his renomination. he overcame the attempt to deny him the presidential nomination in june, and he accepted the strong civil rights platform that emerged from the convention. the resolution committee of that convention had proposed a mild civil rights plank in the hope of preventing the defection of southern delegates, but in a dramatic floor fight hubert h. humphrey, the mayor of minneapolis and a candidate for the u.s. senate, forced through one of the strongest civil rights statements in the history of the party. this plank endorsed truman's congressional message on civil rights and called (p.  ) for "congress to support our president in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights ... the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation."[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in memo, leva for secdef, jul , d - - , secdef files.] truman admitted to forrestal that "he had not himself wanted to go as far as the democratic platform went on the civil rights issue." the president had no animus toward those who voted against the platform; he would have done the same if he had come from their states. but he was determined to run on the platform, and for him, he later said, a platform was not a window dressing. his southern colleagues understood him. when a reporter pointed out to governor strom thurmond of south carolina that the president had only accepted a platform similar to those supported by roosevelt, the governor answered, "i agree, but truman really means it."[ - ] after the platform fight the alabama and mississippi delegates walked out of the convention. the dixiecrat revolt was on in earnest. [footnote - : quoted in truman, _memoirs_, ii: ; see also interv, nichols with truman, and millis, _forrestal diaries_, p. .] both the democratic platform and the report of the president's civil rights committee referred to discrimination in the federal government, a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. for once the "do-nothing" congress could not be blamed, and if truman failed to act promptly he would only invite the wrath of the civil rights forces he was trying to court. aware of this political necessity, the president's advisers had been studying the areas in which the president alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the mechanics by which he might make his actions effective. according to oscar ewing, the advisers had decided as early as october that the best way to handle discrimination in the federal government was to issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian government employees and members of the armed forces. in the end the president decided to issue two executive orders.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with ewing.] clifford, ewing, and philleo nash, who was a presidential specialist on minority matters, worked on drafting both orders. after consulting with truman gibson, nash proposed that the order directed to the services should create a committee within the military establishment to push for integration, one similar to the mccloy committee in world war ii. like gibson, nash was convinced that change in the armed forces racial policy would come only through a series of steps initiated in each service. by such steps progress had been made in the navy through its special programs unit and in the army through the efforts of the mccloy committee. nash argued against the publication of an executive order that spelled out integration or condemned segregation. rather, let the order to the services call for equal treatment and opportunity--the language of the democratic platform. tie it to military efficiency, letting the services discover, under guidance from a white house committee, the inefficiency of segregation. the services would quickly conclude, the advisers assumed, that equal treatment and opportunity were impossible in a segregated (p.  ) system.[ - ] after a series of discussions with the president, nash, clifford, and ewing drew up a version of the order to the services along the lines suggested by nash.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, niles for clifford, may ; memo, clifford for secdef, may , nash collection, truman library.] [footnote - : interv, nichols with ewing.] the draft underwent one significant revision at the request of the secretary of defense. in keeping with his theory that the services should be given the chance to work out their own methods of compliance with the order to integrate, forrestal wanted no deadlines set. to keep antagonisms to a minimum he wanted the order to call simply for progress "as rapidly as feasible." the president agreed.[ - ] [footnote - : nichols, _breakthrough on the color front_, p. .] the timing of the order was politically important to truman, and by late july the white house was extremely anxious to publish the document. the president now had his all-important selective service legislation; he was beginning to campaign on a platform calling for a special session of congress--a congress dominated by republicans, who had also just approved a party platform calling for an end to segregation in the armed forces. haste was evident in the fact that the order, along with copies for the service secretaries, was sent to the secretary of defense on the morning of july--the day it was issued--for comment and review by that afternoon.[ - ] the order was also submitted to walter white and a. philip randolph before it was issued.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, donald s. dawson, admin asst to the president, to secdef, jul . the executive order on equal opportunity for federal employees was also issued on july.] [footnote - : columbia university oral hist interv with wilkins.] actually, the order had been read to forrestal on the evening of the previous day, and his office had suggested one more change. marx leva believed that the order would be improved if it mentioned the fact that substantial progress in civil rights had been made during the war and in the years thereafter. since a sentence to this effect had been included in truman's civil rights message of february, leva thought it would be well to include it in the executive order. believing also that policy changes ought to be the work of the government or of the executive branch of the government rather than of the president alone, he offered a sentence for inclusion: "to the extent that this policy has not yet been completely implemented, such alterations or improvements in existing rules, procedures and practices as may be necessary shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible." although forrestal approved the sentence, it was not accepted by the president.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, leva for forrestal, jul , secdef files.] approvals were quickly gathered from interested cabinet officials. the attorney general passed on the form and legality of the order. forrestal was certain that stuart symington of the air force and john l. sullivan, secretary of the navy, would approve the order, but he suggested that oscar ewing discuss the draft with kenneth royall. according to ewing, the secretary of the army read the order twice (p.  ) and said, "tell the president that i not only have no objections but wholeheartedly approve, and we'll go along with it."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with ewing: ltr, atty gen to president, jul , - , copy in eisenhower library.] the historic document, signed by truman on july , read as follows: executive order whereas it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the united states the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense: now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as president of the united states, and as commander in chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows: . it is hereby declared to be the policy of the president that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. this policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. . there shall be created in the national military establishment an advisory committee to be known as the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the president. . the committee is authorized on behalf of the president to examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the armed services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. the committee shall confer and advise with the secretary of defense, the secretary of the army, the secretary of the navy, and the secretary of the air force, and shall make such recommendations to the president and to said secretaries as in the judgment of the committee will effectuate the policy hereof. . all executive departments and agencies of the federal government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the committee in its work, and to furnish the committee such information or the services of such persons as the committee may require in the performance of its duties. . when requested by the committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the federal government shall testify before the committee and shall make available for the use of the committee such documents and other information as the committee may require. . the committee shall continue to exist until such time as the president shall terminate its existence by executive order. the white house harry s. truman july , as indicated by the endorsement of such diverse protagonists as royall and randolph, the wording of the executive order was in part both vague and misleading. the vagueness was there by design. the failure to mention either segregation or integration puzzled many people and angered others, but it was certainly to the advantage of a president who wanted to give the least offense possible to voters who supported segregation. in fact integration was not the precise word to describe the complex social change in the armed forces demanded by civil rights leaders, and the emphasis on equality of treatment and opportunity with its portent for the next generation was particularly appropriate. truman, however, was not allowed to remain vague for long. (p.  ) questioned at his first press conference after the order was issued, the president refused to set a time limit, but he admitted that he expected the order to abolish racial segregation in the armed forces.[ - ] the order was also misleading when it created the advisory committee "in" the national military establishment. truman apparently intended to create a presidential committee to oversee the manpower policies of all the services, and despite the wording of the order the committee would operate as a creature of the white house, reporting to the president rather than to the secretary of defense. [footnote - : presidential news conference, jul , _public papers of the president_, , p. .] the success of the new policy would depend to a great extent, as friends and foes of integration alike recognized, on the ability and inclination of this committee. the final choice of members was the president's, but he conspicuously involved the democratic national committee, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of the army. he repeatedly solicited forrestal's suggestions, and it was apparent that the views of the pentagon would carry much weight in the final selection. just four days after the publication of executive order , the president's administrative assistant, donald s. dawson, wrote forrestal that he would be glad to talk to him about the seven members.[ - ] before forrestal replied he had leva discuss possible nominees with the three military departments and obtain their recommendations. the pentagon's list went to the white house on august. a list compiled subsequently by truman's advisers, chiefly philleo nash and oscar ewing, and approved by the democratic national committee, duplicated a number of forrestal's suggestions; its additions and deletions revealed the practical political considerations under which the white house had to operate.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dawson to forrestal, jul , secdef files.] [footnote - : memos, leva for forrestal, and aug ; ltr, forrestal to president, aug , d - - , secdef files.] by mid-september the committee was still unformed. the white house had been unable to get either frank graham, president of the university of north carolina, a member of the president's committee on civil rights, and the first choice of both the white house and the pentagon for chairman, or charles e. wilson, second choice, to accept the chairmanship. secretary of the army royall was particularly incensed that some of the men being considered for the committee "have publicly expressed their opinion in favor of abolishing segregation in the armed services. at least one of them, lester grainger [_sic_], has been critical both of the army and of me personally on this particular matter."[ - ] royall wanted no one asked to serve on the president's committee who had fixed opinions on segregation, and certainly no one who had made a public pronouncement on the subject. he wanted the nominees questioned to make sure they could give "fair consideration" to the subject.[ - ] royall favored jonathan daniels, ralph mcgill of the atlanta _constitution_, colgate darden, president of the university of virginia, and douglas southall freeman, distinguished richmond historian.[ - ] names continued to be bruited about. (p.  ) dawson asked forrestal if he had any preferences for reginald e. gillmor, president of sperry gyroscope, or julius ochs adler, noted publisher and former military aide to secretary stimson, as possibilities for chairman. forrestal inclined toward adler; "i believe he would be excellent although as a southerner he might have limiting views."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, royall to president, sep , osa . ( sep ).] [footnote - : ibid.] [footnote - : memo, royall for forrestal, sep , osa . ( sep ).] [footnote - : memo, leva for forrestal, sep , and handwritten note by forrestal, d - - , secdef files.] with the election imminent, the need for an announcement on the membership of the committee became pressing. on september dawson told leva that a chairman and five of the six members had been selected and had agreed to serve: charles fahy, chairman, charles luckman, lester granger, john h. sengstacke, jacob billikopf, and alphonsus j. donahue. the sixth member, still uninvited, was to be dwight palmer. dawson said he would wait on this appointment until forrestal had time to consider it, but two days later he was back, telling the secretary that the president had instructed him to release the names. there was final change: william e. stevenson's name was substituted for billikopf's.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, leva for forrestal, sep , d - - , secdef files.] although only two of forrestal's nominees, lester granger and john sengstacke, survived the selection process, the final membership was certainly acceptable to the secretary of defense. charles fahy was suggested by presidential assistant david k. niles, who described the soft-voiced georgian as a "reconstructed southerner liberal on race." a lawyer and former solicitor general, fahy had a reputation for sensitive handling of delicate problems, "with quiet authority and the punch of a mule." granger's appointment was a white house bow to forrestal and a disregard for royall's objections. sengstacke, a noted black publisher suggested by forrestal and ewing and supported by william l. dawson, the black congressman from chicago, was appointed in deference to the black press. moreover, he had supported truman's reelection "in unqualified terms." william stevenson was the president of oberlin college and was strongly recommended by lloyd k. garrison, president of the national urban league. finally, there was a trio of businessmen on the committee: donahue was a connecticut industrialist, highly recommended by senator howard j. mcgrath of rhode island and brian mcmahon of connecticut; luckman was president of lever brothers and a native of kansas city, missouri; and dwight palmer was president of the general cable corporation.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with ewing; interv, blumenson with leva. donahue resigned for health reasons shortly after the committee began its work; see ltr, donahue to truman, may , truman library. luckman did not participate at all in the committee's work or sign its report. the committee's active members, in addition to its chairman, were granger, sengstacke, palmer, and stevenson.] these were the men with whom, for a time at least, the secretary of defense would share his direction over the racial policies of the armed forces. chapter (p.  ) service interests versus presidential intent several months elapsed between the appointment of the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services and its first meeting, a formal session with the president at the white house on january . actually, certain advantages accrued from the delay, for postponing the meetings until after the president's reelection enabled the committee to face the services with assurance of continued support from the administration. renewed presidential backing was probably necessary, considering the services' deliberations on race policy during this half-year hiatus. their reactions to the order, logical outgrowths of postwar policies and practices, demonstrated how their perceived self-interests might subvert the president's intentions. the events of this six-month period also began to show the relative importance of the order and the parochial interests of the services as factors in the integration of the armed forces. _public reaction to executive order _ considering the substantial changes it promised, the president's order provoked surprisingly little public opposition. its publication coincided with the convening of the special session of a congress smarting under truman's "do-nothing" label. in this charged political atmosphere, the anti-administration majority in congress quietly sidestepped the president's july call for civil rights legislation. to do otherwise would only have added to the political profits already garnered by truman in some important voting areas. for the same reason congressional opponents avoided all mention of executive order , although the widely expected defeat of truman and the consequent end to this executive sally into civil rights might have contributed to the silence. besides, segregationists could do little in an immediate legislative way to counteract the presidential command. congress had already passed the selective service act and defense appropriations act, the most suitable vehicles for amendments aimed at modifying the impact of the integration order. national elections and the advent of a new congress precluded any other significant moves in this direction until later in the next year. yet if it was ignored in congress, the order was nevertheless a clear signal to the friends of integration and brought with it a tremendous surge of hope to the black community. publishing the order made harry truman the "darling of the negroes," roy wilkins said later. nor did the coincidence of its publication to the election, he added, bother a group that was becoming increasingly pragmatic about the reasons (p.  ) for social reform.[ - ] both the declaredly democratic chicago _defender_ and republican-oriented pittsburgh _courier_ were aware of the implications of the order. the _defender_ ran an editorial on august under the heading "mr. truman makes history." the "national grapevine" column of charlie cherokee in the same issue promised its readers a blow-by-blow description of the events surrounding the president's action. an interview in the same issue with col. richard l. jones, black commander of the th regimental combat team (illinois), emphasized the beneficial effects of the proposed integration, and in the next issue, august, the editor broadened the discussion with an editorial entitled "what about prejudice?"[ - ] the _courier_, for its part, questioned the president's sincerity because he had not explicitly called for an end to segregation. at the same time it contrasted the futility of civil disobedience with the efficiency of such an order on the services, and while maintaining its support for the candidacy of governor dewey the paper revealed a strong enthusiasm for president truman's civil rights program.[ - ] [footnote - : columbia university oral hist interv with wilkins.] [footnote - : chicago _defender_, august and august , .] [footnote - : pittsburgh _courier_, august , august , and september , .] these affirmations of support for executive order in the major black newspapers fitted in neatly with the administration's political strategy. nor was the democratic national committee averse to using the order to win black votes. for example it ran a half-page advertisement in the _defender_ under the heading "by his deeds shall ye know him."[ - ] at the same time, not wishing to antagonize the opponents of integration further, the administration made no special effort to publicize the order in the metropolitan press. consequently, when the order was mentioned at all, it was usually carried without comment, and the few columnists who treated the subject did so with some caution. arthur krock's "reform attempts aid southern extremists" in the new york _times_, for example, lauded the president's civil rights initiatives but warned that any attempt to force social integration would only strengthen demagogues at the expense of moderate politicians.[ - ] [footnote - : chicago _defender_, august , .] [footnote - : new york _times_, september , .] if the president's wooing of the black voter was good election politics, his executive order was also a successful practical response to the threat of civil disobedience and the failure of the secretary of defense to strive actively for racial equality throughout the services. declaring the president's action a substantial gain, a. philip randolph canceled the call for a boycott of the draft, leaving only a small number of diehards to continue the now insignificant effort. the black leaders who had participated in secretary forrestal's national defense conference gave the president their full support, and donald s. dawson, administrative assistant to the president, was able to assure truman that the black press, now completely behind the committee on equal treatment and opportunity, had abandoned its vigorous campaign against the army's racial policy.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, donald dawson for president, sep , nash collection, truman library; memo, secdef for [clark] clifford, aug , and ltr, bayard rustin of the campaign to resist military segregation to james v. forrestal, aug ; both in d - - , secdef files. it should be noted that dawson's claim that the black press universally supported the executive order has not been accepted by all commentators; see mccoy and ruetten, _quest and response_, p. .] ironically, the most celebrated pronouncement on segregation at (p.  ) the moment of the truman order came not from publicists or politicians but from the army's new chief of staff, general omar n. bradley.[ - ] speaking to a group of instructors at fort knox, kentucky, and unaware of the president's order and the presence of the press, bradley declared that the army would have to retain segregation as long as it was the national pattern.[ - ] this statement prompted questions at the president's next news conference, letters to the editor, and debate in the press.[ - ] bradley later explained that he had supported the army's segregation policy because he was against making the army an instrument of social change in areas of the country which still rejected integration.[ - ] his comment, as amplified and broadcast by military analyst hanson w. baldwin, summarized the army's position at the time of the truman order. "it is extremely dangerous nonsense," baldwin declared, "to try to make the army other than one thing--a fighting machine." by emphasizing that the army could not afford to differ greatly in customs, traditions, and prejudices from the general population, baldwin explained, bradley was only underscoring a major characteristic of any large organization of conscripts. most import, baldwin pointed out, the chief of staff considered an inflexible order for the immediate integration of all troops one of the surest ways to break down the morale of the army and destroy its efficiency.[ - ] [footnote - : bradley succeeded eisenhower as chief of staff on february .] [footnote - : washington _post_, july , ; atlanta _constitution_, july , .] [footnote - : news conference, jul , _public papers of the presidents: harry s. truman, _, p. ; new york _times_, july , ; chicago _defender_, august , ; pittsburgh _courier_, august , ; washington _post_, august , .] [footnote - : interv, nichols with bradley.] [footnote - : hanson baldwin, "segregation in the army," new york _times_, august , .] but such arguments were under attack by the very civil rights groups the president was trying to court. "are we to understand that the president's promise to end discrimination," one critic asked, was made for some other purpose than to end discrimination in its worst form--segregation? general bradley's statement, subsequent to the president's orders, would seem to indicate that the president either did not mean what he said or his orders were not being obeyed. we should like to point out that general bradley's reported observation ... was decidedly wide of the mark. segregation is the legal pattern of only a few of our most backward states.... in view of the trends in law and social practice, it is high time that the defense forces were not used as brakes on progress toward genuine democracy.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, a. a. heist, dir, american civil liberties union, south california branch, to forrestal, sep , d - - , secdef files.] general bradley apologized to the president for any confusion caused by his statement, and truman publicly sloughed off the affair, but not before he stated to the press that his order specifically directed the integration of the armed forces.[ - ] it was obvious that the situation had developed into a standoff. some of the president's most (p.  ) outspoken supporters would not let him forget his integration order, and the army, as represented by its chief of staff, failed to realize that events were rapidly moving beyond the point where segregation could be considered a workable policy for an agency of the united states government. [footnote - : ltrs, bradley to president truman, jul , and truman to bradley, aug , csusa . ( aug ). see also ltr, sa to president, jul , osa . (negroes) ( - - ).] _the army: segregation on the defensive_ the president's order heralded a series of attacks on the army's race policy. as further evidence of the powerful pressures for change, several state governors now challenged segregation in the national guard. generally the race policy of the reserve components echoed that of the regular army, in part because it seemed logical that state units, subject to federal service, conform to federal standards of performance and organization. accordingly, in the wake of the publication of the gillem board report, the army's director of personnel and administration recommended to the committee on national guard policy[ - ] that it amend its regulation on the employment of black troops to conform more closely with the new policy. specifically, general paul asked the committee to spell out the prohibition against integration of white and black troops below battalion level, warning that federal recognition would be denied any state unit organized in violation of this order.[ - ] [footnote - : as provided in various laws since , most notably in section v of the amendments to the national defense act, members of the general staff's committee on national guard policy and committee on reserve policy were the principal advisers to the secretary of war on reserve component matters. all questions regarding these organizations were referred to the committees, which usually met in combined session as the committee on national guard and reserve policy. the combined committee was composed of twenty-one officers, seven each from the regular army, the guard, and the reserves. when the business under consideration was restricted exclusively to one of the reserve components, the representatives of the other would absent themselves, the remaining members, along with the regular army members, reconstituting themselves as the committee on national guard policy or the committee on reserve policy. these groups, familiarly known as the "section v committees," wielded considerable power in the development of the postwar program for the reserves.] [footnote - : memo, chief, classification and personnel actions br, p&a, for brig gen ira swift, chief, liaison, planning and policy coordination gp, p&a, apr , sub: resolution regarding employment of negro troops in the national guard; memo, dir, p&a, for dir, intel, apr , same sub; both in wdgpa . ( apr ).] agreeing to comply with general paul's request, the national guard committee went a step further and recommended that individual states be permitted to make their own decisions on the wisdom and utility of organizing separate black units.[ - ] the army staff rejected this proposal, however, on the grounds that it gave too much discretionary power to the state guard authorities.[ - ] interestingly enough in view of later developments, neither the committee nor the staff disputed the war department's right to withhold federal recognition in racial matters, and both displayed little concern for the principle of (p.  ) states' rights. their attitude was important, for while the prohibition against integration sat well in some circles, it drew severe criticism in others. unlike the regular army, the national guard and the army reserve were composed of units deeply rooted in the local community, each reflecting the parochial attitudes of its members and its section. this truth was forcefully pointed out to the army staff in when it tried to reactivate the th infantry and designate it as a black unit in the th division (pennsylvania). former members of the old white th, now prominent citizens, expressed their "very strong sentiments" on the matter, and the army had to beat a hasty retreat. in the future, the staff decided, either black reserve units would be given the name and history of inactive black units or new units would be constituted.[ - ] [footnote - : df, wdgs cmte on national guard policy, to chief, ngb, may , sub: integration of negro troops; idem to dir, p&a, and dir, o&t, same date and sub. see also ltr, maj gen kenneth f. cramer, cg, d inf div (conn. ng) to col russell y. moore, ocofs, mar . all in office file, army reserve forces policy cmte.] [footnote - : memo, dir, o&t, for wdgs cmte on national guard policy, jun , sub: integration of negro troops, wdgot . .] [footnote - : memo, exec for reserve and rotc affairs, o&t, for dir, o&t, jul ; o&t memo for rcd, aug ; both in wdgot . .] on the other hand, in citizen groups sprang up in connecticut, new york, new jersey, ohio, and california to agitate among their state adjutants general for liberalization of the national guard's racial policy. as early as february governor james l. mcconnaughy had publicly deplored segregation of negroes in his own connecticut national guard. adopting the states' rights stance more commonly associated with defenders of racial discrimination, governor mcconnaughy argued that by requiring segregation the war department ran contrary to the wishes of individual states. marcus ray, the secretary's adviser on race, predicted that integration in the reserve components would continue to be a "point of increasing pressure." as he pointed out to assistant secretary petersen, the army had always supported segregation in its southern installations on the grounds that it had to conform with local mores. how then could it refuse to conform with the local statutes and customs of some northern states without appearing inconsistent? he recommended the army amend its race policy to permit reserve components in states which wished it to integrate at a level consistent with "local community attitudes."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, ray for petersen, apr , sub: integration of negro personnel in the reserve components, asw . .] the army staff would have nothing to do with ray's suggestion. instead, both the director of personnel and administration and the director of organization and training supported a new resolution by the national guard policy committee that left the number of black units and the question of their integration with white units above the company level up to the states involved. integration at the company level was prohibited, and such integrated companies would be denied federal recognition. the committee's resolution was adopted by the secretary of war in may .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, d/o&t for asw, apr , sub: integration of negro personnel in the reserve components, wdgot . ; memo, d/p&a thru d/o&t for asw, apr , same sub, wdgpa . ; df, d/p&a to cofs, may , sub: integration of negro troops, csusa . negroes.] but the fight was not over yet. in new jersey adopted a new constitution that specifically prohibited segregation in the state militia. by extension no new jersey national guard unit could receive federal recognition. in february governor mcconnaughy brought (p.  ) connecticut back into the fray, this time taking the matter up with the white house. a month later governor luther w. youngdahl appealed to the secretary of defense on behalf of negroes in the minnesota national guard. secretary of the army royall quickly reappraised the situation and excepted new jersey from the army's segregation rule. secretary symington followed suit by excepting the new jersey air national guard.[ - ] royall also let the governors of connecticut and minnesota know that he would be inclined to make similar concessions to any state which, by legislative action, prohibited its governor from conforming to the federal requirements. at that time connecticut and minnesota had no such legislation, but royall nevertheless agreed to refer their requests to his committee on national guard policy.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, kenneth royall to alfred driscoll, feb ; ltr, w. stuart symington to driscoll, mar ; copies of both in cmh.] [footnote - : ltrs, sa to luther youngdahl and james c. shannon, may , both in osa . negroes ( - - ); memos, cofsa for dir, o&t, jan and mar , sub: utilization of negroes in the national guard, csusa . . shannon succeeded mcconnaughy as governor of connecticut in march .] [illustration: mp's hitch a ride on army tanks, augsburg, germany, .] here the secretary did no more than comply with the national defense act, which required that all national guard policy matters be formulated in the committee. privately, royall admitted that he did not feel bound to accept a committee recommendation and would be inclined to recognize any state prohibition against segregation. but he made a careful distinction between constitutional or legislative action and executive action in the states. a governor's decision to integrate, he pointed out, would not be recognized by the army because such an action was subject to speedy reversal by the governor's successor and could cause serious confusion in the guard.[ - ] (p.  ) the majority of the national guard committee, supported by the director of organization and training, recommended that the secretary make no exceptions to the segregation policy. the director of personnel and administration, on the other hand, joined with the committee's minority in recommending that royall's action in the new jersey case be used as a precedent.[ - ] commenting independently, general bradley warned royall that integrating individual negroes in the national guard would, from a military point of view, "create problems which may have serious consequences in case of national mobilization of those units."[ - ] [footnote - : remarks by kenneth royall in the committee of four, mar , osd historical office files.] [footnote - : p&a summary sheet, jul , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the national guard, wdgpa . ; o&t summary sheet, apr , same sub. see also memo, col william abendroth, exec, cmte on ng and reserve policy, for cofsa, jun , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the national guard of the united states, office file, army reserve forces policy cmte. thirteen of the seventeen committee members concurred with the staff study without reservation; the remaining four concurred with the proviso that states prohibiting segregation be granted the right to integrate.] [footnote - : memo, cofsa for sa, jul , csusa . negroes ( jul ).] here the matter would stand for some time, the army's segregation policy intact, but an informal allowance made for excepting individual states from prohibitions against integration below the company level. yet the publicity and criticism attendant upon these decisions might well have given the traditionalists pause. while secretary royall, and on occasion his superior, secretary of defense forrestal, reiterated the army's willingness to accommodate certain states,[ - ] civil rights groups were gaining allies for another proposition. the american veterans committee had advanced the idea that to forbid integration at the platoon level was a retreat from world war ii practice, and to accept the excuse that segregation was in the interest of national defense was to tolerate a "travesty on words."[ - ] hearings were conducted in congress in and on bills h.r. and h.r. to prohibit segregation in the national guard. royall's interpretation of the national defense act did not satisfy advocates of a thoroughly integrated guard, for it was clear that not many states were likely to petition for permission to integrate. at the same time the exceptions to the segregation rule promised an incompatible situation between the segregated active forces and the incompletely integrated reserve organization. [footnote - : see ltrs, james forrestal to a. a. heist, dir, american civil liberties union, sep , and augustus f. hawkins, sep ; both in d - - , secdef files; df, dir, p&a, to cofsa, nov , sub: executive order to permit integration of negroes into minnesota national guard, csusa . negroes ( nov ).] [footnote - : ltr, j. steward mcclendon, secy, minneapolis chapter, am vets cmte, to secdef [_sic_] royall, may , csusa . negroes ( may ).] royall's ruling, while perhaps a short-term gain for traditionalists, was significant because it established a precedent that would be used by integrationists in later years. the price for defending the army's segregation policy, guard officials discovered, was the surrender of their long-cherished claim of state autonomy. the committee's recommendation on the matter of applying the gillem board policy to the guard was inflexible, leaving no room for separate decisions by officials of the several states. maj. gen. jim dan hill of the wisconsin national guard recognized this danger. along with a minority of his colleagues he maintained that the decision on segregation "will have to be solved at the state level."[ - ] the committee (p.  ) majority argued the contrary, agreeing with brig. gen. alexander g. paxton of mississippi that the national defense act of prohibited the sort of exception made in the new jersey case. general paxton called for a uniform policy for all guard units: national security is an obligation of all the states, and its necessity in time of emergency transcends all local issues. federal recognition of the national guard units of the several states is extended for the purpose of affording these units a federal status under the national defense act. the issue in question is purely one of compliance with federal law.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen jim dan hill, wisconsin national guard, to secy, wd advisory cmte, jun ; see also ltr, brig gen harry evans, maryland national guard, to col william abendroth, exec, cmte on ng and reserve policy, jun , office file, army reserve forces policy cmte.] [footnote - : ltr, brig gen a. g. paxton, mississippi national guard, to col william abendroth, may , office file, army reserve forces policy cmte.] here was tacit recognition of federal supremacy over the national guard. in supporting the right of the secretary of the army to dictate racial policy to state guards in , the national guard committee adopted a position that would haunt it when the question of integrating the guard came up again in the early 's. despite the publicity given to general bradley's comments at fort knox, it was the secretary of the army, not the chief of staff, who led the fight against change in the army's racial practices. as the debate over these practices warmed in the administration and the national press, kenneth c. royall emerged as the principal spokesman against further integration and the principal target of the civil rights forces. royall's sincere interest in the welfare of black soldiers, albeit highly paternalistic, was not in question. his trouble with civil rights officials stemmed from the fact that he alone in the truman administration still clung publicly to the belief that segregation was not in itself discrimination, a belief shared by many of his fellow citizens. royall was convinced that the separate but equal provisions of the army's gillem board policy were right in as much as they did provide equal treatment and opportunity for the black minority. his opinion was reinforced by the continual assurances of his military subordinates that in open competition with white soldiers few negroes would ever achieve a proportionate share of promotions and better occupations. and when his subordinates added to this sentiment the notion that integration would disrupt the army and endanger its efficiency, they quickly persuaded the already sympathetic royall that segregation was not only correct but imperative.[ - ] the secretary might easily have agreed with general paul, who told an assembly of army commanders that aside from some needed improvement in the employment of black specialists "there isn't a single complaint anyone can make in our use of the negro."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, marx leva to author, may , cmh files; see also testimony of royall at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : general paul's remarks at army commanders conference, mar- apr , p. , csusa .] secure in his belief that segregation was right and necessary, royall confidently awaited the judgment of the recently appointed president's committee. he was convinced that any fair judge could draw but one conclusion: under the provisions of circular , negroes had (p.  ) already achieved equal treatment and opportunity in the army. his job, therefore, was relatively simple. he had to defend army policy against outside attack and make sure it was applied uniformly throughout the service. his stand marked one of the last attempts by a major federal official to support a racially separate but equal system before the principle was finally struck down by the supreme court in _brown_ v. _board of education_. [illustration: secretary royall reviews military police, _yokohama, japan, _.] royall readily conceded that it was proper and necessary for negroes to insist on integration, but, echoing a long-cherished army belief, he adamantly opposed using the army to support or oppose any social cause. the army, he contended, must follow the nation, not lead it, in social matters. the army must not experiment. when, "without prejudice to the national defense," the army could reduce segregation to the platoon level it would do so, but all such steps should be taken one at a time. and , he told the conference of black leaders in april of that year, was not the time.[ - ] [footnote - : see testimony of royall at national defense conference on negro affairs, apr , pp. - .] convinced of the rightness of the army's policy, secretary royall was understandably agitated by the unfavorable publicity directed at him and his department. the publicity, he was convinced, resulted from discrimination on the part of "the negro and liberal press" (p.  ) against the army's policy in favor of the navy and air force. he was particularly incensed at the way the junior services had escaped the "rap"--his word--on racial matters. he ascribed it in large part, he told the secretary of defense in september , to the "unfortunate" national defense conference, the gathering of black spokesmen held under forrestal's auspices the previous spring.[ - ] the specific object of royall's indignation was lester granger's final report on the work of the national defense conference. that report emphasized the conferees' rebuttal to royall's defense of segregation on the grounds of military expediency and past experience with black soldiers. the army has assumed a position, granger claimed, that was unjustified by its own experience. overlooking evidence to the contrary, granger added that the army position was at variance with the experience of the other services. his parting shot was aimed at the heart of the army's argument: "it is as unwise as it is unsound to cite the resistance of military leadership against basic changes in policy as sufficient cause for delaying immediate and effective action."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, sa for secdef, sep , copy in cd - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : ltr, granger and conferees to forrestal, aug , d - - , secdef files.] adding to royall's discomfort, forrestal released the report on september, and his letter of appreciation to granger and the conferees assured them he would send their report to the president's committee. the new york _times_ promptly picked up granger's reference to opposition among military leaders.[ - ] royall tried to counter this attack. since neither the president nor the secretary of defense had disapproved the army's racial policy nor suggested any modifications, royall told forrestal he wanted him to go on record as approving the army position. this course would doubtless be more palatable to forrestal, royall suggested, than having royall announce that forrestal had given tacit approval to the army's policy.[ - ] [footnote - : nme press release, sep ; new york _times_, september , ; memo, leva for forrestal, aug ; ltr, forrestal to granger, aug . last two in d - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : memo, sa for secdef, sep , copy in cd - - , secdef files.] forrestal quickly scotched this maneuver. it was true, he told royall, that the army's policy had not been disapproved. but neither had the army's policy or that of the navy or air force yet been reviewed by the secretary of defense. the president's committee would probably make such a review an early order of business. meanwhile, the army's race policy would continue in effect until it was altered either by forrestal's office or by action from some other source.[ - ] [footnote - : memo (unsigned), forrestal for royall, sep . the answer was prepared by leva and used by forrestal as the basis for his conversation with royall. see memos, leva for forrestal, undated, and sep , both in cd - - , secdef files.] even as secretary royall tried to defend the army from the attacks of the press, the service's policy was challenged from another quarter. the blunt fact was that with the reinstitution of selective service in the army was receiving more black recruits--especially those in the lower mental categories--than a segregated system could easily absorb. the high percentage of black soldiers so proudly publicized by royall at the national defense conference was in fact a source of anxiety for army planners. the staff particularly resented the different standards adopted by the other services to determine (p.  ) the acceptability of selectees. the navy and air force, pleading their need for skilled workers and dependence on volunteer enlistments, imposed a higher minimum achievement score for admission than the army, which, largely dependent upon the draft for its manpower, was required to accept men with lower scores. thousands of negroes, less skilled and with little education, were therefore eligible for service in the army although they were excluded from the navy and air force. given such circumstances, it was probably inevitable that differences in racial policies would precipitate an interservice conflict. the army claimed the difference in enlistment standards was discriminatory and contrary to the provisions of the draft law which required the secretary of defense to set enlistment standards. in april secretary royall demanded that forrestal impose the same mental standards on all the services. he wanted inductees allocated to the services according to their physical and mental abilities and negroes apportioned among them. the other services countered that there were not enough well-educated people of draft age to justify raising the army's mental standards to the navy and air force levels, but neither service wanted to lower its own entrance standards to match the level necessity had imposed on the army. the air force eventually agreed to enlist negroes at a percent ratio to whites, but the navy held out for higher standards and no allocation by race. it contended that setting the same standards for all services would improve the quality of the army's black enlistees only imperceptibly while it would do great damage to the navy. the navy admitted that the other services should help the army, but not "up to the point of _unnecessarily_ reducing their own effectiveness.... the modern navy cannot operate its ships and aircraft with personnel of g.c.t. ."[ - ] general bradley cut to the point: if the navy carried the day it would receive substantially fewer negroes than the other two services and a larger portion of the best qualified.[ - ] secretary forrestal first referred the interservice controversy to the munitions board in may and later that summer to a special interservice committee. after both groups failed to reach an agreement,[ - ] forrestal decided not to force a parity in mental standards upon the services. on october he explained to the secretaries that parity could be imposed only during time of full mobilization, and since conditions in the period between october and june could not be considered comparable to those of full mobilization, parity was impossible. he promised, however, to study the qualitative needs of each service. meanwhile, he had found no evidence that any service was discriminating in the selection of enlistees and settled for a warning that any serious (p.  ) discrimination by any two of the services would place "an intolerable burden" on the third.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secnav for secdef, may , sub: liaison with the selective service system and determination of parity standards, p - ; memo, actg secnav for secdef, aug ; sub: items in disagreement between the services as listed in secdef's memo of jul , p - ; both in genrecsnav. the quotation is from an inclosure to the latter memo.] [footnote - : cofsa, rpt of war council min, aug , copy in osd historical office files.] [footnote - : for a detailed analysis of the various service arguments and positions, see office of the secretary of defense, "proposed findings and decisions on questions of parity of mental standards, allocation of inductees according to physical and mental capabilities and allocation of negroes" (noble report), oct , copy in secdef files.] [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., oct , with attached summary of supplement, copy in cmh.] convinced that forrestal had made the wrong decision, the army staff was nevertheless obliged to concern itself with the percentage of negroes it would have to accept under the new selective service law. although by november the army's black strength had dropped to . percent of the total, its proportion of negroes was still large when compared with the navy's . percent, the marine corps' . percent, and the air force's percent. projecting these figures against the possible mobilization of five million men (assuming each service increased in proportion to its current strength and absorbed the same percentage of a black population remaining at percent of the whole), the army calculated that its low entrance requirements would give it a black strength of percent. in the event of a mobilization equaling or surpassing that of world war ii, the minimum test score of seventy would probably be lowered, and thus the army would shoulder an even greater burden of poorly educated men, a burden that in the army's view should be shared by all the services.[ - ] [footnote - : df, dir, p&a, to cofs, jan , sub: experimental unit, gspga . ( jan ).] _a different approach_ no matter how the army tried to justify segregation or argue against the position of the navy and air force, the integrationists continued to gain ground. royall, in opposition, adopted a new tactic in the wake of the truman order. he would have the army experiment with integration, perhaps proving that it would not work on a large scale, certainly buying time for circular and frustrating the rising demand for change. he had expressed willingness to experiment with an integrated army unit when lester granger made the suggestion through forrestal in february , but nothing came of it.[ - ] in september he returned to the idea, asking the army staff to plan for the formation of an integrated unit about the size of a regimental combat team, along with an engineer battalion and the station complement of a post large enough to accommodate these troops. black enlisted men were to form percent of the troop basis and be used in all types of positions. black officers, used in the same ratio as black officers in the whole army, were to command mixed troops. general bradley reported the staff had studied the idea and concluded that such units "did not prove anything on the subject." royall, however, dismissed the staff's objection and reiterated his order to plan an experiment at a large installation and in a permanent unit.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secdef for president, feb , secretary's file (psf), truman library.] [footnote - : memo, cofs for dir, o&t, oct , csusa . negroes ( oct ).] despite the staff's obvious reluctance, maj. gen. harold r. bull, the new director of organization and training, made an intensive study of the alternatives. he produced a plan that was in turn further refined by a group of senior officers including the deputy chief of staff for administration and the chief of information.[ - ] these officers (p.  ) decided that "if the secretary of the army so orders," the army could activate an experimental unit in the d infantry division at camp campbell, kentucky. the troops, percent of them black, would be drawn from all parts of the country and include ten black officers, none above the rank of major. the unit would be carefully monitored by the army staff, and its commander would report on problems encountered after a year's trial. [footnote - : lt col d. m. oden, asst secy, cs, memo for rcd, nov , sub: organization of an experimental unit, csusa . (negroes) ( oct ).] [illustration: spring formal dance, fort george g. meade, maryland, .] it was obvious that forrestal wanted to avoid publicizing the project. he had his assistants, marx leva and john ohly, discuss the proposal with the secretary of the array to impress on him the need for secrecy until all arrangements were completed. more important, he hoped to turn royall's experiment back on the army itself, using it to gain a foothold for integration in the largest service. leva and ohly suggested to royall that instead of activating a special unit he select a regular army regiment--leva recommended one from the d airborne division to which a number of black combat units were already attached--as the nucleus of the experiment. with an eye to the forthcoming white house investigation, leva added that, while the details would be left to the army, integration of the unit, to be put into effect "as soon as possible," should be total.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, marx leva for sa, nov ; see also idem for ohly, nov ; both in cd - - , secdef files.] the plan for a large-scale integrated unit progressed little (p.  ) beyond this point, but it was significant if only because it marked the first time since the revolution that the army had seriously considered using a large number of black soldiers in a totally integrated unit. the situation was not without its note of irony, for the purpose of the plan was not to abolish the racial discrimination that critics were constantly laying at the army's doorstep. in fact, army leaders, seriously dedicated to the separate but equal principle, were convinced the gillem board policy had already eliminated discrimination. nor was the plan designed to carry out the president's order or prompted by the secretary of defense. rather, it was pushed by secretary royall as a means of defending the army against the anticipated demands of the president's committee. the plan died because, while the army staff studied organizations and counted bodies, royall expanded his proposal for an integrated unit to include elements of the whole national defense establishment. several motives have been suggested for his move. by ensnaring the navy and air force in the experiment, he might impress on all concerned the problems he considered certain to arise if any service attempted the integration of a large number of negroes. an experiment involving the whole department might also divert the white house from trying to integrate the army immediately. besides, the scheme had an escape clause. if the navy and air force refused to cooperate, and royall thought it likely they would, given the shortage of skilled black recruits, the army could then legitimately cancel its offer to experiment with integration and let the whole problem dissipate in a lengthy interservice argument.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with james c. evans, jul ; ltr, e. w. kenworthy, exec secy, presidential committee, to lee nichols, jul ; both in cmh files.] royall formally proposed a defense-wide experiment in integration to forrestal on december. he was not oblivious to the impression his vacillation on the subject had produced and went to some lengths to explain why he had opposed such experiments in the past. although he had been thinking about such an experiment for some time, he told forrestal, he had publicly rejected the idea at the national defense conference and during the senate hearings on the draft law because of the tense international situation and the small size of the army at that time. his interest in the experiment revived as the size of the army increased and similar suggestions were made by both black leaders and southern politicians, but again he had hesitated, this time because of the national elections. he was now prepared to go ahead, but only if similar action were taken by the other services. the experimental units, he advised forrestal, should contain both combat and service elements of considerable size, and he went on to specify their composition in some detail. the navy and marine corps should include at least one shore station "where the social problems for individuals and their families will approximate those confronting the army." to insure the experiment's usefulness, he wanted negroes employed in all positions, including supervisory ones, for which they qualified, and he urged that attention be paid to "the problem of social relations in off-duty hours." he was candid about the plan's weaknesses. the right to transfer out of the experimental unit might confine the experiment to white and black troops who wanted it to (p.  ) succeed; hence any conclusions drawn might be challenged as invalid since men could not be given the right to exercise similar options in time of war. therefore, if the experiment succeeded, it would have to be followed by another in which no voluntary options were granted. the experiment might also bring pressure from groups outside the army, and if it failed "for any reason" the armed services would be accused of sabotage, no matter how sincere their effort. curiously, he admitted that the plan was not favored by his military advisers. the army staff, he noted in what must have surprised anyone familiar with the staff's consistent defense of segregation, thought the best way to eliminate segregation was to reduce gradually the size of segregated units and extend integration in schools, hospitals, and special units. nevertheless, royall recommended that the national military establishment as a whole, not the army separately, go forward with the experiment and that it start early in .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, sa for secdef, dec , cd - - , secdef files.] the other services had no intention of going forward with such an experiment. the air force objected, as secretary symington explained, because the experiment would be inconclusive; too many artificial features were involved, especially having units composed of volunteers. arbitrary quotas violated the principle of equal opportunity, he charged, and the experiment would be unfair to negroes because the proportion of negroes able to compete with whites was less than to . symington also warned against the public relations aspect of the scheme, which was of "minimal military significance but of major significance in the current public controversy on purely racial issues." the air force could conduct the experiment without difficulty, he conceded, for there were enough trained black technicians to man percent of the positions and give a creditable performance, but these men were representative neither of the general black population of the air force nor of negroes coming into the service during wartime. symington predicted that negroes would suffer no matter how the experiment came out--success would be attributed to the special conditions involved; failure would reflect unjustly on the negro's capabilities. the air force, therefore, preferred to refrain from participation in the experiment. symington added that he was considering a study prepared by the air staff over the past six months that would insure equality of treatment and increased opportunities for negroes in the air force, and he expected to offer proposals to forrestal in the immediate future.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secaf for secdef, dec , cd - - , secdef files.] the navy also wanted no part of the royall experiment. its acting secretary, john nicholas brown, believed that the gradual indoctrination of the naval establishment was producing the desired nondiscriminatory practices "on a sound and permanent basis without concomitant problems of morale and discipline." to adopt royall's proposal, on the other hand, would "unnecessarily risk losing all that has been accomplished in the solution of the efficient utilization of negro personnel to the limit of their ability."[ - ] brown did not spell out the risk, but a navy spokesman on forrestal's staff was (p.  ) not so reticent. "mutiny cannot be dismissed from consideration," capt. herbert d. riley warned, if the navy were forced to integrate its officers' wardrooms, staterooms, and clubs. such integration ran considerably in advance of the navy's current and carefully controlled integration of the enlisted general service and would, like the proposal to place negroes in command of white officers and men, captain riley predicted, have such dire results as wholesale resignations and retirements.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg secnav for secdef, dec , cd - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : memo, capt h. d. riley, usn, osd, for secdef, dec , sub: comment on the secretary of the army's proposal concerning experimental non-segregated units in the armed forces, cd - - , secdef files.] [illustration: secretary forrestal, _accompanied by general huebner, inspects the th army band and the th eucom honor guard, heidelberg, germany, november _.] the decisive opposition of the navy and air force convinced forrestal that interservice integration was unworkable. in short, the navy and air force had progressed in their own estimation to the point where, despite shortcomings in their racial policies rivaling the army's, they had little to fear from the coming white house investigation. the army could show no similar forward motion. despite royall's claim that he and the army staff favored eventual integration of black soldiers through progressive reduction in the size of the army's segregated black units, the facts indicated otherwise. for example, while secretary of defense forrestal was touring germany in late he noted in his diary of lt. gen. clarence r. huebner, now the commander of europe: "huebner's experience with colored troops is excellent.... he is ready to proceed with the implementation of the president's directive about nonsegregation down to the platoon level, and proposes to initiate this in the three cavalry regiments and the aa battalion up north, but does not want to do it if it is premature."[ - ] [footnote - : millis, _forrestal diaries_, p. .] huebner's concern with prematurity was understandable, for the possibility of using black soldiers in the constabulary had been a lively topic in the army for some time. marcus ray had proposed it in his december report to the secretary of war, but it was quickly rejected by the army staff. the staff had approved huebner's decision in july to attach a black engineer construction battalion and a transportation truck company, a total of men, to the constabulary. the director of organization and training, however, continued to make a careful distinction between attached units and "organic (p.  ) assignment," adding that "the department of the army does not favor the organic assignment of negro units to the constabulary at this time."[ - ] [footnote - : df, dir, o&t, to dcofs, jul , sub: report of visit by negro publishers and editors to the european theater, csgot . ( may ); memo for rcd, attached to memo, dir, p&a, for dcofs, jul , same sub, csgpa . ( may ). see also geis monograph, pp. - .] but by november huebner wished to go considerably further. as he later put it, he had no need for a black infantry regiment, but since the constabulary, composed for the most part of cavalry units, lacked foot soldiers, he wanted to integrate a black infantry battalion, in platoon-size units, in each cavalry regiment.[ - ] the staff turned down his request. arguing that the inclusion of organic black units in the constabulary "might be detrimental to the proper execution of its mission," and quoting the provision of circular limiting integration to the company level, the staff's organization experts concluded that the use of black units in the european theater below company size "would undoubtedly prove embarrassing to the department of the army ... in the zone of the interior in view of the announced department of the army policy." general bull, director of organization and training, informed huebner he might use black units in composite groupings only at the company level, including his constabulary forces, "if such is desired by you," but it was "not presently contemplated that integration of negro units on the platoon level will be approved as department of the army policy."[ - ] huebner later recalled that the constabulary was his outfit, to be run his way, and "bradley and collins always let me do what i had to."[ - ] still, when black infantrymen joined the constabulary in late , they came in three battalion-size units "attached" for training and tactical control.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with huebner.] [footnote - : ltr, dir, o&t, to cg, eucom, dec , sub: integration of negro units on the platoon level within the constabulary eucom, csgot . ( nov ); df, dir, o&t, to cofs, dec , same sub, csusa . ( nov ).] [footnote - : interv, author with huebner.] [footnote - : geis monograph, p. . for the reaction of a constabulary brigade commander to the attachment of black infantrymen, see bruce c. clarke, "early integration," _armor_ (nov-dec ): .] the truman order had no immediate effect on the army's racial policy. the concession to state governors regarding integration of their national guard units was beside the point, and royall's limited offer to set up an experimental integrated unit in the regular army was more image than substance. accurately summarizing the situation in march , the adjutant general informed army commanders that although it was "strategically unwise" to republish war department circular while the president's committee was meeting, the policies contained in that document, which was about to expire, would continue in effect until further notice.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to distribution, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower, agao . .] _the navy: business as usual_ the navy department also saw no reason to alter its postwar racial policy because of the truman order. as acting secretary of navy brown explained to the secretary of defense in december , whites in (p.  ) his service had come to accept the fact that blacks must take their rightful place in the navy and marine corps. this acceptance, in turn, had led to "very satisfactory progress" in the integration of the department's black personnel without producing problems of morale and discipline or a lowering of _esprit de corps_.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg secnav for secdef et al., dec , sub: the secretary of the army's confidential memorandum of december..., copy in secaf files.] brown had ample statistics at hand to demonstrate that at least in the navy this nondiscrimination policy was progressive. whereas at the end of the world war ii demobilization only percent of the navy's negroes served in the general service, some two years later percent were so assigned. these men and women generally worked and lived under total integration, and the men served on many of the navy's combat ships. the bureau of naval personnel predicted in early that before the end of the year at least half of all black sailors would be assigned to the general service.[ - ] in contrast to the army's policy of separate but equal service for its black troops, the navy's postwar racial policy was technically correct and essentially in compliance with the president's order. yet progress was very limited and in fact in the two years under its postwar nondiscrimination policy, the navy's performance was only marginally different from that of the other services. the number of negroes in the navy in december , the same month brown was extolling its nondiscrimination policy, totaled some , men, . percent of its strength and about half the army's proportion. this percentage had remained fairly constant since world war ii and masked a dramatic drop in the number of black men in uniform as the navy demobilized. thus while the _percentage_ of the navy's black sailors assigned to the integrated general service rose from to , the _number_ of negroes in the general service dropped from , in to some , in . looked at another way, the percent figure of blacks in the general service meant that percent of all negroes in the navy, , men in december , still served in the separate steward's branch.[ - ] in contrast to the army and air force, the navy's negroes were, with only the rarest exception, enlisted men. the number of black officers in december was four; the waves could count only six black women in its , (p.  ) total. clearly, the oft repeated rationale for these statistics--negroes favored the army because they were not a seafaring people--could not explain them away.[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of stickney before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, apr , pp. - . see also, memo, actg secnav for secdef et al., dec , sub: the secretary of the army's confidential memorandum of december....] [footnote - : lt cmdr g. e. minor, bupers, memo for file, mar , sub: information for lt. nelson-press section, pers , bupersrecs. _separate_ is probably a better term for describing the steward's branch, since the branch was never completely segregated. on march , for example, the racial and ethnic breakdown of the branch was as follows: negro , hawaiian filipino , puerto rican chamorro japanese chinese american indian samoan caucasian korean total , _source_: figures taken from bupers, "steward group personnel by race," may , pers , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : this dubious assertion on the seagoing interests of races had been most recently expressed by the chief of naval personnel before a meeting of the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; see testimony of fechteler, jan , pp. - .] a substantial increase in the number of negroes would have absolved the navy from some of the stigma of racial discrimination it endured in the late 's. since the size of the steward's branch was limited by regulation and budget, any increase in black enlistment would immediately raise the number of negroes serving in the integrated general service. increased enlistments would also widen the choice of assignments, creating new opportunities for promotion to higher grades. but even this obvious and basic response to the truman order was not forthcoming. the navy continued to exclude many potential black volunteers on the grounds that it needed to maintain stricter mental and physical standards to secure men capable of running a modern, technically complex navy. true, regular and reserve officers were periodically sent to black colleges to discuss naval careers with the students, but as one official, speaking of the reserves, confessed to the fahy committee in april , "we aren't doing anything special to procure negro officers or negro enlisted men."[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of capt j. h. schultz, asst chief of naval personnel for naval reserve, before president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, apr , afternoon session, p. .] at best, recruiting more negroes for the general service would only partly fulfill the navy's obligation to conform to the truman order. it would still leave untouched the steward's branch, which for years had kept alive the impression that the navy valued minority groups only as servants. the bureau of naval personnel had closed the branch to first enlistments and provided for the transfer of eligible stewards to the general service, but black stewards were only transferring at the rate of seven men per month, hardly enough to alter the racial composition of the branch. in the six months following september the branch's black strength dropped by men, but because the total strength of the branch also dropped, the percentage of black stewards remained constant.[ - ] what was needed was an infusion of whites, but this remedy, like an increase of black officers, would require a fundamental change in the racial attitudes of navy leaders. no such change was evident in the navy's postwar racial policy. while solemnly proclaiming its belief in the principle of nondiscrimination, the service had continued to sanction practices that limited integration and equal opportunity to a degree consistent with its racial tradition and manpower needs. curiously, the navy managed to avoid strong criticism from the civil rights groups throughout the postwar period, and the truman order notwithstanding, it was therefore in a strong position to resist precipitous change (p.  ) in its racial practices. [footnote - : memo, head, pers accounting and statistical control sec, bupers, for dir, fiscal div (pers ), dec , sub: statistics on steward group personnel in navy; memo, w. c. kincaid, bupers fiscal div, for cmdr smith, bupers, may , sub: negroes, usn--transferring from commissary or steward branch to general service; bupers, "steward group personnel by race," may . all in pers , bupersrecs.] _adjustments in the marine corps_ unlike the navy, the marine corps did not enjoy so secure a position. its policy of keeping black marines strictly segregated was becoming untenable in the face of its shrinking size, and by the time president truman issued his order the corps was finding it necessary to make some adjustments. basic training, for example, was integrated in the cause of military efficiency. with fewer than twenty new black recruits a month, the corps was finding it too expensive and inefficient to maintain a separate recruit training program, and on july the commandant, general clifton b. cates, ordered that negroes be trained with the rest of the recruits at parris island, but in separate platoons.[ - ] even this system proved too costly, however, because black recruits were forced to wait for training until their numbers built up to platoon size. given the length of the training cycle, the camp commander had to reserve three training platoons for the few black recruits. maj. gen. alfred h. noble, the commander, repeatedly complained of the waste of instructors, time, and facilities and the "otherwise generally undesirable" features of separate black training platoons. he pointed out to the commandant that black students had been successfully assimilated into personnel administration and drill instructor schools without friction or incident, and reservist training and local intramural sports had already peacefully introduced integration to the base. noble wanted to integrate black recruits as they arrived, absorbing them in the white training platoons then being processed. he also wanted to use selected black noncommissioned officers as instructors.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmc for cg, mb, cp lejeune, n.c., aug , sub: recruit training load at montford point camp, mc ; idem for cg, mcrd, may , mc ; memo, dir of recruiting for off in charge, recruit divs, jun , sub: enlistment of negro personnel. all in hist div, hqmc. unless otherwise noted all documents cited in this section are located in this office.] [footnote - : memo, cg, mcrd, parris island, for cmc, sep , sub: negro recruits, ser. .] the commandant approved the integration of recruit training on september, and noble quietly began assigning recruits without regard to color.[ - ] integration of black noncommissioned officer platoon leaders followed, along with integration of the noncommissioned officers' club and other facilities. noble later recalled the circumstance of the first significant instance of integration in the history of the marine corps: this innovation not only produced no unfavorable reaction among the marines, but also it had no unfavorable reaction among the civilian citizens of south carolina in the vicinity. of course i consulted the civilian leaders first and told them what i was going to do and got their advice and promises of help to try to stop any adverse criticisms of it. it seemed like integration was due to take place sooner or later anyway in this country, certainly in the armed forces, and i thought that it should take place in the armed forces first.[ - ] [footnote - : this limited integration program was announced by the secretary of the navy on december ; see memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , ppb files.] [footnote - : usmc oral history interview with noble, - may .] since manpower restrictions also made the organization of (p.  ) administratively separate black units hard to justify, the postwar reduction in the number of black marines eventually led to the formation of a number of racially composite units. where once separate black companies were the norm, by the corps had organized most of its black marines into separate platoons and assigned them as parts of larger white units. in march secretary of the navy sullivan reported that with the minor exception of several black depot companies, the largest black units in the marine corps were platoons of forty-three men, "and they are integrated with other platoons of whites."[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of the secretary of the navy before president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, mar , afternoon session, p. .] [illustration: general cates.] the cutback in the size and kinds of black units and the integration of recruit training removed the need for the separate camp at montford point, home base for black marines since the beginning of world war ii. the camp's last two organizations, a provisional company and a headquarters company, were inactivated on july and september, respectively, thus ending an era in the history of negroes in the marine corps.[ - ] [footnote - : on the closing of montford point, see interv, blumenson with sgt max rousseau, admin chief, g- div, usmc (former member of the montford point camp headquarters), feb , cmh files.] composite grouping of small black units usually provided for separate assignment and segregated facilities. as late as february , the commandant made clear he had no intention of allowing the corps to drift into a _de facto_ integration policy. when, for example, it came to his attention that some commanders were restricting appointment of qualified black marines to specialist schools on the grounds that their commands lacked billets for black specialists, the commandant reiterated the principle that assignment to specialty training was to be made without regard to race. at the same time he emphasized that this policy was not to be construed as an endorsement of the use of black specialists in white units. general cates specifically stipulated that where no billets in their specialty or a related one were available for black specialists in black units, his headquarters was to be informed. the implication of this order was obvious to the division of plans and policies. "this is an important one," a division official commented, "it involves finding billets for negro specialists even if we have to create a unit to do it."[ - ] it was also obvious that when the under secretary of the navy, dan a. kimball, (p.  ) reported to the personnel policy board in may that "negro marines, including stewards, are assigned to other [white] marine corps units in accord with their specialty," he was speaking of rare exceptions to the general rule.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmc for cg, fmf, pacific, feb , with attached handwritten note, div of plans and policies to asst cmc, feb .] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, may , ppb . .] cates seemed determined to ignore the military inefficiency attendant on such elaborate attempts to insure the continued isolation of black marines. the defense establishment, he was convinced, "could not be an agency for experimentation in civil liberty without detriment to its ability to maintain the efficiency and the high state of readiness so essential to national defense." having thus tied military efficiency to segregation, cates explained to the assistant secretary of the navy for air that the efficiency of a unit was a command responsibility, and so long as that responsibility rested with the commander, he must be authorized to make such assignments as he deemed necessary. it followed, then, that segregation was a national, not a military, problem, and any attempt to change national policy through the armed forces was, in the commandant's words, "a dangerous path to pursue inasmuch as it affects the ability of the national military establishment to fulfill its mission." integration must first be accepted as a national custom, he concluded, "before it could be adopted in the armed forces."[ - ] nor was general cates ambiguous on marine corps policy when it was questioned by civil rights leaders. individual marines, he told the commander of a black depot company in a case involving opportunities available to reenlisting black marines, would be employed in the future as in the past "to serve the best interests of the corps under existing circumstances."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmc for asst secnav for air, mar , sub: proposed directive for the armed forces for the period july to july , ao- , mc files.] [footnote - : idem for co, second depot co, service cmd, fmf, may , sub: employment of negroes in the marine corps, mc , mc files.] actually, cates was only forcibly expressing a cardinal tenet common to all the military services: the civil rights of the individual must be subordinated to the mission of the service. what might appear to a civil rights activist to be a callous and prejudiced response to a legitimate social complaint was more likely an expression of the commandant's overriding concern for his military mission. still it was difficult to explain such elaborate precautions in a corps where negroes numbered less than percent of the total strength.[ - ] how could the integration of , men throughout the worldwide units of the corps disrupt its mission, civil rights spokesmen might well (p.  ) ask, especially given the evidence to the contrary in the navy? in view of the president's order, how could the corps justify the proliferation of very small black units that severely restricted the spread of occupational opportunities for negroes? [footnote - : on june the marine corps had , negroes on active duty, . percent of the total if the one-year enlistees were included or . percent if the one-year enlistees were excluded. see office of the civilian aide, osd, _negro strength summary_, jul , copy in cmh. for purposes of comparison, the following gives the percentage of negroes in the navy and the marine corps for earlier years. _date_ _navy_ _marine corps_ dec . . dec . . dec . . dec . . dec . . feb . . _source_: officer in charge, pers acctg & stat control, memo for file, apr , pers bupersrecs.] [illustration: st marine division drill team on exhibition _at san diego's balboa stadium, _.] the corps ignored these questions during the summer of , concentrating instead on the problem of finding racially separate assignments for its , negroes in the general service. as the number of marines continued to drop, the division of plans and policies was forced to justify the existence of black units by a series of reorganizations and redistributions. when, for example, the reorganization of the fleet marine force caused the inactivation of two black depot units, the division designated a -man truck company as a black unit to take up the slack. at the same time the division found yet another "suitable" occupation for black marines by laying down a policy that all security detachments at inactive naval facilities were to be manned by negroes. it also decided to assign small black units to the service battalions of the marine divisions, maintaining that such assignments would not run counter to the commandant's policy of restricting negroes to noncombat organizations.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, div of plans and policies, for cmc, jul , sub: re-assignment of negro marines to existing units (dp&p study - ), mc files.] the marine corps, in short, had no intention of relaxing its policy of separating the races. the timing of the integration of recruit training and the breakup of some large black units perhaps suggested a general concession to the truman order, but these administrative changes were actually made in response to the manpower restrictions of the truman defense budget. in fact, the position of black marines in small black units became even more isolated in the months (p.  ) following the truman order as the division of plans and policies began devising racially separate assignments. like the stewards before them, the security guards at closed naval installations and ammunition depots found themselves in assignments increasingly viewed as "colored" jobs. that the number of negroes in the marine corps was so small aided and abetted these arrangements, which promised to continue despite the presidential order until some dramatic need for change arose. _the air force plans for limited integration_ of all the services, the air force was in the best position to respond promptly to president truman's call for equal treatment and opportunity. for some time a group of air staff officers had been engaged in devising a new approach to the use of black manpower. indeed their study, much of which antedated the truman order, represented the solution of the air force's manpower experts to a pressing problem in military efficiency. more important than the executive order or demands of civil rights advocates, the criticism of segregation by these experts in uniform led the air force to accept the need for limited integration. but there was to be no easy road to integration for the service. considerable resistance was yet to be overcome, both in the air staff and among senior commanders. as secretary zuckert later put it, while there was sentiment for integration among a few of the highest officers, "you didn't have to scratch far to run into opposition."[ - ] the deputy chief of staff for personnel, general edwards, reported to secretary symington that he had found solid opposition to any proposed policy of integration in the service.[ - ] normally such resistance would have killed the study group's proposals. in the army, for example, opposition supported by secretary royall had blocked change. in the air force, the opposition received no such support. indeed, secretary symington proved to be the catalyst that the army had lacked. he was the air force's margin of difference, transforming the study group's proposal from a staffing paper into a program for substantial change in racial policy. [footnote - : notes on telecon, author with zuckert, apr , cmh files.] [footnote - : memo, dcofs/p&a, usaf, for secaf, apr , sub: conference with group of prominent negroes, negro affairs, , secaf files.] in symington the air force had a secretary who was not only a tough-minded businessman demanding efficiency but a progressive politician with a humanitarian interest in providing equal opportunity for negroes. "with symington," eugene zuckert has pointed out, "it was principle first, efficiency second."[ - ] symington himself later explained the source of his humanitarian interest. "what determined me many years ago was a quotation from bernard shaw in myrdal's book, _american dilemma_, which went something like this--'first the american white man makes the negro clean his shoes, then criticizes him for being a bootblack.' all americans should have their chance. and both my grandfathers were in the confederate army."[ - ] symington had successfully combined efficiency and humanitarianism before. (p.  ) as president of the emerson electric manufacturing company of st. louis, he had racially integrated a major industry carrying out vital war work in a border state, thereby increasing productivity. when he became secretary, symington was immediately involved in the air force's race problems; he wanted to know, for instance, why only nine black applicants had passed the qualifying examination for the current cadet program.[ - ] when president truman issued his executive order, symington was ready to move. in his own words, "when mr. truman as commander-in-chief issued an order to integrate the air force, i asked him if he was serious. he said he was. accordingly we did just that. i turned the actual operations of the job over to my assistant secretary eugene zuckert.... it all worked out routinely."[ - ] [footnote - : telecon, author with zuckert.] [footnote - : ltr, symington to david k. niles, jan , secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, secaf for zuckert, jan ; penciled note, signed "stu," attached to memo, asecaf for symington, jan . all in secaf files.] [footnote - : ltr, w. stuart symington to author, may , cmh files.] to call "routine" the fundamental change that took place in air force manpower practices stretches the definition of the word. the integration program required many months of intensive study and planning, and many more months to carry out. yet if integration under symington was slow, it was also inevitable. zuckert reported that symington gave him about eight reasons for integration, the last "because i said do it."[ - ] symington's tough attitude, along with the presidential order, considerably eased the burden of those in the air force who were expected to abandon a tradition inherited from their army days. the secretary's diplomatic skill also softened opposition in other quarters. symington, a master at congressional relations, smoothed the way on capitol hill by successfully reassuring some southern leaders, in particular congressman carl vinson of georgia, that integration had to come, but that it would come quietly and in a way least calculated to provoke its congressional opponents.[ - ] [footnote - : telecon, author with zuckert.] [footnote - : ibid.; see also usaf oral hist interv with zuckert.] symington assigned general responsibility for equal opportunity matters to his assistant secretary for management, eugene zuckert, but the task of formulating the specific plan fell to general edwards. to avoid conflict with some of his colleagues, edwards resorted to the unorthodox means of ignoring the usual staff coordination. he sent his proposals directly to the chief of staff and then on to the secretary for approval without reference to other staff agencies, one of which, the office of the vice chief of staff, general muir s. fairchild, was the focal point of staff opposition.[ - ] [footnote - : for discussion of the close-held nature of the usaf integration plan, see usaf oral hist intervs with davis and marr; see also ltrs, marr to author, jun and jul .] on the basis of evidence submitted by his long-standing study group, general edwards concluded that current air force policy for the use of black manpower was "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness and lacking in wartime application." the policy of the navy was superior, he told the chief of staff and the secretary, with respect to military effectiveness, economy, and morale, especially when the needs of full mobilization were considered. the air force would (p.  ) profit by adopting a policy similar to that of the navy, and he proposed a program, to be "vigorously implemented and monitored," that would inactivate the all-black fighter wing and transfer qualified black servicemen from that wing as well as from all the major commands to white units. one exception would be that those black specialists, whose work was essential to the continued operation of their units, would stay in their black units. some black units would be retained to provide for individuals ineligible for transfer to white units or for discharge. [illustration: secretary symington.] the new program would abolish the percent quota and develop recruiting methods to enable the air force to secure only the "best qualified" enlistees of both races. men chronically ineligible for advancement, both black and white, would be eliminated. if too many negroes enlisted despite these measures, edwards explained that an "administratively determined ceiling of negro intake" could be established, but the air force had no intention of establishing a minimum for black enlistees. as the director of personnel planning put it, a racial floor was just as much a quota as a racial ceiling and had the same effect of denying opportunity to some while providing special consideration for others.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, personnel planning usaf, for the fahy cmte, jan , sub: air force policies regarding negro personnel, secaf files.] the manpower experts had decided that the social complications of such a policy would be negligible--"more imaginary than real." edwards referred to the navy's experience with limited integration, which, he judged, had relieved rather than multiplied social tensions between the races. nevertheless he and his staff proposed "as a conservative but progressive step" toward the integration of living quarters that the air force arrange for separate sleeping quarters for blacks and whites. the so-called "barracks problem" was the principal point of discussion within the air staff, edwards admitted, and "perhaps the most critical point of the entire policy." he predicted that the trend toward more privacy in barracks, especially the separate cubicles provided in construction plans for new barracks, would help solve whatever problems might arise.[ - ] [footnote - : summary sheet dcs/p, usaf, for cs, usaf, and secaf, dec , sub: air force policies on negro personnel, secaf files.] while the chief of staff, general vandenberg, initialed the program without comment, assistant secretary zuckert was enthusiastic. as zuckert explained to symington, the program was predicated on free competition for all air force jobs, and he believed that it would also eliminate social discrimination by giving black officers and men (p.  ) all the privileges of air force social facilities. although he admitted that in the matter of living arrangements the plan "only goes part way," he too was confident that time and changes in barracks construction would eliminate any problems.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asecaf for symington, jan , secaf files.] symington was already familiar with most of edwards's conclusions, for a summary had been sent him by the assistant vice chief of staff on december "for background."[ - ] when he received zuckert's comments he acted quickly. the next day he let the secretary of defense know what the air force was doing. "we propose," he told forrestal, "to adopt a policy of integration." but he qualified that statement along the lines suggested by the air staff: "although there will still be units manned entirely by negroes, all negroes will not necessarily be assigned to these units. qualified negro personnel will be assigned to any duties in any air force activity strictly on the basis of the qualifications of the individual and the needs of the air force."[ - ] symington tied the new program to military efficiency, explaining to forrestal that efficient use of black servicemen was one of the essentials of economic and effective air power. in this vein he summarized the program and listed what he considered its advantages for the air force. [footnote - : memo, maj gen william f. mckee for symington, dec , sub: mr. royall's negro experiment, secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, secaf for forrestal, jan , negro affairs, , secaf files.] the proposal forwarded to the secretary of defense in january committed the air force to a limited integration policy frankly imitative of the navy's. a major improvement over the air force's current practices, the plan still fell considerably short of the long-range goals enunciated in the gillem board report, to say nothing of the implications of the president's equal opportunity order. although it is impossible to say exactly why symington decided to settle for less than full integration, there are several explanations worth considering. in the first place the program sent to forrestal may well not have reflected the exact views of the air force secretary, nor conveyed all that his principal manpower assistant intended. actually, the concern expressed by air force officials for military efficiency and by civil rights leaders for equal opportunity always centered specifically on the problems of the black tactical air unit and related specialist billets at lockbourne air force base. in fact, the need to solve the pressing administrative problems of colonel davis's command provoked the air staff study that eventually evolved into the integration program. the program itself focused on this command and provided for the integrated assignment of its members throughout the air force. other black enlisted men, certainly those serving as laborers in the f squadrons, scattered worldwide, did not pose a comparable manpower problem. they were ignored on the theory that abolition of the quota, along with the application of more stringent recruitment procedures, would in time rid the services of its unskilled and unneeded men. it can be argued that the purpose of the limited integration proposal was not so much to devise a new policy as to minimize the impact of change on congressional opponents. edwards certainly hoped that his plan would placate senior commanders and staff officers who (p.  ) opposed integration or feared the social upheaval they assumed would follow the abolition of all black units. this explanation would account for the cautious approach to racial mixing in the proposal, the elaborate administrative safeguards against social confrontation, and the promised reduction in the number of black airmen. some of those pressing for the new program certainly considered the retention of segregated units a stopgap measure designed to prevent a too precipitous reorganization of the service. as lt. col. jack marr, a member of edwards's staff and author of the staff's integration study, explained to the fahy committee, "we are trying to do our best not to tear the air force all apart and try to reorganize it overnight."[ - ] marr predicted that as those eligible for reassignment were transferred out of black units, the units themselves, bereft of essential personnel, would become inoperative and disappear one by one. [footnote - : testimony of lt col jack f. marr before president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, jan , afternoon session, p .] in the end it must be admitted that race relations possess an inner dynamic, and it is impossible to relate the integration of the air force to any isolated decision by a secretary or proposal by a group from his military staff. the decision to integrate was the result of several disparate forces--the political interests of the administration, the manpower needs of the air force, the aspirations of its black minority, and perhaps more than all the rest, the acceptance by its airmen of a different social system. together, these factors would make successive steps to full integration impossible to resist. integration, then, was an evolutionary process, and symington's acceptance of a limited integration plan was only one step in a continuing process that stretched from the air staff's study of black manpower in to the disappearance of the last black unit two years later. chapter (p.  ) the fahy committee versus the department of defense given james forrestal's sympathy for integration, considerable cooperation could be expected between members of his department and the committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, better known as the fahy committee. in the wake of the committee's establishment, forrestal proposed that the service secretaries assign an assistant secretary to coordinate his department's dealings with the group and a ranking black officer from each service be assigned to advise the assistant secretaries.[ - ] his own office promised to supply the committee with vital documentation, and his manpower experts offered to testify. the service secretaries agreed to follow suit. [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., oct , copy in fahy committee file, cmh [hereafter cited as fc file]. the center of military history has retained an extensive collection of significant primary materials pertaining to the fahy committee and its dealings with the department of defense. while most of the original documents are in the charles fahy papers and the papers of the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services at the harry s. truman library or in the national archives, this study will cite the cmh collection when possible.] willing to cooperate, forrestal still wanted to chart his own course. both he and his successor, louis a. johnson, made it quite clear that as a senior cabinet officer the secretary of defense was accountable in all matters to the president alone. the fahy committee might report on the department's racial practices and suggest changes, but the development of policy was his prerogative. both men dealt directly with the committee from time to time, but their directives to the services on the formulation of race policy were developed independently of the white house group.[ - ] underscoring this independent attitude, marx leva reminded the service secretaries that the members of the personnel policy board were to work with the representatives of their respective staffs on racial matters. they were not expected "to assist fahy."[ - ] [footnote - : ltrs, james forrestal to fahy, mar , and louis johnson to fahy, apr ; both in fc file. see also ltr, thomas r. reid to r. m. dalfiume, feb , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : min, cmte of four secretaries mtg, oct , office of osd historian. the committee of the four secretaries was an informal body composed of the secretary of defense or his representative and the secretaries of the three armed services.] at the same time secretary of defense forrestal was aware that the interests of a committee enjoying white house support could not be ignored. his attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in part an effort to forestall committee criticism and in part a wish to draw up a policy that would satisfy the committee without really doing much to change things. after all, such a departmental attitude toward committees, both congressional and presidential, was fairly normal. faced with the conflicting racial policies of the air force and army, forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate (p.  ) programs to the fahy committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy applicable to all the services.[ - ] some of his subordinates debated the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the president had assigned that task to the fahy committee, but they were overruled. forrestal ordered the newly created personnel policy board to undertake, simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial policy. the board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem," as forrestal put it, into its component parts and trying to arrive quietly at areas of agreement on a uniform policy that could be held in readiness until the fahy committee made its report.[ - ] [footnote - : min, war council mtg, jan , office of osd historian; memo, secy of war council for sa et al., jan , sub: significant action of the special meeting of the war council on january , osd . . the war council, established by section of the national security act of , consisted of the secretary of defense as chairman with power of decision, the service secretaries, and the military chiefs of the army, navy, air force, and marine corps.] [footnote - : memo, thomas r. reid, chmn, ppb, for worthington thompson, osd, feb , sub: meeting of committee of four, a.m. tuesday-- february, fc file.] the personnel policy board, established by forrestal to help regulate the military and civilian policies of his large department, was the logical place to prepare a departmental racial policy.[ - ] but could a group basically interservice in nature be expected to develop a forceful, independent racial policy for all the services along the lines forrestal appeared to be following? it seemed unlikely, for at their first meeting the board members agreed that any policy developed must be "satisfactory to the three services."[ - ] [footnote - : forrestal signed an interim directive appointing members of the board on february . composed of a civilian chairman and an under secretary or assistant secretary from each service, the board was to have a staff of personnel experts under a director, an officer of flag rank, appointed by the chairman; see nme press releases, dec , and apr .] [footnote - : min ppb mtg, feb , fc file.] undeterred by members' calling for more investigation and debate before the board prepared a common policy, chairman thomas r. reid and his chief of staff, army brig. gen. charles t. lanham, acted.[ - ] on february they drafted a directive for the secretary of defense that would abolish all racial quotas and establish uniform standards of induction for service which in times of emergency would include provisions for the apportionment of enlistees both qualitatively and quantitatively. moreover, all black enlistees would be given the opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. the services would be completely integrated by july . to ease the change, reid and lanham would in the interim regulate the number of negroes in integrated units, allowing not less than four men and not more than percent in a company-size unit. enlisted men could choose to serve under officers of their own race.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, col j. f. cassidy, ppb, for dir, ppb staff, feb , sub: policies of the three departments with reference to negro personnel, fc file.] [footnote - : ppb, draft (reid and lanham), proposed directive for the armed forces for the period july to july , feb , fc file.] favorably received in the secretary's office, the proposed directive came too late for speedy enactment. on march forrestal resigned, and although leva hoped the directive could be issued before forrestal's actual departure, "in view of his long-standing interest in this field," forrestal was obviously reluctant to commit his successor (p.  ) to so drastic a course.[ - ] with a final bow to his belief in service autonomy, forrestal asked reid and lanham to submit their proposal to the service secretaries for review.[ - ] the secretaries approved the idea of a unified policy in principle, but each had very definite and individual views on what that policy should contain and how it should be carried out. denied firm direction from the ailing forrestal, reid and lanham could do little against service opposition. their proposal was quietly tabled while the board continued its search for an acceptable unified policy. [footnote - : note, leva thru ohly to buck lanham, attached to draft of proposed directive cited in n. .] [footnote - : memo, chmn, ppb, for john ohly, assistant to secdef, mar ; revised min, ppb mtg, mar ; both in fc file.] perhaps it was just as well, for the reid-lanham draft had serious defects. it failed to address the problems of qualitative imbalance in the peacetime services, probably in deference to forrestal's recent rejection of the army's call for a fair distribution of high-scoring enlistees. while the proposal encouraged special training for negroes, it also limited their assignment to a strict percent quota in any unit. the result would have been an administrative nightmare, with trained men in excess of the percent quota assigned to other, nonspecialty duties. as one manpower expert later admitted, "you ran the real chance of haying black engineers and the like pushing wheelbarrows."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with roy k. davenport, oct , cmh.] the service objections to a carefully spelled out policy were in themselves quite convincing to lanham and reid. reid agreed with eugene zuckert, assistant secretary of the air force, that "probably the most logical and soundest approach" was for each service to prepare a policy statement and explain how it was being carried out. the board could then prepare a general policy based on these statements, and, with the approval of the secretary of defense, send it to the fahy committee in time for its report to the president.[ - ] but if zuckert's scheme was logical and sound, it also managed to reduce the secretary's status to final endorsement officer. such a role never appealed to james forrestal, and would be even less acceptable to the politically energetic louis johnson, who succeeded forrestal as secretary of defense on march . [footnote - : memo for files, clarence h. osthagen, assistant to secaf, mar , sub: conference with thomas reid, fc file.] reid appreciated this distinction, and while he was willing to abandon the idea of a policy directive spelling out matters of personnel administration, he was determined that there be a general policy statement on the subject and that it originate not with the services but with the secretary of defense, who would then review individual service plans for implementing his directive.[ - ] reid set the board's staff to this task, but it took several draftings, each stronger and more specific than the last, before a directive acceptable to reid and lanham was devised.[ - ] approved by the full board on april and signed by secretary johnson the next day, the directive reiterated the president's executive order, adding that all persons would be considered on the basis of individual merit and ability and must qualify (p.  ) according to the prescribed standards for enlistment, promotion, assignment, and school attendance. all persons would be accorded equal opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement, and retention, and although some segregated units would be retained, "qualified" negroes would be assigned without regard to race. the secretary ordered the services to reexamine their policies and submit detailed plans for carrying out this directive.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, thomas reid for asst secnav, apr , sub: statement on equality of treatment and opportunity, fc file.] [footnote - : ppb, draft memo, secdef for svc secys (prepared by col j. f. cassidy for reid), mar ; ppb, proposed policy for the national military establishment, apr ; both in fc file.] [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., apr , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; min, ppb mtg, apr ; both in fc file.] although responsible for preparing the secretary's directive, reid and lanham had second thoughts about it. they were concerned lest the services treat it as an endorsement of their current policies. reid pointedly explained to their representatives on the personnel policy board that the service statements due by may should not merely reiterate present practices, but should represent a "sincere effort" by the departments to move toward greater racial equality.[ - ] service responses, he warned, would be scrutinized to determine "their adequacy in the light of the intent of the secretary's policy." reid later admitted to secretary johnson that the directive was so broadly formed that it "permits almost any practice under it."[ - ] he, lanham, and others agreed that since its contents were bound to reach the press anyway, the policy should be publicized in a way that played down generalizations and emphasized the responsibilities it imposed for new directions. johnson agreed, and the announcement of his directive, emphasizing the importance of new service programs and setting a deadline for their submission, was widely circulated.[ - ] [footnote - : min, ppb mtg, apr , fc file.] [footnote - : memo, reid for secdef, apr , sub: the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, fc file.] [footnote - : min, ppb mtg, may ; nme press release - a, apr ; both in fc file.] the directive reflected louis johnson's personality, ambition, and administrative strategy. if many of his associates questioned his personal commitment to the principle of integration, or indeed even his private feeling about president truman's order, all recognized his political ambition and penchant for vigorous and direct action.[ - ] the secretary would recognize the political implications of the executive order just as he would want to exercise personal control over integration, an issue fraught with political uncertainties that an independent presidential committee would only multiply. a dramatic public statement might well serve johnson's needs. by creating at least the illusion of forward motion in the field of race relations, a directive issued by the secretary of defense might neutralize the fahy committee as an independent force, protecting the services from outside interference while enhancing johnson's position in the white house and with the press. a "blustering bully," one of fahy's assistants later called johnson, whose directive was designed, he charged, to put the fahy committee out of business.[ - ] [footnote - : this conclusion is based on interviews, author with charles fahy, feb , james c. evans, apr , and brig gen charles t. lanham, jan . it is also based on letters to author from john ohly, jan , and thomas reid, jan . all in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for chief of military history, oct . cmh.] if such was his motive, the secretary was taking a chance. (p.  ) announcing his directive to the press transformed what could have been an innocuous, private reaffirmation of the department's pledge of equal treatment and opportunity into a public exercise in military policymaking. the secretary of defense in effect committed himself to a public review of the services' racial practices. in this sense the responses he elicited from the army and navy were a disappointment. both services contented themselves with an outline of their current policies and ignored the secretary's request for future plans. the army offered statistics to prove that its present program guaranteed equal opportunity, while the navy concluded that its practices and procedures revealed "no inconsistencies" with the policy prescribed by the secretary of defense.[ - ] summing up his reaction to these responses for the personnel policy board, reid said that the army had a poor policy satisfactorily administered, while the navy had an acceptable policy poorly administered. neither service complied "with the spirit or letter of the request."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg secnav for chmn, ppb, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the navy and marine corps; memo, sa for secdef, apr , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; both in fc file.] [footnote - : min, ppb mtg, may , fc file.] [illustration: secretary of defense johnson.] not all the board members agreed. in the wake of the army and navy replies, some saw the possible need for separate service policies rather than a common policy; considering the many advances enumerated in the replies, one member even suggested that johnson might achieve more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies vigorously. although chairman reid promised that these suggestions would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the air force response to pry further concessions out of the army and navy.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid.; see also ltr, thomas reid to richard dalfiume, apr , incl to ltr, reid to author, jan . all in cmh.] the air force plan had been in existence for some time, its implementation delayed because symington had agreed with royall in january that a joint army-air force plan might be developed and because he and zuckert needed the time to sell the new plan to some of their senior military assistants.[ - ] but greater familiarity with the plan quickly convinced royall that the army and air force (p.  ) positions could never be reconciled, and the air force plan was independently presented to the fahy committee and later, with some revision that further liberalized its provisions, to johnson as the air force reply to his directive.[ - ] the personnel policy board approved the air force's proposal for the integration of a large group of its black personnel, and after discussing it with fahy and the other services, reid recommended to the secretary of defense that he approve it also.[ - ] [footnote - : min, war council mtg, jan , fc file; see also interv, author with w. stuart symington, , cmh.] [footnote - : memo, secaf for chmn, ppb, osd, apr ; memo, asst secaf for secaf, apr , sub: department of air force implementation of department of defense policy on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; both in secaf files.] [footnote - : min, ppb mtg, may ; memo, reid for secdef, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces, fc file.] to achieve maximum benefit from the air force plan, reid and his associates had to link it publicly with the inadequate replies from the other services. disregarding the views of some board members, he suggested that johnson reject the army and navy answers and, without indicating the form he thought their answers should take, order them to prepare new proposals.[ - ] johnson would also have to ignore a warning from secretary of the army royall, who had recently reminded him that forrestal had assured congress during the selective service hearings that the administration would not issue a preemptory order completely abolishing segregation. "i have no reason to believe that the president had changed his mind," royall continued, "but i think you should be advised of these circumstances because if any action were later taken by you or other authority to abolish segregation in the army i am confident that these southern senators would remember this incident."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid.] [footnote - : memo, sa for secdef, apr , osa . .] despite royall's not so subtle warning, reid's scheme worked. the secretary of defense explicitly and publicly approved the air force program and rejected those of the army and navy. johnson told the army, for example, that he was pleased with the progress made in the past few years, but he saw "that much remains to be done and that the rate of progress toward the objectives of the executive order must be accelerated."[ - ] he gave the recalcitrants until may to submit "specific additional actions which you propose to take." [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces; idem for secaf and secnav, may , same sub; dod press release - a, may . all in fc file.] _the committee's recommendations_ if there was ever any question of what their programs should contain, the services had only to turn to the fahy committee for plenty of advice. the considerable attention paid by senior officials of the department of defense to racial matters in the spring of could be attributed in part to the commonly held belief that the fahy committee planned an integration crusade, using the power of the white house to transform the services' racial policies in a profound and dramatic way. indeed, some members of the committee itself demanded that the chairman "lay down the law to the services."[ - ] but this approach, charles fahy decided, ignored both the personalities of the (p.  ) participants and the realities of the situation. [footnote - : interv, author with fahy.] [illustration: fahy committee with president truman and armed services secretaries. _seated with the president are secretary forrestal and committeeman a. j. donahue. standing from the left: chairman of the personnel policy board thomas r. reid; chief of staff of the personnel policy board brig. gen. charles t. lanham; committeemen john h. sengstacke and william m. stevenson; secretary royall; secretary symington; committeemen lester granger and dwight r. palmer; secretary sullivan; and charles fahy._] the armed forces had just won a great world war, and the opinions of the military commanders, fahy reasoned, would carry much weight with the american public. in any conflict between the committee and the services, fahy believed that public opinion would be likely to side with the military. he wanted the committee to issue no directive. instead, as he reported to the president, the committee would seek the confidence and help of the armed services in working out changes in manpower practices to achieve truman's objectives.[ - ] it was important to fahy that the committee not make the mistake of telling the services what should be done and then have to drop the matter with no assurances that anything would be done. he was determined, rather, to obtain not only a change in policy, but also a "program in being" during the life of the committee. to achieve this change the group would have to convince the army and the other services of the need for and justice of integration. to do less, to settle for the issuance of an integration directive alone, would leave the services the (p.  ) option of later disregarding the reforms on the grounds of national security or for other reasons. fahy explained to the president that all this would take time.[ - ] "take all the time you need," truman told his committee.[ - ] this the committee proceeded to do, gathering thousands of pages of testimony, while its staff under the direction of executive secretary edwin w. kenworthy toured military installations, analyzed the existing programs and operations of the three services, and perused the reams of pertinent historical documents. [footnote - : ibid.; see also fahy cmte, "a progress report for the president," jun , fc file.] [footnote - : memo, fahy for brig gen james l. collins, jr. aug , cmh.] [footnote - : interv, author with fahy.] that the committee expected the secretary of defense to take the lead in racial affairs, refraining from dictating policy itself, did not mean that fahy and his associates lacked a definite point of view. from the first, fahy understood truman's executive order to mean unequivocally that the services would have to abandon segregation, an interpretation reinforced in a later discussion he had with the president.[ - ] the purpose of the committee, in fahy's view, was not to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the merits of the president's order and to agree with them on a plan to make it effective. [footnote - : interv, blumenson with fahy, apr ; interv, author with davenport, oct ; both in cmh.] the trouble, the committee quickly learned, lay in trying to convince the army of the practical necessity for integration. on one hand the army readily admitted that there were some advantages in spreading black soldiers through the white ranks. "it might remove any false charges that equal opportunities are not provided," general bradley testified. "it would simplify administration and the use of manpower, and it would distribute our losses in battle more nearly in proportion to the percentage of the two races."[ - ] but then the army had so carefully and often repeated the disadvantages of integration that bradley and others could very easily offer a logical and well-rehearsed apology for continuing the army's current policy. army officials repeatedly testified, for example, that their situation fundamentally differed from those of the other two services. the army had a much higher proportion of negroes in its ranks, to percent during the period of the committee's life, and in addition was required by law to accept by the thousands recruits, many of them black, whose aptitude or education would automatically disqualify them for the air force or navy. armed with these inequities, the army remained impervious to the claims of the navy and air force, defending its time-honored charge that segregation was necessary to preserve the efficiency of its combat forces. in zuckert's opinion, the army was trying to maintain the _status quo_ at any cost.[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of general omar n. bradley, fahy cmte hearings, mar , afternoon session, p. .] [footnote - : memo, asst secaf for symington, apr , sub: statement of the secretary of the army before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services--march , , secaf files.] the army offered other reasons. its leaders testified that the unlimited induction of negroes into an integrated army would seriously affect enlistments and the morale of troops. morale in particular affected battle efficiency. again general bradley testified. i consider that a unit has high morale when the men have (p.  ) confidence in themselves, confidence in their fellow members of their unit, and confidence in their leaders. if we try to force integration on the army before the country is ready to accept these customs, we may have difficulty attaining high morale along the lines i have mentioned.[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of bradley, fahy cmte hearings, mar , afternoon session, pp. - .] underlying all these discussions of morale and efficiency lurked a deep-seated suspicion of the combat reliability and effectiveness of black troops and the fear that many white soldiers would refuse to serve with blacks. many army leaders were convinced that the performance of black troops in the past two wars did not qualify negroes for a role in the army's current mission, the execution of field operations in relatively small groups. these reservations were expressed frequently in army testimony. bradley, in defense of segregation, for example, cited the performance of the d division. when asked whether a percent black army would reduce efficiency, he said, "from our experience in the past i think the time might come when it wouldn't, but the average educational standards of these men would not be up to the average of the white soldier. in modern combat a man is thrown very much on his own initiative."[ - ] this attitude was closely related to the army's estimates of white morale: white soldiers, the argument ran, especially many among those southerners who comprised an unusually high proportion of the army's strength, would not accept integration. many white men would refuse to take orders from black superiors, and the mutual dependence of individual soldiers and small units in combat would break down when the races were mingled. [footnote - : ibid., p. .] although these beliefs were highly debatable, they were tenaciously held by many senior officials and were often couched in terms that were extremely difficult to refute. for instance, royall summed up the argument on morale: "i am reluctant--and i am sure all sincere citizens will be reluctant--to force a pace faster than is consistent with the efficiency and morale of the army--or to follow a course inconsistent with the ability of the army, in the event of war, to take the battlefield with reasonable assurance of success."[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of the secretary of the army, fahy cmte hearings, mar , morning session, p. .] but in time the fahy committee found a way, first suggested by its executive secretary, to turn the efficiency argument around. certainly a most resourceful and imaginative man, kenworthy had no doubt about the immorality of segregation, but he also understood, as he later told the secretary of the army, that whatever might be morally undeniable in the abstract, military efficiency had to govern in matters of military policy. his study of the record and his investigation of existing service conditions convinced him that segregation actually impeded military efficiency. convinced from the start that appeals to morality would be a waste of time, kenworthy pressed the committee members to tackle the services on their own ground--efficiency.[ - ] after seeing the army so effectively dismiss in the name of military efficiency and national security the moral arguments against segregation as being valid but irrelevant, kenworthy asked chairman fahy: i wonder if the one chance of getting something done isn't (p.  ) to meet the military on their own ground--the question of military efficiency. they have defended their negro manpower policies on the grounds of efficiency. have they used negro manpower efficiently?... can it be that the whole policy of segregation, especially in large units like the nd and rd division, adversely affects morale and efficiency?[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to sa, jul , fc file; see also memo, kenworthy for chief of military history, oct , cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to fahy, mar , fc file.] the committee did not have to convince the navy or the air force of the practical necessity for integration. with four years of experience in integrating its ships and stations, the navy did not bother arguing the merits of integration with the committee, but instead focused its attention on black percentages and the perennial problem of the largely black steward's branch. specifically, naval officials testified that integration increased the navy's combat efficiency. speaking for the air force, symington told the committee that "in our position we believe that non-segregation will improve our efficiency in at least some instances" and consequently "it's simply been a case [of] how we are going to do it, not whether we are going to do it." convinced of the simple justice of integration, symington also told the committee: "you've got to clear up that basic problem in your heart before you can really get to this subject. both zuckert and edwards feel right on the basic problem."[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of the secretary of the air force, fahy cmte hearings, mar , afternoon session, p. .] even while the air force and the navy were assuring fahy of their belief in the efficiency of integration, they hastened to protect themselves against a change of heart. general edwards gave the committee a caveat on integration: "if it comes to a matter of lessening the efficiency of the air force so it can't go to war and do a good job, there isn't any question that the policy of non-segregation will have to go by the boards. in a case like that, i'd be one of the first to recommend it."[ - ] secretary of the navy sullivan also supported this view and cautioned the committee against making too much of the differences in the services' approach to racial reforms. each service, he suggested, should be allowed to work out a program that would stand the test of war. "if war comes and we go back [to segregation], then we have taken a very long step in the wrong direction." he wanted the committee to look to the "substance of the advance rather than to the apparent progress."[ - ] [footnote - : fahy cmte hearings, mar , afternoon session, pp. - .] [footnote - : ibid., p. .] kenworthy predicted that attacking the army's theory of military efficiency would require considerable research by the committee into army policy as well as the past performance of black units. ironically enough, he got the necessary evidence from the army itself, in the person of roy k. davenport.[ - ] davenport's education at fisk and columbia universities had prepared him for the scholar's life, but pearl harbor changed all that, and davenport eventually landed behind a desk in the office that managed the army's manpower affairs. one of the first black professionals to break through the armed forces racial barrier, davenport was not a "negro specialist" and did not wish to be one. nor could he, an experienced government bureaucrat, be blamed if he saw in the fahy committee yet one more well-meaning attempt by (p.  ) an outside group to reform the army. only when kenworthy convinced him that this committee was serious about achieving change did davenport proceed to explain in great detail how segregation limited the availability of military occupational specialties, schooling, and assignments for negroes. [footnote - : intervs, blumenson with fahy, and author with fahy.] [illustration: e. w. kenworthy.] kenworthy decided that the time had come for fahy to meet davenport, particularly since the chairman was inclined to be impressed with, and optimistic over, the army's response to johnson's directive of april . fahy, kenworthy knew, was unfamiliar with military language and the fine art practiced by military staffs of stating a purpose in technical jargon that would permit various interpretations. there was no fanfare, no dramatic scene. kenworthy simply invited fahy and davenport, along with the black officers assigned by the services to assist the committee, to meet informally at his home one evening in april.[ - ] [footnote - : this incident is described in detail in interviews, author with fahy; davenport, oct ; and e. w. kenworthy (by telephone), dec . see also interv, nichols with davenport, in nichols collection. all in cmh.] never one to waste time, fahy summarized the committee's activities thus far, outlined its dealings with army witnesses, and then handed out copies of the army's response to secretary johnson's directive. fahy was inclined to recommend approval, a course agreed to by the black officers present, but he nevertheless turned courteously to the personnel expert from the department of the army and asked him for his opinion of the official army position. davenport did not hesitate. "the directive [the army's response to secretary johnson's april directive] isn't worth the paper it's written on," he answered. it called for sweeping changes in the administration of the army's training programs, he explained, but would produce no change because personnel specialists at the training centers would quickly discover that their existing procedures, which excluded so many qualified black soldiers, would fit quite comfortably under the document's idealistic but vague language. the army's response, davenport declared, had been very carefully drawn up to retain segregation rather than to end it. chairman fahy seemed annoyed by this declaration. after all, he had listened intently to the army's claims and promises and was inclined to accept the army's proposal as a slow, perhaps, but certain way to bring about racial integration. he was, however, a tough-minded man and was greatly impressed by the analysis of the situation (p.  ) presented by the army employee. when davenport asked him to reexamine the directive with eyes open to the possibility of deceit, fahy walked to a corner of the room and reread the army's statement in the light of davenport's charges. witnesses would later remember the flush of anger that came to his face as he read. his committee was going to have to hear more from davenport. [illustration: charles fahy _(a later portrait)_.] if efficiency was to be the keynote of the committee's investigation, davenport explained, it would be a simple thing to prove that the army was acting inefficiently. in a morning of complex testimony replete with statistical analysis of the army's manpower management, he and maj. james d. fowler, a black west point graduate and personnel officer, provided the committee with the needed breakthrough. step by step they led fahy and his associates through the complex workings of the army's career guidance program, showing them how segregation caused the inefficient use of manpower on several counts.[ - ] the army, for example, as part of a continuing effort to find men who _could_ be trained for specialties in which it had a shortage of men, published a monthly list, the so-called " report," of its authorized and actual strength in each of its military occupational specialties. each of these specialties was further broken down by race. the committee learned that no authorization existed at all for negroes in of these specialties, despite the fact that in many of them the army was under its authorized strength. furthermore, for many of the specialties in which there were no authorizations for negroes no great skill was needed. in short, it was the policy of segregated service that allowed the army, which had thousands of jobs unfilled for lack of trained specialists, to continue to deny training and assignment to thousands of negroes whose aptitude test scores showed them at least minimally suited for those jobs. how could the army claim that it was operating efficiently when a shortage existed and potentially capable persons were being ignored? [footnote - : fahy cmte hearings, apr , morning session.] one question led to another. if there were no authorizations for black soldiers in specialties, what were the chances for qualified negroes to attend schools that trained men for these specialties? it turned out that of the school courses available after a man finished basic training, only twenty-one were open to negroes. that is, percent of the courses offered by the army were closed to negroes. the army denied that discrimination was involved. since (p.  ) existing black units could not use the full range of the army's military occupational specialties, went the official line of reasoning, it would be wasteful and inefficient to train men for nonexistent jobs in those units. it followed that the organization and training division must exclude many negroes from being classified in specialties for which they were qualified and from army schools that would train others for such unneeded specialties. [illustration: roy davenport.] this reasoning was in the interest of segregation, not efficiency, and davenport and others were able to prove to the committee's satisfaction that the army's segregation policy could be defended neither in terms of manpower efficiency nor common fairness. with davenport and fowler's testimony, charles fahy later explained, he began to "see light for a solution."[ - ] he began to see how he would probably be able to gain the committee's double objective: the announcement of an integration policy for the army and the establishment of a practical program that would immediately begin moving the army from segregation to integration. [footnote - : interv, nichols with fahy, in nichols collection, cmh.] in fact, military efficiency was a potent weapon which, if skillfully handled, might well force the army into important concessions leading to integration. taking its cue from davenport and fowler, the committee would contend that, as the increasing complexity of war had created a demand for skilled manpower, the country could ill-afford to use any of its soldiers below their full capacity or fail to train them adequately. with a logic understandable to president and public alike, the committee could later state that since maximum military efficiency demanded that all servicemen be given an equal opportunity to discover and exploit their talents, an indivisible link existed between military efficiency and equal opportunity.[ - ] thus equal opportunity in the name of military efficiency became one of the committee's basic premises; until the end of its existence the committee hammered away at this premise. [footnote - : fahy cmte, "second interim report to the president," jul , fc file.] while the committee's logic was unassailable when applied to the plight of a relatively small number of talented and qualified black soldiers, a different solution would have to prevail when the far larger number of negroes ineligible for army schooling either by talent, inclination, or previous education was considered. here the army's plea for continued segregation in the name of military efficiency carried some weight. how could it, the army asked, endanger the morale and efficiency of its fighting forces by integrating these (p.  ) men? how could it, with its low enlistment standards, abandon its racial quota and risk enlarging the already burdensome concentration of "professional black privates?" the committee admitted the justice of the army's claim that the higher enlistment score required by the navy and air force resulted in the army's getting more than its share of men in the low-test categories iv and v. and while kenworthy believed that immediate integration was less likely to cause serious trouble than the army's announced plan of mixing the races in progressively smaller units, he too accepted the argument that it would be dangerous to reassign the army's group of professional black privates to white units. fahy saw the virtue of the army's position here; his committee never demanded the immediate, total integration of the army. one solution to the problem, reducing the number of soldiers with low aptitude by forcing the other services to share equally in the burden of training and assimilating the less gifted and often black enlistee and draftee, had recently been rejected by the navy and air force, a rejection endorsed by secretary of defense forrestal. even in the event that the army could raise its enlistment standards and the other services be induced to lower theirs, much time would elapse before the concentration of undereducated negroes could be broken up. davenport was aware of all this when he limited his own recommendations to the committee to matters concerning the integration of black specialists, the opening of all army schools to negroes, and the establishment of some system to monitor the army's implementation of these reforms.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with davenport, oct .] having gained some experience, the committee was now able to turn the army's efficiency argument against the racial quota. it decided that the quota had helped defeat the gillem board's aim of using negroes on a broad professional scale. it pointed out that, when forced by manpower needs and the selective service law to set a lower enlistment standard, the army had allowed its black quota to be filled to a great extent by professional privates and denied to qualified black men, who could be used on a broad professional scale, the chance to enlist.[ - ] it was in the name of military efficiency, therefore, that the committee adopted a corollary to its demand for equal opportunity in specialist training and assignment: the racial quota must be abandoned in favor of a quota based on aptitude. [footnote - : fahy cmte, "initial recommendations by the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services," attached to fahy cmte, "a progress report for the president", jun , fc file.] fahy was not sure, he later admitted, how best to proceed at this point with the efficiency issue, but his committee obviously had to come up with some kind of program if only to preserve its administrative independence in the wake of secretary johnson's directive. as kenworthy pointed out, short of demanding the elimination of all segregated units, there was little the committee could do that went beyond johnson's statement.[ - ] fahy, at least, was not prepared to settle for that. his solution, harmonizing with his belief in the efficacy of long-range practical change and his estimate of the committee's strength vis-à-vis the services' strength, was (p.  ) to prepare a "list of suggestions to guide the army and navy in its [_sic_] determinations."[ - ] the suggestions, often referred to by the committee as its "initial recommendations," would in the fullness of time, fahy thought, effect substantial reforms in the way the negro was employed by the services. [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to fahy, may , fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : fahy cmte, "a progress report for the president," jun , fc file.] the committee's recommendations, sent to the personnel policy board in late may , are easily summarized.[ - ] questioning why the navy's policy, "so progressive on its face," had attracted so few negroes into the general service, the committee suggested that negroes remembered the navy's old habit of restricting them to servant duties. it wanted the navy to aim a vigorous recruitment program at the black community in order to counteract this lingering suspicion. at the same time the committee wanted the navy to make a greater effort among black high school students to attract qualified negroes into the naval reserve officers' training corps program. to reinforce these campaigns and to remove one more vestige of racial inequality in naval service, the committee also suggested that the navy give to chief stewards all the perquisites of chief petty officers. the lack of this rating, in particular, had continued to cast doubt on the navy's professed policy, the committee charged. "there is no reason, except custom, why the chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that custom seems hardly worth the suspicion it evokes." finally, the committee wanted the navy to adopt the same entry standards as the army. it rejected the navy's claim that men who scored below ninety were unusable in the general service and called for an analysis by outside experts to determine what jobs in the navy could be performed by men who scored between seventy and ninety. at the same time the committee reiterated that it did not intend the navy or any of the services to lower the qualifications for their highly skilled positions. [footnote - : min, war council mtg, may ; fahy cmte, "initial recommendations by the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services," attached to fahy cmte, "a progress report for the president", jun , fc file. excerpts from the "initial recommendations" were sent to the services via the personnel policy board, which explains the document in the secnav's files with the penciled notation "excerpt from fahy recommendation / ." see also ltr, kenworthy to fahy, may , fahy papers, truman library.] the committee also suggested to the air force that it establish a common enlistment standard along with the other services. commenting that the air force had apparently been able to use efficiently thousands of men with test scores below ninety in the past, the committee doubted that the contemporary differential in air force and army standards was justified. with a bow to secretary symington's new and limited integration policy, the committee deferred further recommendations. it showed no such reluctance when it came to the army. it wanted the army to abolish racial considerations in the designation of military occupational specialties, attendance at its schools, and use of its school graduates in their military specialties. in line with the establishment of a parity of enlistment standards among the services, the committee wanted the army to abandon its racial quotas. the committee did not insist on an immediate end to segregation in the army, believing that no matter how desirable, such a drastic change could not be accomplished, as davenport had warned, without very (p.  ) serious administrative confusion. besides, there were other pragmatic reasons for adopting the gradualist approach. for the committee to demand immediate and complete integration would risk an outcry from capitol hill that might endanger the whole reform program. gradual change, on the other hand, would allow time for qualified negroes to attend school courses, and the concept that negroes had a right to equal educational opportunities was one that was very hard for the segregationists to attack, given the american belief in education and the right of every child to its benefits.[ - ] if the army could be persuaded to adopt these recommendations, the committee reasoned, the army itself would gradually abolish segregation. the committee's formula for equality of treatment and opportunity in the army, therefore, was simple and straightforward, but each of its parts had to be accepted to achieve the whole. [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for chief of military history, oct , cmh.] as it was, the committee's program for gradual change proved to be a rather large dose for senior service officials. an army representative on the personnel policy board staff characterized the committee's work as "presumptuous," "subjective," and "argumentative." he also charged the committee with failing to interpret the executive order and thus leaving unclear whether the president wanted across-the-board integration, and if so how soon.[ - ] the personnel policy board ignored these larger questions when it considered the subject on may, focusing its opposition instead on two of the committee's recommendations. it wanted secretary johnson to make "a strong representation" to fahy against the suggestion that there be a parity of scores for enlistment in the services. the board also unanimously opposed the committee's suggestion that the army send all qualified negroes to specialty schools within eighteen months of enlistment, arguing that such a policy would be administratively impossible to enforce and would discriminate against white servicemen.[ - ] [footnote - : col j. f. cassidy, comments on initial recommendations of fahy committee (ca. may ) fc file.] [footnote - : min, ppb mtg, may , fc file.] chairman reid temporized somewhat in his recommendations to secretary johnson. he admitted that the whole question of parity of entrance standards was highly controversial. he recognized the justice in establishing universal standards for enlistment through selective service, but at the same time he believed it unfair to ask any service to accept volunteers of lesser quality than it could obtain through good enlistment and recruitment methods. he wanted johnson to concentrate his attack on the parity question.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, reid for under secdef, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; idem for secdef, jun , sub: fahy committee initial recommendations--discussion with members of the fahy committee; both in ppb files. see also memo, ohly for reid, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, fc file.] before johnson could act on his personnel group's recommendations, the army and navy formally submitted their second replies to his directive on the executive order. surprisingly, the services provided a measure of support for the fahy committee. for its part, the navy was under particular pressure to develop an acceptable program. it, after all, had been the first to announce a general integration policy for which it had, over the years, garnered considerable praise. but now it (p.  ) was losing this psychological advantage under steady and persistent criticism from civil rights leaders, the president's committee, and, finally, the secretary of defense himself. proud of its racial policy and accustomed to the rapport it had always enjoyed with forrestal, the navy was suddenly confronted with a new secretary of defense who bluntly noted its "lack of any response" to his april directive, thus putting the navy in the same league as the army. secretary johnson's rejection of the navy's response made a reexamination of its race program imperative, but it was still reluctant to follow the fahy committee's proposals completely. although the personnel bureau had already planned special recruitment programs, as well as a survey of all jobs in the navy and the mental requirements for each, the idea of making chief petty officers out of chief stewards caused "great anger and resentment in the upper reaches of bupers," capt. fred stickney of the bureau admitted to a representative of the committee. stickney was confident that the bureau's opposition to this change could be surmounted, but he was not so sure that the navy would surrender on the issue of equality of enlistment standards. the committee's arguments to the contrary, the navy remained convinced that standardizing entrance requirements for all the services would mean "lowering the calibre of men taken into the navy."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to fahy, may , fc file.] but even here the navy proved unexpectedly conciliatory. replying to the secretary of defense a second time on may, acting secretary dan kimball committed the navy to a program that incorporated to a great extent the recommendations of the fahy committee, including raising the status of chief stewards and integrating recruit training in the marine corps. while he did not agree with the committee's proposal for equality of enlistment standards, kimball broke the solid opposition to the committee's recommendation on this subject by promising to study the issue to determine where men who scored less than forty-five (the equivalent of general classification test score ninety) could be used without detriment to the navy.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg secnav for secdef, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces, fc file.] the question of parity of enlistment standards aside, the navy's program generally followed the suggestions of the fahy committee, and chairman reid urged johnson to accept it.[ - ] the secretary's acceptance was announced on june and was widely reported in the press.[ - ] [footnote - : draft memo, reid for secnav, jun , and memo, reid for secdef, jun , both in ppb files; memo, kenworthy for fahy, may , sub: replies of army and navy to mr. johnson's may memo, fc file.] [footnote - : nme, off of pub info, release - a, jun . see washington _post_, june , , and new york _times_, june , .] to some extent the army had an advantage over the navy in its dealings with johnson and fahy. it never had an integration policy to defend, had in fact consistently opposed the imposition of one, and was not, therefore, under the same psychological pressures to react positively to the secretary's latest rebuff. determined to defend its current interpretation of the gillem board policy, the army resisted the personnel policy board's use of the air force plan, secretary johnson's directive, and the initial recommendations of the fahy committee (p.  ) to pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. in lieu of such a commitment, acting secretary of the army gordon gray[ - ] offered secretary johnson another spirited defense of circular on may, promising that the army's next step would be to integrate black companies in the white battalions of the combat arms. this step could not be taken, he added, until the reactions to placing black battalions in white regiments and black companies in composite battalions had been observed in detail over a period of time. gray remained unmoved by the committee's appeal for the wider use and broader training of the talented black soldiers in the name of combat efficiency and continued to defend the _status quo_. he cited with feeling the case of the average black soldier who because of his "social environment" had most often missed the opportunity to develop leadership abilities and who against the direct competition with the better educated white soldier would find it difficult to "rise above the level of service tasks." segregation, gray claimed, was giving black soldiers the chance to develop leadership "unhindered and unfettered by overshadowing competition they are not yet equipped to meet." he would be remiss in his duties, he warned johnson, if he failed to report the concern of many senior officers who believed that the army had already gone too far in inserting black units into white units and that "we are weakening to a dangerous degree the combat efficiency of our army."[ - ] [footnote - : following the resignation of secretary royall, president truman nominated gordon gray as secretary of the army. his appointment was confirmed by the senate on june . a lawyer, gray had been a newspaper publisher in north carolina before his appointment as assistant secretary in .] [footnote - : memo, actg sa for secdef, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; see also p&a summary sheet, may , same sub, fc file.] the army's response found the fahy committee and the office of the secretary of defense once again in agreement. the committee rejected gray's statement, and kenworthy drew up a point-by-point rebuttal. he contended that unless the army took intermediate steps, its first objective, a specific quota of black units segregated at the battalion level, would always block the realization of integration, its ultimate objective.[ - ] the secretary's personnel policy board struck an even harder blow. chairman reid called gray's statement a rehash of army accomplishments "with no indication of significant change or step forward." it ignored the committee's recommendations. in particular, and in contrast to the navy, which had agreed to restudy the enlistment parity question, the army had rejected the committee's request that it reconsider its quota system. reid's blunt advice to johnson: reject the army's reply and demand a new one by a definite and early date.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for fahy, may , sub: replies of army and navy to mr. johnson's may memo, fc file.] [footnote - : memo, reid for secdef, jun , sub: army and navy replies to your memorandum of april on equality of treatment and opportunity in the army services; min, ppb mtg, jun ; both in fc file.] members of the fahy committee met with johnson and reid on june. despite the antagonism that was growing between the secretary of defense and the white house group, the meeting produced several notable agreements. for his part, johnson, accepting the recommendations of fahy and reid, agreed to reject the army's latest response and (p.  ) order the secretary of the army and the chief of staff to confer informally with the committee in an attempt to produce an acceptable program. at the same time, johnson made no move to order a common enlistment standard; he told fahy that the matter was extremely controversial and setting such standards would involve rescinding previous interdepartmental agreements. on the committee's behalf, fahy agreed to reword the recommendation on schooling for all qualified negroes within eighteen months of enlistment and to discuss further the parity issue.[ - ] [footnote - : min, ppb mtg, jun ; ltr, fahy to johnson, jul , fc file.] [illustration: press notice. _rejection of the army's second proposal as seen by the afro-american, june , ._] general lanham endorsed the committee's belief that there was a need for practical, intermediate steps when he drafted a response to the army for secretary johnson to sign. "it is my conviction," he wanted johnson to say, "that the department of the army must meet this issue [the equal opportunity imposed by executive order ] squarely and that its action, no matter how modest or small at its inception, must be progressive in spirit and carry with it the unmistakable promise of an ultimate solution in consonance with the chief executive's position and our national policy."[ - ] [footnote - : draft memo, lanham for secdef, jun , fc file.] but the army received no such specific instruction. although johnson rejected the army's second reply and demanded another based on a careful consideration of the fahy committee's recommendations,[ - ] he deleted lanham's demand for immediate steps toward providing equal opportunity. johnson's rejection of lanham's proposal--a tacit rejection of the committee's basic premise as well--did not necessarily indicate a shift in johnson's position, but it did establish a basis for future rivalry between the secretary and the committee. until now johnson and the committee, through the medium of the personnel policy board, had worked in an informal partnership whose fruitfulness was readily apparent in the development of acceptable navy and air force programs and in johnson's rejection of the army's inadequate responses. but this cooperation was to be (p.  ) short-lived; it would disappear altogether as the fahy committee began to press the army, while the secretary of defense, in reaction, began to draw closer to the army's position.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa, jun , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; nme, off of pub info, press release - a, jun . the secretary gave the army a new deadline of june, but by mutual agreement of all concerned this date was postponed several times and finally left to the secretary of the army to submit his program "at his discretion," although at the earliest possible date. see memo, t. reid for maj gen levin allen, jul , sub: army reply to the secretary of defense on equality of treatment; min, ppb mtg, aug . all in fc file.] [footnote - : interv, author with kenworthy.] _a summer of discontent_ the committee approached its negotiations with the army with considerable optimism. kenworthy was convinced that the committee's moderate and concrete recommendations had reassured reid and the personnel policy board and would strengthen its hand in dealing with the recalcitrant army,[ - ] and fahy, outlining for the president the progress the committee had made with the services, said that he looked forward to his coming meetings with gray and bradley.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to fahy, may , fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : fahy cmte, "a progress report for the president," jun , fc file.] to remove any unnecessary obstacle to what fahy hoped would be fruitful sessions, the committee revised its initial recommendations to the army. first, as fahy had promised johnson, it modified its position on guaranteeing qualified black soldiers already assigned to units the opportunity to attend army schools within eighteen months. calling the imbroglio over this issue a mere misunderstanding--the committee did not intend that preferential treatment be given negroes nor that the army train more people than it needed--fahy explained to johnson that the committee only wanted to make sure that qualified negroes would have the same chance as qualified white men. it would be happy, fahy said, to work with the army on rewording the recommendation.[ - ] the committee also added the suggestion that so long as racial units existed, the army might permit enlisted men in the four lowest grades, at their request, to remain in a unit predominantly composed of men of their own race. this provision, however, was not to extend to officers and noncommissioned officers in the top three grades, who received their promotions on a worldwide competitive basis. finally, the committee offered a substitute for the numerical quota it wanted abolished. so that the army would not get too many low-scoring recruits, either black or white, the committee proposed a separate quota for each category in the classification test scores. only so many voluntary enlistments would be accepted in categories i through iii, their numbers based on the normal spread of scores that existed in both the wartime and peacetime army. if the army netted more high scorers than average in any period, it would induct fewer men from the next category. it would also deny reenlistment to any man scoring less than eighty (category iv).[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, fahy to johnson, jun , fc file.] [footnote - : idem to sa, jul , fc file.] after meeting first with gray and then the chief of staff, fahy called the sessions "frank and cordial" and saw some prospect of accord, although their positions were still far apart.[ - ] just how far apart had already become apparent on july when gray presented (p.  ) fahy with an outline for yet another program for using black soldiers. this new program was based in part on the comments of the field commanders, and the director of personnel and administration warned that "beyond the steps listed in this plan, there is very little major compromise area left short of complete integration."[ - ] while the army plan differed from the committee's recommendations in many ways, in essence the disagreement was limited to two fundamental points. determined to retain segregated units, the army opposed the reassignment of school-trained negroes to vacancies in white units; and in order to prevent an influx of negroes in the low achievement categories, the army was determined to retain the numerical quota.[ - ] [footnote - : idem to secdef, jul , fc file.] [footnote - : p&a summary sheet to dc/s (adm), jun , sub: utilization of negro manpower, csusa . negroes. for comments of army commanders, see the following memos: wade h. haislip (dc/s adm) for army cmdrs, jun , sub: draft recommendations of committee on equality of treatment and opportunity; lt gen m. s. eddy for cofs, jun , same sub; lt gen w. b. smith for cofs, jun , same sub; lt gen s. j. chamberlain, th army cmdr, for cofs, jun , same sub; lt gen john r. hodge for cofs, jun , same sub; gen jacob devers, jun , same sub; gen thomas t. handy, th army cmdr, for cofs, jun , sub: comments on fahy committee draft recommendations. all in csusa . negroes.] [footnote - : an outline plan for utilization of negro manpower submitted by the army to the president's committee, jul , incl to ltr, fahy to secdef, jul , fc file. see also ltr, kenworthy to fahy, jun , fahy papers, truman library; fahy cmte, "meeting to discuss the proposals made by the army as preliminary to the third response," jul , fc file.] the committee argued that if the army was to train men according to their ability, hence efficiently, and in accord with the principle of equality, it must consider assigning them without regard to race. it could not see how removal of the numerical quota would result in a flood of negroes joining the army, but it could see how retaining the quota would prevent the enlistment of blacks for long periods of time. these two provisions--that school-trained negroes be freely assigned and that the quota be abolished--were really the heart of the committee's plan and hope for the gradual integration of the army. the provisions would not require the abolition of racial units "at this time," fahy explained to president truman, but they would gradually extend the integration already practiced in overhead installations and army schools. the committee could not demand any less, he confessed, in light of the president's order.[ - ] [footnote - : ltrs, fahy to secdef and sa, jul ; idem to president, jul . all in fc file.] the committee and the army had reached a stalemate. as a staff member of the personnel policy board put it, their latest proposal and counterproposals were simply extensions of what had long been put forth by both parties. he advised chairman reid to remain neutral until both sides presented their "total proposal."[ - ] but the press was not remaining neutral. the new york _times_, for example, accused the army of stalling and equivocating, engaging in a "private insurrection," and trying "to preserve a pattern of bigotry which caricatures the democratic cause in every corner of the world." there was no room for compromise, the _times_ added, and president truman could not retreat without abdicating as commander in chief.[ - ] secretary gray countered with a statement that the army was still (p.  ) under injunction from the secretary of defense to submit a new race program, and he was contemplating certain new proposals on the military occupational specialty issue.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, col j. f. cassidy for reid, aug , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the department of the army, fc file.] [footnote - : new york _times_, july and , .] [footnote - : interv, nbc's "meet the press" with gordon gray, jul ; ltr, secdef to charles fahy, aug , fc file.] the army staff did prepare another reply for the secretary of defense, and on september gray met with fahy and others to discuss it. general wade h. haislip, the vice chief of staff, claimed privately to gray that the new reply was almost identical with the plan presented to the committee on july and that the new concessions on occupational specialties would only require the conversion of some units from white to black.[ - ] haislip, however, had not reckoned with the concession that gray was prepared to make to fahy. gray accepted in principle the committee's argument that the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools should not be limited to black units or overhead positions but could be used to fill vacancies in any unit. at the same time, he remained adamant on the quota. when the committee spoke hopefully of the advantages of an army open to all, the army contemplated fearfully the racial imbalance that might result. the future was to prove the committee right about the advantages, but as of september gray and his subordinates had no intention of giving up the quota.[ - ] gray did agree, however, to continue studying the quota issue with the committee, and fahy optimistically reported to president truman: "it is the committee's expectation that it will be able within a few weeks to make a formal report to you on a complete list of changes in army policy and practices."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, vcofs for gray, aug , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, csusa . negroes.] [footnote - : interv, nichols with gordon gray, , in nichols collection, cmh; memo, kenworthy for cmte, sep , sub: meeting with gray, sep , fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : ltrs, fahy to president, sep and sep , both in fc file.] fahy made his prediction before secretary of defense johnson took a course of action that, in effect, rendered the committee's position untenable. on september johnson received from gray a new program for the employment of black troops. without reference to the fahy committee, johnson approved the proposal and announced it to the press. gray's program opened all military occupational specialties to all qualified men, abolished racial quotas for the army's schools, and abolished racially separate promotion systems and standards. but it also specifically called for retention of the racial quota on enlistments and conspicuously failed to provide for the assignment of black specialists beyond those jobs already provided by the old gillem board policy.[ - ] secretary gray had asked for fahy's personal approval before forwarding the plan discussed by the two men at such length, but fahy refused; he wanted the plan submitted to his full committee. when johnson received the plan he did not consult the committee at all, although he briefly referred it to the acting chairman of the personnel policy board, who interposed no objection.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, sa for secdef, sep , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, csgpa . ; dod, off of pub info, press release - , sep , fc file.] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for cmte, sep , sub: army's reply to secretary johnson, fahy papers, truman library; note, handwritten and signed mccrea, attached to memo, sa for secdef, sep ; memo, thompson for leva, oct , sub: army policy of equality of treatment and opportunity, cd - - ; both in secdef files.] it is not difficult to understand johnson's reasons for ignoring (p.  ) the president's committee. he had been forced to endure public criticism over the protracted negotiations between the army and the committee. among liberal elements on capitol hill, his position--that his directive and the service replies made legislation to prohibit segregation in the services unnecessary--was obviously being compromised by the lack of an acceptable army response.[ - ] in a word, the argument over civil rights in the armed forces had become a political liability for louis johnson, and he wanted it out of the way. glossing over the army's truculence, johnson blamed the committee and its recommendations for his problem, and when his frontal assault on the committee failed--kenworthy reported that the secretary tried to have the committee disbanded--he had to devise another approach.[ - ] the army's new proposal, a more reasonable-sounding document than its predecessor, provided him with a convenient opportunity. why not quickly approve the program, thereby presenting the committee with a _fait accompli_ and leaving the president with little excuse for prolonging the civil rights negotiations? [footnote - : ltr, secdef to congressman vinson, jul ; memo, lanham for reid, mar ; both in ppb files.] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to nichols, jul , in nichols collection, cmh.] unfortunately for johnson the gambit failed. while fahy admitted that the army's newest proposal was an improvement, for several reasons he could not accept it. the assignment of black specialists to white units was a key part of the committee's program, and despite gray's private assurances that specialists would be integrated, fahy was not prepared to accept the army's "equivocal" language on this subject. there was also the issue of the quota, still very much alive between the committee and the army. the committee was bound, furthermore, to resent being ignored in the approval process. fahy and his associates had been charged by the president with advising the services on equality of treatment and opportunity, and they were determined to be heard.[ - ] fahy informed the white house that the committee would review the army's proposal in an extraordinary meeting. he asked that the president meanwhile refrain from comment.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy to cmte, sep , sub: army's reply to secretary johnson, and ltr, kenworthy to joseph evans, sep , both in fahy papers, truman library; memo, worthington thompson for leva, oct , sub: army policy of equality of treatment and opportunity, secdef files; ltr, kenworthy to nichols, jul , in nichols collection, cmh.] [footnote - : memo for rcd, probably written by philleo nash, oct , nash collection, truman library.] the committee's stand received support from the black press and numerous national civil rights organizations, all of which excoriated the army's position.[ - ] david k. niles, the white house adviser on racial matters, warned president truman about the rising controversy and predicted that the committee would again reject the army's proposal. he advised the president to tell the press that johnson's news release was merely a "progress report," that it was not final, and that the committee was continuing its investigation.[ - ] the president did just that, adding: "eventually we will reach, i (p.  ) hope, what we contemplated in the beginning. you can't do it all at once. the progress report was a good report, and it isn't finished yet."[ - ] and lest his purpose remain unclear, the president declared that his aim was the racial integration of the army. [footnote - : see los angeles _star review_, october , ; _afro-american_, october , ; washington _post_, october , ; pittsburgh _courier_, octobers, ; norfolk _journal and guide_, october , ; new york _amsterdam news_, october , .] [footnote - : ltr, niles to president, oct , nash collection, truman library.] [footnote - : news conference, oct , as quoted in _public papers of the president: harry s. truman, _, p. .] the president's statement signaled a victory for the committee; its extent became apparent only when the army tried to issue a new circular, revising its gillem board policy along the lines of the outline plan approved by johnson on september. during the weeks of protracted negotiations that followed, the committee clearly remained in control, its power derived basically from its willingness to have the differences between the committee and the army publicized and the reluctance of the white house to have it so. the attitudes toward publicity were already noticeable when, on october, fahy suggested to truman some possible solutions to the impasse between the committee and the army. the secretary of defense could issue a supplementary statement on the army's assignment policy, the committee could release its recommendations to the press, or the army and the committee could resume discussions.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, fahy for president, oct , fc file.] president truman ordered his military aide to read the committee's october suggestion and "then take [it] up with johnson."[ - ] as a result the secretary of defense retired from the controversy. reminding gray through intermediaries that he had approved the army's plan in outline form, johnson declared that it was "inappropriate" for him to approve the plan's publication as an army circular as the army had requested.[ - ] about the same time, niles informed the army that any revision of circular would have to be submitted to the white house before publication, and he candidly admitted that presidential approval would depend on the views of the fahy committee.[ - ] meanwhile, his assistant, philleo nash, predicting that the committee would win both the assignment and quota arguments, persuaded fahy to postpone any public statement until after the army's revised circular had been reviewed by the committee.[ - ] [footnote - : penciled note, signed hst, on memo, niles for president, secretary's file (psf), truman library.] [footnote - : memo, maj gen levin c. allen, exec secy, secdef, for sa, oct ; memo, vice adm john mccrea, dir of staff, ppb, for allen, oct ; both in cd - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : memo for rcd, karl bendetsen, spec consultant to sa, nov , sa files; ltr, kenworthy to fahy, nov , and memo, kenworthy for fahy cmte, oct , sub: background to proposed letter to gray; both in fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : ltr, fahy to cmte, nov , fahy papers, truman library.] chairman fahy was fully aware of the leverage these actions gave his committee, although he and his associates now had few illusions about the speedy end to the contest. "i know from the best authority within p&a," kenworthy warned the committee, that the obstructionists in army personnel hoped to see the committee submit final recommendations--"what its recommendations are they don't much care"--and then disband. until the committee disbanded, its opponents would try to block any real change in army policy.[ - ] kenworthy offered in evidence the current controversy over the army's instructions to its field commanders. these instructions, a copy of the outline plan (p.  ) approved by secretary johnson, had been sent to the commanders by the adjutant general on october as "additional policies" pending a revision of circular .[ - ] included in the message, of course, was gray's order to open all military occupational specialties to negroes; but when some commanders, on the basis of their interpretation of the message, began integrating black specialists in white units, officials in the personnel and administration and the organization and training divisions dispatched a second message on october specifically forbidding such action "except on department of army orders."[ - ] negroes would continue to be authorized for assignment to black units, the message explained, and to "negro spaces in t/d [overhead] units." in effect, the army staff was ordering commanders to interpret the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense, blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments. [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for cmte, oct , sub: background to proposed letter to gray, fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : msg, tag to chief, aff, et al., wcl , z oct , copy in ag . .] [footnote - : memo, d/pa for tag, oct , sub: assignment of negro enlisted personnel, with attached memo for rcd, col john h. riepe, chief, manpower control gp, d/pa; memo, deputy dir, pa, for gen brooks (dir of pa), nov , same sub; msg, tag to chief, aff, et al., wcl , oct . all in csgpa . ( oct ).] kenworthy was able to turn this incident to the committee's advantage. he made a practice of never locking his pentagon office door nor his desk drawer. he knew that negroes, both civilian and military, worked in the message centers, and he suspected that if any hanky-panky was afoot they would discover it and he would be anonymously apprised of it. a few days after the dispatch of the second message, kenworthy opened his desk drawer to find a copy. for the first and only time, he later explained, he broke his self-imposed rule of relying on negotiations between the military and the committee and its staff _in camera_. he laid both messages before a long-time friend of his, the editor of the washington _post_'s editorial page.[ - ] thus delivered to the press, the second message brought on another round of accusations, corrections, and headlines to the effect that "the brass gives gray the run-around." kenworthy was able to denounce the incident as a "step backward" that even violated the gillem board policy by allocating "negro spaces" in overhead units. the army staff's second message nullified the committee's recommendations since they depended ultimately on the unlimited assignment of black specialists. the message demonstrated very well, kenworthy told the committee, that careful supervision of the army's racial policy would be necessary.[ - ] some newspapers were less charitable. the pittsburgh _courier_ charged that the colonel blamed for the release of the second message had been made the "goat" in a case that involved far more senior officials, and the washington _post_ claimed that the message "vitiates" even the limited improvements outlined in the army's plan as approved by secretary johnson. the paper called on secretary gray to assert himself in the case.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for chief of military history, oct , cmh.] [footnote - : idem for cmte, oct , sub: instructions to commanding generals on new army policy, fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : lem graves, jr. (washington correspondent of the pittsburgh _courier_), "a colonel takes the rap," pittsburgh _courier_, october , ; washington _post_, november , .] a furious secretary, learning of the second message from the press (p.  ) stories, did enter the case. branding the document a violation of his announced policy, he had it rescinded and, publicizing a promise made earlier to the committee, announced that qualified black specialists would be assigned to some white units.[ - ] at the same time gray was not prepared to admit that the incident demonstrated how open his plan was to evasion, just as he refused to admit that his rescinding of the errant message represented a change in policy. he would continue, in effect, the plan approved by the secretary of defense on september, he told fahy.[ - ] [footnote - : dod, off of pub info, release - , nov , fc file.] [footnote - : ltr, sa to fahy, nov , fc file.] the army staff's draft revision of the gillem board circular, sent to the committee on november, reflected gray's september plan.[ - ] in short, when it emerged from its journey through the various army staff agencies, the proposed revision still contained none of the committee's key recommendations. it continued the severe restrictions on the assignment of negroes who had specialty training; it specifically retained the numerical quota; and, with several specific exceptions, it carefully preserved the segregation of army life.[ - ] actually, the proposed revision amounted to little more than a repetition of the gillem board policy with minor modifications designed to make it easier to carry out. fahy quickly warned the deputy director of personnel and administration that there was no chance of its winning the committee's approval.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, bendetsen to fahy, nov ; memo for rcd, kenworthy, nov ; both in fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : army draft no. of revised circular , nov , fc file.] [footnote - : ltr, fahy to maj gen c. e. byers, nov , fc file.] _assignments_ the quota and assignments issues remained the center of controversy between the army and the committee. although fahy was prepared to postpone a decision on the quota while negotiations continued, he was unwilling to budge on the assignments issue. as the committee had repeatedly emphasized, the question of open, integrated assignment of trained negroes was at the heart of its program. without it the opening of army schools and military occupational specialties would be meaningless and the intent of executive order frustrated. at first glance it would seem that the revision of circular supported the assignment of negroes to white units, as indeed secretary gray had recently promised. but this was not really the case, as kenworthy explained to the committee. the army had always made a distinction between _specialists_, men especially recruited for critically needed jobs, and _specialties_, those military occupations for which soldiers were routinely trained in army schools. the draft revision did not refer to this second and far larger category and was intended to provide only for the placement of the rare black specialist in white units. the document as worded even limited (p.  ) the use of negroes in overhead units. only those with skills considered appropriate by the personnel office--that is, those who possessed a specialty either inappropriate in a black unit or in excess of its needs--would be considered for racially mixed overhead units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for president's cmte, nov , sub: successor policy to wd cir ; idem for fahy, nov , sub: revised wd cir ; both in fahy papers, truman library.] fahy was determined to have the army's plan modified, and furthermore he had learned during the past few weeks how to get it done. on december kenworthy telephoned philleo nash at the white house to inform him of the considerable sentiment in the committee for publicizing the whole affair and read to him the draft of a press statement prepared by fahy. as fahy expected, the white house wanted to avoid publicity; the president, through nash, assured the committee that the issues of assignment and quota were still under discussion. nash suggested that instead of a public statement the committee prepare a document for the army and the white house explaining what principles and procedures were demanded by the presidential order. in his opinion, nash assured kenworthy, the white house would order the army to meet the committee's recommendations.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, kenworthy, dec , sub: telephone conversation with nash, fahy papers, truman library.] white house pressure undoubtedly played a major role in the resolution of the assignment issue. when on december the committee presented the army and the president with its comments on the army's proposed revision of circular , it took the first step toward what was to be a rapid agreement on black assignments. at the same time it would be a mistake to discount the effectiveness of reasonable men of good will discussing their very real differences in an effort to reach a consensus. there is considerable evidence that when fahy met on december with secretary gray and general j. lawton collins, the chief of staff, he was able to convince them that the committee's position on the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools was right and inevitable.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with fahy. j. lawton collins became chief of staff of the army on august , succeeding omar bradley who stepped up to the chairmanship of the joint chiefs of staff.] while neither gray nor collins could even remotely be described as social reformers, both were pragmatic leaders, prepared to accept changes in army tradition.[ - ] collins, unlike his immediate predecessors, was not so much concerned with finding the army in the vanguard of american social practices as he was in determining that its racial practices guaranteed a more efficient organization. while he wanted to retain the numerical quota, lest the advantages of an army career attract so large a number of negroes that a serious racial imbalance would result, he was willing to accept a substantive revision of the gillem board policy. [footnote - : intervs, nichols with gray and fahy, and author with collins.] gray was perhaps more cautious than collins. confessing later that he had never considered the question of equal opportunity until fahy brought it to his attention, gray began with a limited view of the executive order--the army must eliminate racial discrimination, (p.  ) not promote racial integration. in their meeting on december fahy was able to convince gray that the former was impossible without the latter. according to kenworthy, gray demonstrated an "open and unbiased" view of the problem throughout all discussions.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to gray, jul , fc file; intervs, nichols with gray, davenport, and fahy.] [illustration: secretary of the army gray.] the trouble was, as roy davenport later noted, gordon gray was a lawyer, not a personnel expert, and he failed to grasp the full implications of the army staff's recommendations.[ - ] davenport was speaking from firsthand knowledge because gray, after belatedly learning of his experience and influence with the committee, sent for him. politely but explicitly davenport told gray that the staff officers who were advising him and writing the memos and directives to which he was signing his name had deceived him. gray was at first annoyed and incredulous; after davenport finally convinced him, he was angry. kenworthy, years later, wrote that the gray-davenport discussion was decisive in changing gray's mind on the assignment issue and was of great help to the fahy committee.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with davenport, oct .] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for chief of military history, oct , cmh.] fahy reduced the whole problem to the case of one qualified black soldier denied a job because of color and pictured the loss to the army and the country, eloquently pleading with gray and collins at the december meeting to try the committee's way. "i can't say you won't have problems," fahy concluded, "but try it." gray resisted at first because "this would mean the complete end of segregation," but unable to deny the logic of fahy's arguments he agreed to try.[ - ] there were compromises on both sides. when collins pointed out some of the administrative difficulties that could come from the "mandatory" language recommended by the committee, fahy said that the policy should be administered "with latitude." to that end he promised to suggest some changes in wording that would produce "a policy with some play in the joints." the conferees also agreed that the quota issue should be downplayed while the parties continued their discussions on that subject.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, karl r. bendetsen, spec asst to sa, dec , sub: conference with judge charles fahy, sa files. intervs, nichols with gray and fahy, author with fahy, and blumenson with fahy.] [footnote - : memo for rcd, bendetsen, dec , sa files; ltr, fahy to cmte, dec , fahy papers, truman library.] agreement followed rapidly on the heels of the meeting of the principals. roy davenport presented the committee members with the final draft of the army proposal and urged that it be accepted as (p.  ) "the furthest and most hopeful they could get."[ - ] lester granger, davenport later reported, was the first to say he would accept, with fahy and the rest following suit,[ - ] and on january the army issued special regulation - - , _utilization of negro manpower in the army_, with the committee's blessing. [footnote - : interv, nichols with davenport.] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to nichols, jul , in nichols collection, cmh; interv, nichols with davenport.] [illustration: general collins.] fahy reported to truman that the new army policy was consistent with the executive order. its paragraphs on assignments spelled out the principle long advocated by the committee: "negro manpower possessing appropriate skills and qualifications will be utilized in accordance with such skills and qualifications, and will be assigned to any ... unit without regard to race or color." adding substance to this declaration, the army also announced that a list of critical specialties in which vacancies existed would be published periodically and ordered major commanders to assign negroes who possessed those specialties to fill the vacancies without regard to race. the first such list was published at the same time as the new regulation. the army had taken a significant step, fahy told the president, toward the realization of equal treatment and opportunity for all soldiers.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, fahy for president, jan , fc file; sr - - , jan ; dod, off of pub info, release - , jan . the special regulation was circulated worldwide on the day of the issue; see memo, d/p&a to tag, jan , wdgpa . .] secretary of defense johnson was also optimistic, but he warned gordon gray that many complex problems remained and asked the army for periodic reports. his request only emphasized the fact that the army's new regulation lacked the machinery for monitoring compliance with its provisions for integration. as the history of the gillem board era demonstrated, any attempt to change the army's traditions demanded not only exact definition of the intermediate steps but also establishment of a responsible authority to enforce compliance. _quotas_ in the wake of the army's new assignment regulation, the committee turned its full attention to the last of its major recommendations, the abolition of the numerical quota. despite months of discussion, the disagreement between the army and the committee over the quota (p.  ) showed no signs of resolution. simply put, the fahy committee wanted the army to abolish the gillem board's racial quota and to substitute a quota based on general classification test scores of enlistees. the committee found the racial quota unacceptable in terms of the executive order and wasteful of manpower since it tended to encourage the reenlistment of low-scoring negroes and thereby prevented the enlistment of superior men. none of the negroes graduating from high school in june , for example, no matter how high their academic rating, could enlist because the black quota had been filled for months. quotas based on test scores, on the other hand, would limit enlistment to only the higher scoring blacks and whites. specifically, the committee wanted no enlistment to be decided by race. the army would open all enlistments to anyone who scored ninety or above, limiting the number of blacks and whites scoring between eighty and eighty-nine to . percent of the total army strength, a percentage based on world war ii strengths. with rare exception it would close enlistment to anyone who scored less than eighty. applying this formula to the current army, , men on march , and assessing the number of men from seventeen to thirty-four years old in the national population, the committee projected a total of , negroes in the army, almost exactly percent of the army's strength. in a related statistical report prepared by davenport, the committee offered figures demonstrating that the higher black reenlistment rates would not increase the number of black soldiers.[ - ] [footnote - : d/pa summary sheet for sa, feb , sub: fahy committee proposal re: numerical enlistment quota, csgpa . ( nov ); roy davenport, "figures on reenlistment rate and explanation," document fc xl, fc file; memo, fahy for sa, feb , sub: recapitulation of the proposal of the president's committee for the abolition of the racial quota, fc file; memo, kenworthy for dwight palmer (cmte member), feb , fahy papers, truman library.] the army's reply was based on the premise that "the negro strength of the army must be restricted and that the population ratio is the most equitable method [of] limitation." in fact, the _only_ method of controlling black strength was a numerical quota of original enlistments. the personnel staff argued that enlistment specifically unrestricted by race, as the high rate of unrestricted black reenlistment had demonstrated, would inevitably produce a "very high percentage of negroes in the army." a quota based on the classification test scores could not limit sufficiently the number of black enlistments if, as the committee insisted, it required that identical enlistment standards be maintained for both blacks and whites. looking at the census figure another way, the army had its own statistics to prove its point. basing its figures on the number of negroes who became eighteen each month ( , ), the personnel staff estimated that black enlistments would total from to percent of the army's monthly strength if an entrance quota was imposed with the cut-off score set at ninety or from to percent if the enlistment standards were lowered to eighty. it also pointed to the experience of the air force where with no quotas in the third quarter of black enlistments accounted for . percent of the total; even when a (p.  ) gct quota of was imposed in october and november, percent of all air force enlistees were black.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg d/pa for karl r. bendetsen, spec asst to sa, dec , sub: ten percent racial quota; d/pa summary sheet, with incl, for sa, feb , sub: fahy committee proposals re: numerical enlistment quota; both in csgpa . ( nov ). the quotations are from the former document.] the committee quickly pointed out that the army had neglected to subtract from the monthly figure of , blacks those physically and mentally disqualified (those who scored below eighty) and those in school. using the army's own figures and taking into account these deductions, the committee predicted that negroes would account for . percent of the men accepted in the , monthly intake, probably at the gct eighty level, or percent of the , men estimated acceptable at the gct ninety level.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for karl bendetsen, oct , sub: manpower policy, fahy papers, truman library.] on december the army, offering to compromise on the quota, retired from its statistical battle with the committee. it would accept the unlimited enlistment of negroes scoring or better, limiting the number of those accepted below so that the total black strength would remain at percent of the army's population.[ - ] attractive to the committee because it would provide for the enlistment of qualified men at the expense of the less able, the proposal was nevertheless rejected because it still insisted upon a racial quota. again there was a difference between the committee and the army, but again the advantage lay with the committee, for the white house was anxious for the quota problem to be solved.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, kenworthy, dec , sub: conference with maj lieblich and col smith, dec , fc file.] [footnote - : memo, fahy for president's cmte, feb , fahy papers, truman library.] niles warned the president that the racial imbalance which had for so long frustrated equal treatment and opportunity for negroes in the army would continue despite the army's new assignment policy unless the army was able to raise the quality of its black enlistees. niles considered the committee's proposal doubly attractive because, while it abolished the quota, it would also raise the level of black recruits. the proposal was sensible and fair, niles added, and he believed it would reduce the number of black soldiers as it raised their quality. it had been used successfully by the navy and air force, and, as it had in those services, would provide for the gradual dissolution of the all-black units rather than a precipitous change.[ - ] the army staff did not agree, and as late as february the director of personnel and administration was recommending that the army retain the racial quota at least for all negroes scoring below on the classification test.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, niles to president, feb , secretary's file (psf), truman library.] [footnote - : d/pa summary sheet for sa, feb , sub: fahy committee proposal re: numerical enlistment quota, csgpa . ( nov ).] secretary gray, aware that the army's arguments would not move the committee, was sure that the president did not want to see a spectacular and precipitous rise in the army's black strength. he decided on a personal appeal to the commander in chief.[ - ] the army would drop the racial quota, he told truman on march, with (p.  ) one proviso: "if, as a result of a fair trial of this new system, there ensues a disproportionate balance of racial strengths in the army, it is my understanding that i have your authority to return to a system which will, in effect, control enlistments by race."[ - ] the president agreed. [footnote - : interv, nichols with gray.] [footnote - : ltr, sa to president, mar , fahy papers, truman library.] at the president's request, gray outlined a program for open recruitment, fixing april as the date when all vacancies would be open to all qualified individuals. gray wanted to handle the changes in routine fashion. with the committee's concurrence, he planned no public announcement. from his vacation quarters in key west, truman added a final encouraging word: "i am sure that everything will work out as it should."[ - ] the order opening recruiting to all races went out on march .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, president for sa, mar , fc file; memo, sa for president, mar , sub: discontinuance of racial enlistment quotas, copy in csgpa . .] [footnote - : msg, tag to chief, aff, et al., fort monroe, va., wcl , mar , copy in fc file.] despite the president's optimism, the fahy committee was beginning to have doubts about just how everything would work out. specifically, some members were wondering how they could be sure the army would comply with the newly approved policies. such concern was reasonable, despite the army's solemn commitments, when one considers the committee's lengthening experience with the defense department's bureaucracy and its familiarity with the liabilities of the gillem board policy. the committee decided, therefore, to include in its final report to the president a request for the retention of a watchdog group to review service practices. in this its views clashed directly with those of secretary johnson, who wanted the president to abolish the committee and make him solely responsible for the equal treatment and opportunity program.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, clark clifford for president (ca. mar ), nash collection, truman library.] niles, anxious to settle the issue, tried to reconcile the differences[ - ] and successfully persuaded the committee to omit a reference in its final report to a successor group to review the services' progress. such a move, he told kenworthy, would imply that, unless policed, the services would not carry out their programs. public discussion about how long the committee was to remain in effect would also tend to tie the president's hands. niles suggested instead that the committee members discuss the matter with the president when they met with him to submit their final report and perhaps suggest that a watchdog group be appointed or their committee be retained on a standby basis for a later review of service actions.[ - ] before the committee met with the president on may, niles recommended to truman that he make no commitment on a watchdog group.[ - ] privately, niles agreed with clark clifford that the committee should be retained for an indefinite period, but on an advisory rather than an operating basis so that, in clifford's words, "it will be in a position to see that there is not a gap between policy and an (p.  ) administration of policy in the defense establishment."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with kenworthy.] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for fahy, apr , fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : ltr, niles to president, may , nash collection, truman library.] [footnote - : memo, clifford for president, nash collection, truman library.] the president proceeded along these lines. several months after the committee presented its final report, _freedom to serve_,[ - ] in a public ceremony, truman relieved the group of its assignment. commenting that the services should have the opportunity to work out in detail the new policies and procedures initiated by the committee, he told fahy on july that he would leave his order in effect, noting that "at some later date, it may prove desirable to examine the effectuation of your committee's recommendations, which can be done under executive order ."[ - ] [footnote - : _freedom to serve: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services; a report by the president's committee_ (washington: government printing office, ).] [footnote - : ltr, president to fahy, jul , fahy papers, truman library.] _an assessment_ thus ended a most active period in the history of armed forces integration, a period of executive orders, presidential conferences, and national hearings, of administrative infighting broadcast to the public in national headlines. the fahy committee was the focus of this bureaucratic and journalistic excitement. charged with examining the policies of the services in light of the president's order, the committee could have glanced briefly at current racial practices and automatically ratified secretary johnson's general policy statement. indeed, this was precisely what walter white and other civil rights leaders expected. but the committee was made of sterner stuff. with dedication and with considerable political acumen, it correctly assessed the position of black servicemen and subjected the racial policies of the services to a rigorous and detailed examination, the first to be made by an agency outside the department of defense. as a result of this scrutiny, the committee clearly and finally demonstrated that segregation was an inefficient way to use military manpower; once and for all it demolished the arguments that the services habitually used against any demand for serious change. most important is the fact that the committee kept alive the spirit of reform the truman order had created. the committee's definition of equal treatment and opportunity became the standard by which future action on racial issues in the armed forces would be measured. throughout its long existence, the fahy committee was chiefly concerned with the position of the negro in the army. after protracted argument it won from the army an agreement to abolish the racial quota and to open all specialties in all army units and all army schools and courses to qualified negroes. finally, it won the army's promise to cease restricting black servicemen to black units and overhead installations alone and to assign them instead on the basis of individual ability and the army's need. as for the other services, the committee secured from the navy a pledge to give petty officer status to chief stewards and stewards of the first, second, and third class, and its influence was discernible in the navy's decision to allow stewards to transfer to the general service. the committee also made, and the navy accepted, several practical suggestions that might lead to an increase in the number (p.  ) of black officers and enlisted men. the committee approved the air force integration program and publicized the success of this major reform as it was carried out during ; for the benefit of the reluctant army, the committee could point to the demonstrated ability of black servicemen and the widespread acceptance of integration among the rank and file of the air force. in regard to the marine corps, however, the committee was forced to acknowledge that the corps had not yet "fully carried out navy policy."[ - ] [footnote - : _freedom to serve_, p. .] the fahy committee won from the services a commitment to equal treatment and opportunity and a practical program to achieve that end. yet even with this victory and the strong support of many senior military officials, the possibility that determined foes of integration might erect roadblocks or that simple bureaucratic inertia would delay progress could not be discounted. there was, for example, nothing in the postwar practices of the marine corps, even the temporary integration of its few black recruits during basic training, that hinted at any long-range intention of adopting the navy's integration program. and the fate of one of the committee's major recommendations, that all the services adopt equal enlistment standards, had yet to be decided. the acceptance of this recommendation hinged on the results of a defense department study to determine the jobs in each service that could be filled by men in the lowest mental classification category acceptable to all three services. although the navy and the air force had agreed to reexamine the matter, they had consistently opposed the application of enlistment parity in the past, and the secretary of defense's personnel policy board had indorsed their position. secretary forrestal, himself, had rejected the concept, and there was nothing in the record to suggest that his successor would do otherwise. yet the parity of enlistment standards was a vital part of the committee's argument for the abolition of the army's racial quota. if enlistment standards were not equalized, especially in a period when the army was turning to selective service for much of its manpower, the number of men in the army's categories iv and v was bound to increase, and that increase would provide strong justification for reviving the racial quota. the army staff was aware, if the public was not, that a resurrected quota was possible, for the president had given the secretary of the army authority to take such action if there was "a disproportionate balance of racial strengths."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, sa to president, mar , fahy papers, truman library.] the army's concern with disproportionate balance was always linked to a concern with the influx of men, mostly black, who scored poorly on the classification tests. the problem, the army repeatedly claimed, was not the quantity of black troops but their quality. yet at the time the army agreed to the committee's demand to drop the quota, some percent of all black soldiers scored below eighty. these men could rarely profit from the army's agreement to integrate all specialist training and assignments. the committee, aware of the problem, had strongly urged the army to refuse reenlistment, with few exceptions, to anyone scoring below eighty. on may fahy reminded secretary of the army frank pace, jr., that despite the army's promise to eliminate its low scorers it continued to reenlist men scoring (p.  ) less than seventy.[ - ] but by july even the test score for first-time enlistment into the army had declined to seventy because men were needed for the korean war. the law required that whenever selective service began drafting men the army would automatically lower its enlistment standards to seventy. thus, despite the committee's recommendations, the concentration of low-scoring negroes in the lower grades continued to increase, creating an even greater pool of men incapable of assignment to the schools and specialties open without regard to race. [footnote - : memo, fahy for sa, may , fahy papers, truman library. frank pace, an arkansas lawyer and former assistant director of the bureau of the budget, succeeded gordon gray as secretary of the army on april .] [illustration: "no longer a dream." _the pittsburgh courier's reaction to the services' agreements with the fahy committee, may , ._] even the army's promise to enlarge gradually the number of specialties open to negroes was not carried out expeditiously. by july , the last month of the fahy committee's life, the army had added only seven more specialties with openings for negroes to the list of forty published seven months before at the time of its agreement with the committee. in a pessimistic mood, kenworthy confessed to judge (p.  ) fahy[ - ] that "so long as additions are not progressively made to the critical list of mos in which negroes can serve, and so long as segregated units continue to be the rule, all mos and schools can not be said to be open to negroes because negro units do not have calls for many of the advanced mos." kenworthy was also disturbed because the army had disbanded the staff agency created to monitor the new policies and make future recommendations and had transferred both its two members to other duties. in the light of progress registered in the half year since the army had adopted the committee's proposal, kenworthy concluded that "the army intends to do as little as possible towards implementing the policy which it adopted and published."[ - ] [footnote - : president truman appointed charles fahy to the u.s. circuit court of appeals for the district of columbia on october . fahy did not assume his judicial duties, however, until december after concluding his responsibilities as a member of the american delegation to the united nations general assembly.] [footnote - : memo, kenworthy for fahy, jul , fahy papers, truman library. in the memorandum the number of additional specialties is erroneously given as six; see dcsper summary sheet, apr , sub: list of critical specialties referred to in sr - - , g- . ( oct ).] roy davenport later suggested that such pessimism was ill-founded. other factors were at work within the army in , particularly after the outbreak of war in korea.[ - ] davenport alluded principally to the integration of basic training centers and the assignment of greater numbers of black inductees to combat specialties--developments that were pushing the army ahead of the integration timetable envisioned by committee members and making concern over black eligibility for an increased number of occupation categories less important. [footnote - : ltr, davenport to osd historian, aug , copy in cmh. for a discussion of these war-related factors, see chapters and .] the fahy committee has been given full credit for proving that segregation could not be defended on grounds of military efficiency, thereby laying the foundation for the integration of the army. but perhaps in the long run the group's idealism proved to be equally important. the committee never lost sight of the moral implications of the services' racial policies. concern for the rightness and wrongness of things is readily apparent in all its deliberations, and in the end the committee would invoke the words of saint paul to the philippians to remind men who perhaps should have needed no such reminder that they should heed "whatsoever things are true ... whatsoever things are just." what was right and just, the committee concluded, would "strengthen the nation."[ - ] [footnote - : _freedom to serve_, pp. - .] the same ethics stood forth in the conclusion of the committee's final report, raising that practical summary of events to the status of an eloquent state paper. the committee reminded the president and its fellow citizens that the status of the individual, "his equal worth in the sight of god, his equal protection under the law, his equal rights and obligations of citizenship and his equal opportunity to make just and constructive use of his endowment--these are the very foundation of the american system of values."[ - ] [footnote - : _ibid._, p. .] to its lasting honor the fahy committee succeeded in spelling out for the nation's military leaders how these principles, these "high standards of democracy" as president truman called them in his order, must be applied in the services. chapter (p.  ) the role of the secretary of defense - having ordered the integration of the services and supported the fahy committee in the development of acceptable racial programs, president truman quickly turned the matter over to his subordinates in the department of defense, severing white house ties with the problem. against the recommendations of some of his white house advisers, truman adjourned the committee, leaving his executive order in effect. "the necessary programs having been adopted," he told fahy, it was time for the services "to work out in detail the procedures which will complete the steps so carefully initiated by the committee."[ - ] in effect, the president was guaranteeing the services the freedom to put their own houses in order. [footnote - : ltr, truman to fahy, jul , fc file.] the issue of civil rights, however, was still of vital interest to one of the president's major constituencies. black voters, recognized as a decisive factor in the november election, pressed their demands on the victorious president; in particular some of their spokesmen called on the administration to implement fully the program put forth by the fahy committee. these demands were being echoed in congress by a civil rights bloc--for bloc it had now become in the wake of the election that sent harry truman back to the white house. no longer the concern of a congressman or two, the cause of the black serviceman was now supported by a group of politicians who, joining with civil rights leaders, pressed the department of defense for rapid changes in its racial practices. the traditionalists in the armed forces also had congressional allies. in all probability these legislators would accept an integrated navy because it involved relatively few negroes; they might even tolerate an integrated air force because they lacked a proprietary attitude toward this new service; but they would fight to keep the army segregated because they considered the army their own.[ - ] congressional segregationists openly opposed changes in the army's racial policy only when they thought the time was right. they carefully avoided the subject in the months following publication of the (p.  ) executive order, waiting to bargain until their support became crucial to the success of such vital military legislation as the renewal of the selective service act and the establishment of universal military training. [footnote - : interv, nichols with gen wade h. haislip, , in nichols collection; telephone interv, author with haislip, mar ; interv, author with martin blumenson, jan . all in cmh files.] at most, congress played only a minor role in the dramatic changes beginning in the armed forces. champions of civil rights had little effect on service practices, although these congressmen channeled the complaints of black voters and kept the military traditionalists on the defensive. as for the congressional traditionalists, their support may have helped sustain those on the staff who resisted racial change within the army, thus slowing down that service's integration. but the demands of congressional progressives and obstructionists tended to cancel each other out, and in the wake of the fahy committee's disbandment the services themselves reemerged as the preeminent factor in the armed forces racial program. the services regained control by default. logically, direction of racial reforms in the services should have fallen to the secretary of defense. in the first place, the secretary, other administration officials, and the public alike had begun to use the secretary's office as a clearinghouse for reconciling conflicting demands of the services, as an appellate court reviewing decisions of the service secretaries, and as the natural channel of communication between the services and the white house, congress, and the public. many racial problems had become interservice in nature, and only the office of the secretary of defense possessed the administrative machinery to deal with such matters. the personnel policy board or, later, the new office of the assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel might well have become the watchdog recommended by the fahy committee to oversee the services' progress toward integration, but neither did. certainly the secretary of defense had other matters pressing for his attention. secretary johnson had become the central character in the budgetary conflicts of truman's second term, and both he and general george c. marshall, who succeeded him as secretary on september , were suddenly thrust into leadership of the korean war. in administrative matters, at least, marshall had to concentrate on boosting the morale of a department torn by internecine budgetary arguments. integration did not appear to have the same importance to national security as these weighty matters. more to the point, johnson and marshall were not social reformers. whatever their personal attitudes, they were content to let the services set the pace of racial reform. with one notable exception neither man initiated any of the historic racial changes that took place in the armed forces during the early 's. for the most part those racial issues that did involve the secretary of defense centered on the status of the negro in the armed forces in general and were extraneous to the issue of integration. one of the most persistent status problems was classification by race. first posed during the great world war ii draft calls, the question of how to determine a serviceman's race, and indeed the related one of who had the right to make such a determination, remained unanswered five years later. in august the selective service system decided (p.  ) that the definition of a man's race should be left to the man himself. while this solution no doubt pleased racial progressives and certainly simplified the induction process, not to speak of protecting the war department from a ticklish court review, it still left the services the difficult and important task of designating racial categories into which men could be assigned. as late as april the army and the air force listed a number of specific racial categories, one of which had to be chosen by the applicant or recruiter--the regulation left the point unclear--to identify the applicant's race. the regulation listed "white, negro, indian (referring to american indian only), puerto rican, cuban, mexican, hawaiian, filipino, chinese, east indian, etc.," and specifically included mulattoes and "others of negroid race or extraction" in the negro category, leaving other men of mixed race to be entered under their predominant race.[ - ] [footnote - : sr - - (afr - ), apr .] the regulation was obviously subject to controversy, and in the wake of the president's equality order it is not surprising that some group--a group of spanish-speaking americans from southern california, as it turned out--would raise the issue. specifically, they objected to a practice of army and air force recruiters, who often scratched out "white" and inserted "mexican" in the applications of spanish-speaking volunteers. these young men wanted to be integrated into every phase of community life, congressman chet holifield told the secretary of defense, and he passed on a warning from his california constituents that "any attempt to forestall this ambition by treating them as a group apart is extremely repellent to them and gives rise to demoralization and hostility."[ - ] if the department of defense considered racial information essential, holifield continued, why not make the determination in a less objectionable manner? he suggested a series of questions concerning the birthplace of the applicant's parents and the language spoken in his home as innocuous possibilities. [footnote - : ltr, holifield to secdef, aug , sd . negroes.] secretary johnson sent the congressman's complaint to the personnel policy board, which, ignoring the larger considerations posed by holifield, concentrated on simplifying the department's racial categories to five--caucasian, negroid, mongolian, indian (american), and malayan--and making their use uniform throughout the services. the board also adopted the use of inoffensive questions to help determine the applicant's proper race category. obviously, the board could not abandon racial designations because the army's quota system, still in effect, depended on this information. less clear, however, was why the board failed to consider the problem of who should make the racial determination. at any rate, its new list of racial categories, approved by the secretary and published on october, immediately drew complaints from members of the department.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dep dir, personnel policy bd staff, for chmn, ppb, sep , sub: project summary--change of nomenclature on enlistment forms as pertains to "race" entries (m- ); memo, chmn, ppb, for sa et al., oct , sub: policy regarding race entries on enlistment contracts and shipping articles; both in ppb . .] [illustration: navy corpsman in korea _attends wounded from the st marine division, _.] the secretary's racial adviser, james c. evans, saw no need for (p.  ) racial designations on departmental forms, but knowing their removal was unlikely in the near future, he concentrated on trying to change the newly revised categories. he explained to the board, obviously unschooled in the nuance of racial slurs, that the word "negroid" was offensive to many negroes. besides, the board's categories made no sense since indian (american) and malayan were not comparable to the other three entries listed. why not, he suggested, settle for the old black, white, yellow, red, and brown designations?[ - ] [footnote - : memo, evans for chmn, ppb, nov , sub: racial designation and terminology, sd . ; interv, author with evans, jul , cmh files.] the navy, too, objected to the board's categories. after consulting a smithsonian ethnologist, the under secretary of the navy suggested that the board create a sixth category, polynesian, for use in shipping articles and in forms for reporting casualties. the army, also troubled by the categories, requested they be defined. the categories were meant to provide a uniform basis for classifying military personnel, the adjutant general pointed out, but given the variety and complexity of army forms--he had discovered that the army was using seven separate forms with racial entries, each with a different procedure for deciding race--uniformity was practically (p.  ) impossible without a careful delineation of each category.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, head, strength and statistics br, bupers, for head, policy control br, bupers, oct , sub: policy regarding race entries, pers -el, bupersrecs; memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, nov , sub: policy regarding "race" entries on enlistment contracts and shipping articles, genrecsnav; df, d/p&a to tag, oct , same sub, with cmt , tag to d/p&a, nov , copy in ag . ( oct ).] its ruling under attack from the services, the board made a hasty appeal to authority. its chief of staff, vice adm. john l. mccrea,[ - ] recommended that the army and navy consult funk and wagnalls _standard dictionary_ for specific definitions of the five racial categories. that source, the admiral explained to the under secretary of the navy, listed polynesian in the malayan category, and if the navy decided to add race to its shipping articles, the five categories should be sufficient. the board, he added, had not meant to encourage additional use of racial information. the navy had always used the old color categories on its shipping articles forms, the ones, incidentally, favored by evans, and mccrea thought they generally corresponded to the categories developed by the board.[ - ] the admiral also suggested that the army use the color system to help clarify the board's categories. he offered some generalizations on specific army questions: "a) puerto ricans are officially caucasian, unless of indian or negro birth; b) filipinos are malayan; c) hawaiians are malayan; d) latin americans are caucasian or indian; and e) indian-negro and white-negro mixtures should be classified in accordance with the laws of the states of their birth."[ - ] the lessons on definition of race so painfully learned during world war ii were ignored. henceforth race was to be determined by a dictionary, a color scheme, and the legal vagaries found in the race laws of the several states. [footnote - : admiral mccrea succeeded general lanham as director of the board's staff in .] [footnote - : memo, dir, ppb staff, for under secnav, dec , sub: policy regarding "race" entries on enlistment contracts and shipping articles, ppb . .] [footnote - : idem for administrative asst to sa, dec , sub: policy regarding "race" entries on enlistment contracts and shipping articles, osa . .] the board's rulings, unscientific and open to all sorts of legal complications, could only be stopgap measures, and when on january the army again requested clarification of the racial categories, the board quickly responded. although it continued to defend the use of racial categories, it tried to soften the ruling by stating that an applicant's declaration of race should be accepted, subject to "sufficient justification" from the applicant when his declaration created "reason to doubt." it was april before the board's new chairman, j. thomas schneider,[ - ] issued a revised directive to this effect.[ - ] [footnote - : schneider succeeded thomas reid as chairman on february .] [footnote - : memo, chmn, ppb, for sa et al., apr , sub: policy regarding "race" on enlistment contracts and shipping articles, ppb . .] the board's decision to accept an applicant's declaration was simply a return to the reasonable and practical method the selective service had been using for some time. but adopting the vague qualification "sufficient justification" invited further complaints. when the services finally translated the board's directive into a new regulation, the role of the applicant in deciding his racial identity was practically abolished. in the army and the air force, for (p.  ) example, recruiters had to submit all unresolved identity cases to the highest local commander, whose decision, supposedly based on available documentary evidence and answers to the questions first suggested by congressman holifield, was final. further, the army and the air force decided that "no enlistment would be accomplished" until racial identity was decided to the satisfaction of both the applicant and the service.[ - ] the navy adopted a similar procedure when it placed the board's directive in effect.[ - ] the new regulation promised little comfort for young americans of racially mixed parentage and even less for the services. contrary to the intent of the personnel policy board, its directive once again placed the burden of deciding an applicant's race, with the concomitant complaints and potential civil suits, back on the services. [footnote - : sr - - (afr - ), sep .] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , jun .] at the time the army did not see this responsibility as a burden and in its quest for uniformity was willing to assume an even greater share of the decision-making in a potentially explosive issue. on august the deputy assistant chief of staff, g- , asked the personnel policy board to include army induction centers in the directive meant originally for recruiting centers only.[ - ] in effect the army was offering to assume from selective service the task of deciding the race of all draftees. the board obtained the necessary agreement from maj. gen. lewis b. hershey, and selective service was thus relieved of an onerous task reluctantly acquired in . on august the adjutant general ordered induction stations to begin entering the draftee's race in the records.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dep asst cs/g- for dep dir of staff, mil pers, ppb, aug , sub: "race" entries on induction records, ppb . . the director, personnel and administration, was redesignated the assistant chief of staff, g- , in the reorganization of the army staff; see hewes, _from root to mcnamara_.] [footnote - : memo, dir, ppb staff, for dep acs, g- , aug , sub: "race" entries on induction records, ppb . ( aug ); memo, chief, class and standards br, g- , for tag, sep , same sub, g- . ( oct ); ltr, dir, selective service, to actg dir of production management, munitions bd, nov , copy in g- . ; g- memo for rcd, attached to g- df to tag, dec , same sub, g- . ( oct ).] the considerable staff activity devoted to definitions of race between and added very little to racial harmony or the cause of integration. the simplified racial categories and the regulations determining their application continued to irritate members of america's several minority groups. the ink was hardly dry on the new regulation, for example, before the director of the naacp's washington bureau was complaining to secretary of the air force thomas k. finletter that the department's five categories were comparatively meaningless and caused unnecessary humiliation for inductees. he wanted racial entries eliminated.[ - ] finletter explained that racial designations were not used for assignment or administrative purposes but solely for evaluating the integration program and answering questions from the public. his explanation prompted much discussion within the services and correspondence between them and clarence mitchell and walter white of the naacp. it culminated in a meeting of the service secretaries with the secretary of defense (p.  ) on january at which finletter reaffirmed his position.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, clarence mitchell to secaf thomas k. finletter, dec , secaf files. finletter had become secretary on april .] [footnote - : ltr, secaf to mitchell, dir, washington bureau, naacp, jan , and ltr, mitchell to asst secaf, jan , both in secaf files; memo, edward t. dickinson, asst to joint secys, osd, for sa et al., jan , osd files.] there was some justification for the defense department's position. many of those who found racial designations distasteful also demanded hard statistical proof that members of minority groups were given equal treatment and opportunity,[ - ] and such assurances, of course, demanded racial determinations on the records. still, not all the reasons for retaining the racial identification entry were so defensible. the army, for example, had to maintain accurate statistics on the number of negroes inducted because of its concern with a possible unacceptable rise in their number and the president's promise to reimpose the quota to prevent such an increase. whatever the reasons, it was obvious that racial statistics had to be kept. it was also obvious that as long as they were kept and continued to matter, the secretary of defense would be saddled with the task of deciding in the end which racial tag to attach to each man in the armed forces. it was an unenviable duty, and it could be performed with neither precision nor justice. [footnote - : memo, dep asst secaf (program management) for secaf, jan , secaf files; memo, col robin b. pape, asst to dir, ppb staff, for chmn, ppb, may , sub: racial entries on enlistment records, ppb . .] _overseas restrictions_ another problem involving the secretary of defense concerned restrictions placed on the use of black servicemen in certain foreign areas. the problem was not new. making a distinction in cases where american troops were stationed in a country at the request of the united states government, the services excluded black troops from assignment in some allied countries during and immediately after world war ii.[ - ] the army, for example, barred the assignment of black units to china (the chinese government did not object to assignment of individual black soldiers up to percent of any unit's strength), and the navy removed black messmen from stations in iceland.[ - ] although these restrictions did not improve the racial image of the services, they were only a minor inconvenience to military officials since negroes were for the most part segregated and their placement could be controlled easily. the armed forces continued to exclude black servicemen from certain countries into under what the personnel policy board called "operating agreements (probably not in writing)" with the state department.[ - ] but the situation changed radically when some of the services started to integrate. efficient administration then demanded that black servicemen be interchanged (p.  ) freely among the various duty stations. even in the case of the still segregated army the exclusion of negroes from certain commands further complicated the chronic maldistribution of black soldiers throughout the service. [footnote - : memo, secy, cmte on negro policies, for asw, sep , sub: digest of war department policy pertaining to negro military personnel, asw . negro troops.] [footnote - : msg, cg, china theater, to war department, mar , g- . ( jan- mar ); memo vice cno for chief of navpers, jul , sub: colored personnel on duty in iceland--replacement of, p- , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, thomas r. reid for najeeb halaby, dir, office of foreign military affairs, osd, jul , sub: foreign assignments of negro personnel, ppb . ( jul ).] the interservice and departmental aspects of the problem involved secretary of defense johnson. following promulgation of his directive on racial equality and at the instigation of his personnel policy board and his assistant, najeeb halaby, johnson asked the secretary of state for a formal expression of views on the use of black troops in a lengthy list of countries.[ - ] such an expression was clearly necessary, as air force spokesmen pointed out. informed of the consultations, assistant secretary zuckert asked that an interim policy be formulated, so urgent had the problem become in the air force where new racial policies and assignments were under way.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secdef to secy of state, sep , cd - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : memo, asst secaf for chmn, ppb, sep , sub: assignment of negroes to overseas areas; memo, dir of staff, ppb, for asst secaf, sep , same sub; memo, asst secaf for chmn, ppb, oct , same sub. all in secaf files.] for his part the secretary of state had no objection to stationing negroes in any of the listed countries. in fact, under secretary james e. webb assured johnson, the state department welcomed the new defense department policy of equal treatment and opportunity as a step toward the achievement of the nation's foreign policy objectives. at the same time webb admitted that there were certain countries--he listed specifically iceland, greenland, canada, newfoundland, bermuda, and british possessions in the caribbean--where local attitudes might affect the morale of black troops and their relations with the inhabitants. the state department, therefore, preferred advance warning when the services planned to assign negroes to these countries so that it might consult the host governments and reduce "possible complications" to a minimum.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, james e. webb to louis johnson, oct ; memo, secdef for sa et al., oct ; both in cd - - , secdef files.] this policy definition did not end the matter. in the first place the state department decided not to restrict its list of excepted areas to the six mentioned. while it had no objection to the assignment of individual negroes or nonsegregated units to panama, the department informally advised the army in december , it did interpose grave objections to the assignment of black units.[ - ] accordingly, only individual negroes were assigned to temporary units in the panama command.[ - ] [footnote - : df, d/pa to d/ot, mar , sub: utilization of negro manpower; ltr, d/pa for maj gen ray e. porter, cg, usacarib, feb ; both in csgpa . .] [footnote - : g- summary sheet, apr , sub: utilization of negro manpower, csgpa . .] yet for several reasons, the services were uneasy about the situation. the director of marine corps personnel, for example, feared that since in the bulk reassignment of marines enlisted men were transferred by rank and military occupational specialties only, a black marine might be assigned to an excepted area by oversight. yet the corps was reluctant to change the system.[ - ] an air force objection was (p.  ) more pointed. general edwards worried that the restrictions were becoming public knowledge and would probably cause adverse criticism of the air force. he wanted the state department to negotiate with the countries concerned to lift the restrictions or at least to establish a clear-cut, defensible policy. secretary symington discussed the matter with secretary of defense johnson, and halaby, knowing deputy under secretary of state dean rusk's particular interest in having men assigned without regard to race, agreed to take the matter up with rusk.[ - ] secretary of the navy francis p. matthews reminded johnson that black servicemen already numbered among the thousands of navy men assigned to four of the six areas mentioned, and if the system continued these men would periodically and routinely be replaced with other black sailors. should the navy, he wanted to know, withdraw these negroes? given the "possible unfavorable reaction" to their withdrawal, the navy wanted to keep negroes in these areas in approximately their present numbers.[ - ] both the fahy committee and the personnel policy board made it clear that they too wanted black servicemen retained wherever they were currently assigned.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir of personnel, usmc, for dir, div of plans and policies, dec , hist div, hqmc.] [footnote - : memo, dep cs/pers for secaf, dec ; memo, clarence h. osthagen, asst to secaf, for asst secaf, jan ; rcd of telecon, halaby with zuckert, jan . all in secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, secnav for secdef, jan , sub: foreign assignment of negro personnel, cd - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : memo, neh (halaby) for maj gen j. h. burns, feb , attached to ltr, burns to rusk, feb , cd - - , secdef files.] maj. gen. james h. burns, secretary johnson's assistant for foreign military affairs, put the matter to the state department, and james evans followed up by discussing it with rusk. reassured by these consultations, secretary johnson issued a more definitive policy statement for the services on april explaining that "the department of state endorses the policy of freely assigning negro personnel or negro or non-segregated units to any part of the world to which us forces are sent; it is prepared to support the desires of the department of defense in this respect."[ - ] nevertheless, since certain governments had from time to time indicated an unwillingness to accept black servicemen, johnson directed the services to inform him in advance when black troops were to be dispatched to countries where no blacks were then stationed so that host countries might be consulted. this new statement produced immediate reaction in the services. citing a change in policy, the air force issued directives opening all overseas assignments except iceland to negroes. after an extended discussion on the assignment of black troops to the trieste (trust) area, the army followed suit.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., apr , sub: foreign assignment of negro personnel; ltr, dean rusk to maj gen burns, mar ; memo, burns for secdef, apr . all in cd - - , secdef files.] [footnote - : df, acs, g- , for csa, dec , sub: restricted distribution of negro personnel; ibid., mar , sub: assignment of negro personnel to trust; both in cs . negroes. see also memo, acs, g- , for tag, apr , sub: assignment of negro personnel, ag . ( apr ); memo, asecaf for secdef, apr , sub: foreign assignment of negro personnel, cd - - , secdef files.] yet the problem refused to go away, largely because the services continued to limit foreign assignment of black personnel, particularly in attache offices, military assistance advisory groups, and military missions. the army's g- , for example, concluded in that, (p.  ) while the race of an individual was not a factor in determining eligibility for a mission assignment, the attitude of certain countries (he was referring to certain latin american countries) made it advisable to inform the host country of the race of the prospective applicant. for a host country to reject a negro was undesirable, he concluded, but for a negro to be assigned to a country that did not welcome him would be embarrassing to both countries.[ - ] when the chief of the military mission in turkey asked the army staff in to reconsider assigning black soldiers to turkey because of the attitude of the turks, the army canceled the assignment.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet, nov , sub: assignment of negro personnel, g- . .] [footnote - : msg, chief, jammat, ankara, turkey, to da, personal for the g- , apr ; ltr, brig gen w. e. dunkelberg to maj gen william h. arnold, chief, jammat, apr ; idem to brig gen john b. murphy, g- sec, eucom, april . all in g- . .] [illustration: th division troops unload trucks and equipment _at sasebo railway station, japan, for transport to korea, _.] undoubtedly certain countries objected to the assignment of american servicemen on grounds of race or religion, but there were also indications that racial restrictions were not always made at the behest of the host country.[ - ] in congressman adam clayton powell protested that negroes were not being assigned to the (p.  ) offices of attaches, military assistance advisory groups, and military missions.[ - ] in particular he was concerned with ethiopia, whose emperor had personally assured him that his government had no race restrictions. the deputy assistant secretary of the army admitted that negroes were barred from ethiopia, and although documentary evidence could not be produced, the ban was thought to have been imposed at the request of the united nations. the state department claimed it was unaware of any such ban, nor could it find documentation to support the army's contention. it objected neither to the assignment of individual negroes to attache and advisory offices in ethiopia nor to "most" other countries.[ - ] having received these assurances, the department of defense informed the services that "it was considered appropriate" to assign black servicemen to the posts discussed by congressman powell.[ - ] for some time, however, the notion persisted in the department of defense that black troops should not be assigned to ethiopia.[ - ] in fact, restrictions and reports of restrictions against the assignment of americans to a number of overseas posts on grounds of race or religion persisted into the 's.[ - ] [footnote - : jack greenberg, _race relations and american law_ (new york: columbia university press, ), pp. - .] [footnote - : memo, dep asa for asd/isa, feb , sub: racial assignment restrictions, osa . ethiopia.] [footnote - : ltr, dep asst secy of state for personnel to dep asd (mp&r), may , oasd (mp&r) . .] [footnote - : memo, dep asd for asa (mp&r) et al., jun , asd (mp&r) . .] [footnote - : memo, james c. evans for paul hopper, isa, oct ; memo for rcd, exec to civilian asst, osd, jan , sub: maag's and missions, copies of both in cmh.] [footnote - : see afm - l, appendix m, dec , sub: assignment restrictions; memo, usmc ig for dir of pers, mc, aug , sub: problem area at marine barracks, argentia, hist div, hqmc. see also new york _times_, december , and november , , and , .] _congressional concerns_ congress was slow to see that changes were gradually transforming the armed services. in its special preelection session, the eightieth congress ignored the recently issued truman order on racial equality just as it ignored the president's admonition to enact a general civil rights program. but when the new eighty-first congress met in january the subjects of armed forces integration, the truman order, and the fahy committee all began to receive attention. debate on race in the services occurred frequently in both houses. each side appealed to constitutional and legal principles to support its case, but the discussions might well have remained a philosophical debate if the draft law had not come up for renewal in . the debate focused mostly on an amendment proposed by senator richard b. russell of georgia that would allow inductees and enlistees, upon their written declaration of intent, to serve in a unit manned exclusively by members of their own race. russell had made this proposal once before, but because it seemed of little consequence to the still largely segregated services of it was ignored. now in the wake of the executive order and the fahy committee report, the amendment came to sudden prominence. and when russell succeeded in discharging the draft bill with his amendment from the senate armed forces committee with the members' unanimous approval, civil rights supporters quickly (p.  ) jumped to the attack. even before the bill was formally introduced on the floor, senator wayne morse of oregon told his colleagues that the russell amendment conflicted with the stated policy of the administration as well as with sound republican principles. he cited the waste of manpower the amendment would bring about and reminded his colleagues of the international criticism the armed forces had endured in the past because of undemocratic social practices.[ - ] [footnote - : _congressional record_, st cong., d sess., vol. , p. .] when debate began on the amendment, senator leverett saltonstall of massachusetts was one of the first to rise in opposition. while confessing sympathy for the states' rights philosophy that recognized the different customs of various sections of the nation, he branded the russell amendment unnecessary, provocative, and unworkable, and suggested congress leave the services alone in this matter. to support his views he read into the record portions of the fahy committee report, which represented, he emphasized, the judgment of impartial civilians appointed by the president, another civilian.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., pp. , .] discussion of the russell amendment continued with opponents and defenders raising the issues of military efficiency, legality, and principles of equality and states' rights. in the end the amendment was defeated to with not voting, a close vote if one considers that the abstentions could have changed the outcome.[ - ] a similar amendment, this time introduced by congressman arthur winstead of mississippi, was also defeated in . [footnote - : ibid., p. ; see also memo, rear adm h. a. houser, osd legis liaison, for asd rosenberg, mar , sub: winstead anti-nonsegregation amendment, sd . .] the russell amendment was the high point of the congressional fight against armed forces integration. during the next year the integrationists took their turn, their barrage of questions and demands aimed at obtaining from the secretary of defense additional reforms in the services. on balance, these congressmen were no more effective than the segregationists. secretary johnson had obviously adopted a hands-off policy on integration.[ - ] certainly he openly discouraged further public and congressional investigations of the department's racial practices. when the committee against jim crow sought to investigate racial conditions in the seventh army in december , johnson told a. philip randolph and grant reynolds that he could not provide them with military transport, and he closed the discussion by referring the civil rights leaders to the army's new special regulation on equal opportunity published in january .[ - ] [footnote - : see ltrs, rep. kenneth b. keating to johnson, dec ; secdef to keating, jan ; idem to hubert h. humphrey, mar ; humphrey to secdef, feb ; rep. jacob javits to johnson, dec ; draft ltr, secdef to javits, jan (not sent); memos, leva for johnson, and jan . all in sd . negroes.] [footnote - : ltrs, johnson to reynolds, dec ; reynolds to johnson, jan ; reynolds and randolph to johnson, jan ; johnson to reynolds and randolph, feb . the committee against jim crow was particularly upset with johnson's assistants, leva and evans; see ltrs, reynolds to johnson, dec ; leva to niles, feb ; reynolds to evans, jan . all in sd . .] [illustration: assistant secretary rosenberg _talks with men of the th medium tank battalion during a far east tour_.] johnson employed much the same technique when congressman jacob (p.  ) k. javits of new york, who with several other legislators had become interested in the joint congressional-citizen commission proposed by the committee against jim crow, introduced a resolution in the house calling for a complete investigation into the racial practices and policies of the services by a select house committee.[ - ] johnson tried to convince chairman adolph j. sabath of the house committee on rules that the new service policies promised equal treatment and opportunity, again using the new army regulation to demonstrate how these policies were being implemented.[ - ] once more he succeeded in diverting the integrationists. the javits resolution came to naught, and although that congressman still harbored some reservations on racial progress in the army, he nevertheless reprinted an article from _our world_ magazine in the _congressional record_ in april that outlined "the very good progress" being made by the secretary (p.  ) of defense in the racial field.[ - ] javits would have no reason to suspect, but the "very good progress" he spoke of had not issued from the secretary's office. for all practical purposes, johnson's involvement in civil rights in the armed forces ended with his battle with the fahy committee. certainly in the months after the committee was disbanded he did nothing to push for integration and allowed the subject of civil rights to languish. [footnote - : ltr, javits to johnson, dec ; press release, jacob k. javits, jan ; ltr, javits to johnson, jan . other legislators expressed interest in the joint commission idea; see ltrs, saltonstall to johnson, jan ; sen. william langer to johnson, oct ; henry c. lodge to johnson, nov . all in sd . . see also ltr, javits to author, with attachments, oct , cmh files.] [footnote - : ltr, secdef to chmn, cmte on rules, mar , sd . ( mar ).] [footnote - : _congressional record_, st cong., d sess., pp. a - ; memo, leva for johnson, may ; ltr, johnson to javits, may ; both in secdef files. see also ltr, javits to author, oct .] departmental interest in racial affairs quickened noticeably when general marshall, johnson's successor, appointed the brilliant labor relations and manpower expert anna m. rosenberg as the first assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel.[ - ] rosenberg had served on both the manpower consulting committee of the army and navy munitions board and the war manpower commission and toward the end of the war in the european theater as a consultant to general eisenhower, who recommended her to marshall for the new position.[ - ] she was encouraged by the secretary to take independent control of the department's manpower affairs, including racial matters.[ - ] that she was well acquainted with integration leaders and sympathetic to their objectives is attested by her correspondence with them. "dear anna," senator hubert h. humphrey wrote in march , voicing confidence in her attitude toward segregation, "i know i speak for many in the senate when i say that your presence with the department of defense is most reassuring."[ - ] [footnote - : carl w. borklund, _men of the pentagon_ (new york: praeger, ), pp. - ; ltr, anna rosenberg hoffman to author, sep ; interv, author with james c. evans, sep ; both in cmh files.] [footnote - : immediately before her appointment as the manpower assistant, rosenberg was a public member of the committee on mobilization policy of the national security resources board and a special consultant on manpower problems to the chairman of the board, stuart symington.] [footnote - : interv, author with davenport, oct .] [footnote - : ltr, humphrey to rosenberg, mar , sd . .] still, to bring about effective integration of the services would take more than a positive attitude, and rosenberg faced a delicate situation. she had to reassure integrationists that the new racial policy would be enforced by urging the sometimes reluctant services to take further steps toward eliminating discrimination. at the same time she had to promote integration and avoid provoking the segregationists in congress to retaliate by blocking other defense legislation. the bill for universal military training was especially important to the department and to push for its passage was her primary assignment. it is not surprising, therefore, that she accomplished little in the way of specific racial reform during the first year of the korean war. secretary rosenberg took it upon herself to meet with legislators interested in civil rights to outline the department's current progress and future plans for guaranteeing equal treatment for black servicemen. she also arranged for her assistants and brig. gen. b. m. mcfayden, the army's deputy g- , to brief officials of the various civil rights organizations on the same subject.[ - ] she had congressional complaints and proposals speedily investigated, and (p.  ) demanded from the services periodic progress reports which she issued to legislators who backed civil rights.[ - ] [footnote - : see memo for rcd, maj m. o. becker, g- , mar , g- . ; ltrs, granger to leva, jan , leva to granger, feb , clarence mitchell, naacp, to rosenberg, mar , last three in sd . . legislators attending these briefings included senators lehman, william benton of connecticut, humphrey, john pastore of rhode island, and kilgore.] [footnote - : see ltrs, humphrey to rosenberg, mar ; rosenberg to humphrey, mar ; javits to secdef, mar ; marshall to javits, mar ; memo, leva for rosenberg, mar ; ltrs, rosenberg to douglas, humphrey, benton, kilgore, lehman, and javits, jun ; memo, rosenberg for sa, may , sub: private lionel e. bolin. all in sd . . see also df, acs, g- , to csa, apr , sub: summary of advances in utilization of negro manpower, cs . negroes.] rosenberg and her departmental colleagues were less forthcoming in some other areas of civil rights. reflecting a desire to placate segregationist forces in congress, they did little, for example, to promote federal protection of servicemen in cases of racial violence outside the military reservation. the naacp had been urging the passage of such legislation for many years, and in march clarence mitchell called rosenberg's attention to the mistreatment of black servicemen and their families suffered at the hands of policemen and civilians in communities surrounding some military bases.[ - ] at times, walter white charged, these humiliations and abuses by civilians were condoned by military police. he warned that such treatment "can only succeed in adversely affecting the morale of negro troops ... and hamper efforts to secure fullhearted support of the american negro for the government's military and foreign policy program."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, mitchell to rosenberg, mar , sd . .] [footnote - : telgs, white to marshall and sa, jan , copy in sd . .] the civil rights leaders had at least some congressional support for their demand. congressman abraham j. multer of new york called on the armed services committee to include in the extension of the selective service act an amendment making attacks on uniformed men and women and discrimination against them by public officials and in public places of recreation and interstate travel federal offenses.[ - ] focusing on a different aspect of the problem, senator humphrey introduced an amendment to the senate version of the bill to protect servicemen detained by public authority against civil violence or punishment by extra legal forces. both amendments were tabled before final vote on the bill.[ - ] [footnote - : _congressional record_, st cong., d sess., vol. , p. a .] [footnote - : ibid., p. . for the army's opposition to these proposals, see memo acofs, g- , for cofs, apr , sub: department of the army policies re segregation and utilization of negro manpower, g- . ( apr ).] the matter came up again in the next congress when senator herbert h. lehman of new york offered a similar amendment to the universal military training bill.[ - ] commenting for his department, secretary marshall admitted that defense officials had been supporting such legislation since when stimson asked for help in protecting servicemen in the civilian community. but marshall was against linking the measure to the training bill, which, he explained to congressman franck r. havenner of california, was of such fundamental importance that its passage should not be endangered by consideration of extraneous issues. he wanted the problem of federal protection considered as a separate piece of legislation.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, maj m. o. becker, g- , mar , g- . .] [footnote - : ltr, secdef to havenner, mar , secdef files.] but evidently not just yet, for when the naacp's mitchell, (p.  ) referring to marshall's letter to congressman havenner, asked rosenberg to press for separate legislation, he was told that since final congressional action was still pending on the universal military training and reserve programs it was not an auspicious moment for action on a federal protection bill.[ - ] the department's reluctance to act in the matter obviously involved more than concern with the fate of universal military training. summing up department policy on june, the day after the training bill passed the house, rosenberg explained that the department of defense would not itself propose any legislation to extend to servicemen the protection afforded "civilian employees" of the federal government but would support such a proposal if it came from "any other source."[ - ] this limitation was further defined by rosenberg's colleagues in the defense department. on june the assistant secretary of defense for legal and legislative affairs, daniel k. edwards, rejected mitchell's request for help in preparing the language of a bill to protect black servicemen. mitchell had explained that discussions with congressional leaders convinced the naacp that chances for such legislation were favorable, but the defense department's assistant general counsel declared the department did not ordinarily act "as a drafting service for outside agencies."[ - ] in fact, effective legislation to protect servicemen off military bases was more than a decade away. [footnote - : ltr, mitchell to rosenberg, apr ; ltr, rosenberg to mitchell, may ; both in sd . .] [footnote - : memo, asd (mp&r) for asd (legal and legis affairs), jun , sd . ; pl , d congress.] [footnote - : ltr, mitchell, dir, washington br, naacp, to dir of industrial relations, dod, may ; ltr, asd (legal and legis affairs) to mitchell, jun ; memo, asst gen counsel, osd, for asd (legal and legis affairs), jun . all in sd . .] despite her concern over possible congressional opposition, rosenberg achieved one important reform during her first year in office. for years the army's demand for a parity of enlistment standards had been opposed by the navy and the air force and had once been rejected by secretary forrestal. now rosenberg was able to convince marshall and the armed services committees that in times of manpower shortages the services suffered a serious imbalance when each failed to get its fair share of recruits from the various so-called mental categories.[ - ] her assistant, ralph p. sollat, prepared a program for her incorporating roy k. davenport's specific suggestions. the program would allow volunteer enlistments to continue but would require all the services to give a uniform entrance test to both volunteers and draftees. (actually, rather than develop a completely new entrance test, the other services eventually adopted the army's, which was renamed the armed forces qualification test.) sollat also devised an arrangement whereby each service had to recruit men in each of the four mental categories in accordance with an established quota. manpower experts agreed that this program offered the best chance to distribute manpower equally among the services. approved by secretary marshall on april under the title qualitative distribution of military manpower program, it quickly changed the intellectual composition of the services by obliging the navy and air force to share responsibility with the army for the training and employment (p.  ) of less gifted inductees. for the remainder of the korean war, for example, each of the services, not just the army, had to take percent of its new recruits from category iv, the low-scoring group. this figure was later reduced to percent and finally in to percent.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, anna rosenberg hoffman to author, sep .] [footnote - : bupers study, pers a (probably jan ), genrecsnav.] the navy and the air force had always insisted their high minimum entrance requirements were designed to maintain the good quality of their recruits and had nothing to do with race. roy davenport believed otherwise and read into their standards an intent to exclude all but a few negroes. rosenberg saw in the new qualitative distribution program not only the chance to upgrade the army but also a way of "making sure that the other services had their proper share of negroes."[ - ] because so many negroes scored below average in achievement tests and therefore made up a large percentage of the men in category iv, the new program served rosenberg's double purpose. even after discounting the influence of other factors, statistics suggest that the imposition of the qualitative distribution program operated just as rosenberg and the fahy committee before her had predicted. (_table _) [footnote - : interv, author with davenport, oct ; and ltr, anna rosenberg hoffman to author, sep .] table --percentage of black enlisted men and women service july july july army . . . navy . . . air force . . . marine corps . . . _source_: memo for rcd, asd/m, sep , sub: integration percentages, asd(m) . . the program had yet another consequence: it destroyed the army's best argument for the reimposition of the racial quota. upset over the steadily rising number of black enlistments in the early months of the korean war, the army's g- had pressed secretary pace in october , and again five months later with g- concurrence, to reinstate a ceiling on black enlistments. assistant secretary earl d. johnson returned the request "without action," noting that the new qualitative distribution program would produce a "more equitable" solution.[ - ] the president's agreement with secretary gray about reimposing a quota notwithstanding, it was highly unlikely that the army could have done so without returning to the white house for permission, and when in may the army staff renewed its demand, pace considered asking the white house for a quota on negroes in category iv. after consulting with rosenberg on the long-term effects of qualitative distribution of manpower, however, pace agreed to drop the matter.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet with incl, mar , sub: negro strength in the army; memo, asa for cofs, apr , same sub; both in cs . negroes ( mar ).] [footnote - : memo, actg cofs for sa, may , sub: present overstrength in segregated units; g- summary sheet for cofs, may , same sub; draft memo, frank pace, jr., for president; memo, asa for sa, jul . all in g- . ( may ).] executive order passed its third anniversary in july (p.  ) with little having happened in the office of the secretary of defense to lift the hearts of the champions of integration. the race issues with which the secretary of defense concerned himself in these years--the definition of race, the status of black servicemen overseas, even the parity of enlistment standards--while no doubt important in the long run to the status of the negro in the armed forces, had little to do with the immediate problem of segregation. secretary johnson had done nothing to enforce the executive order in the army and his successor achieved little more. willing to let the services set the pace of reform, neither secretary substantially changed the armed forces' racial practices. the integration process that began in those years was initiated, appropriately enough perhaps, by the services themselves. chapter (p.  ) integration in the air force and the navy the racial reforms instituted by the four services between and demonstrated that integration was to a great extent concerned with effective utilization of military manpower. in the case of the army and the marine corps the reforms would be delayed and would occur, finally, on the field of battle. the navy and the air force, however, accepted the connection between military efficiency and integration even before the fahy committee began to preach the point. despite their very dissimilar postwar racial practices, the air force and the navy were facing the same problem. in a period of reduced manpower allocations and increased demand for technically trained men, these services came to realize that racial distinctions were imposing unacceptable administrative burdens and reducing fighting efficiency. their response to the fahy committee was merely to expedite or revise integration policies already decided upon. _the air force, - _ the air force's integration plan had gone to the secretary of defense on january , committing that service to a major reorganization of its manpower. in a period of severe budget and manpower retrenchment, the air force was proposing to open all jobs in all fields to negroes, subject only to the individual qualifications of the men and the needs of the service.[ - ] to ascertain these needs and qualifications the director of personnel planning was prepared to screen the service's , negroes ( officers and , airmen), approximately percent of its strength, for the purpose of reassigning those eligible to former all-white units and training schools and dropping the unfit from the service.[ - ] as secretary of the air force symington made clear, his integration plan would be limited in scope. some black service units would be retained; the rest would be eliminated, "thereby relieving the air force of the critical problems involved in manning these units with qualified personnel."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asecaf for symington, mar , sub: salient factors of air force policy regarding negro personnel, secaf files.] [footnote - : negro strength figures as of april . ltr, asecaf to robert harper, chief clerk, house armed services cmte, apr , secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, symington for forrestal, jan , secaf files.] in the end the integration process was not a drawn-out one; much of symington's effort in was devoted instead to winning approval for the plan. submitted to forrestal on january , it was (p.  ) slightly revised after lengthy discussions in both the fahy committee and the personnel policy board and in keeping with the defense secretary's equal treatment and opportunity directive of april . some further delay resulted from the personnel policy board's abortive attempt to achieve an equal opportunity program common to all the services. the air force plan was not finally approved by the secretary of defense until may. some in the air force were worried about the long delay in approval. as early as january the chief of staff warned symington that budget programming for the new -wing force required an early decision on the plan, especially in regard to the inactivation of the all-black wing at lockbourne. further delay, he predicted, would cause confusion in reassignment of some , troops.[ - ] in conversation with the secretary of defense, symington mentioned a deadline of march, but assistant secretary zuckert was later able to assure symington that the planners could tolerate a delay in the decision over integration until may.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, hoyt s. vandenberg, cofs, usaf, for secaf, jan , secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, secaf for forrestal, feb ; memo, asecaf for symington, mar , sub: lockbourne afb; both in secaf files.] by then the long official silence had produced serious consequences, for despite the lack of any public announcement, parts of the plan had leaked to the press and caused some debate in congress and considerable dissatisfaction among black servicemen. congressional interest in the internal affairs of the armed forces was always of more than passing concern to the services. when a discussion of the new integration plan appearing in the washington _post_ on march caused a flurry of comment on capitol hill, zuckert's assistant, clarence h. osthagen, met with the clerk of the house armed services committee to "explain and clarify" for the air force. the clerk, robert harper, warned osthagen that the impression in the house was that a "complete intermingling of negro and white personnel was to take place" and that congressman winstead of mississippi had been tempted to make a speech on the subject. still, harper predicted that there would be no adverse criticism of the plan in the house "at this time," adding that since that body had already passed the air force appropriation chairman carl vinson was generally unconcerned about the air force racial program. reporting on senate reaction, harper noted that while many members of the upper house would have liked to see the plan deferred, they recognized that the president's order made change mandatory. at any rate, harper reassured osthagen, the announcement of an integration plan would not jeopardize pending air force legislation.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for files, osthagen, asst to asecaf, apr , secaf files.] unfortunately, the air force's black personnel were not so easily reassured, and the service had a morale problem on its hands during the spring of . as later reported by the fahy committee staff, black troops generally supported the inactivation of the all-black d fighter wing at lockbourne as a necessary step toward integration, but news reports frequently linked the disbandment of that unit to the belt tightening imposed on the air force by the budget. some negroes in the d concluded that the move was not (p.  ) directed at integration but at saving money for the air force.[ - ] they were concerned lest they find themselves relegated to unskilled labor units despite their training and experience. this fear was not so farfetched, considering zuckert's private prediction that the redistribution of lockbourne men had to be executed exactly according to the proposed program or "we would find experienced air force negro technical specialists pushing wheelbarrows or driving trucks in negro service units."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, joseph h. evans, assoc exec secy, fahy cmte, to fahy cmte, jun , fc file. see also "u.s. armed forces: ," _our world _ (june ): - .] [footnote - : draft memo, zuckert for symington, feb , sub: air force policies on negro personnel (not sent), secaf files.] the truth was that, while most negroes in the air force favored integration, some were disturbed by the prospect of competition with whites of equivalent rank that would naturally follow. many of the black officers were overage in grade, their proficiency geared to the f- , a wartime piston plane, and they were the logical victims of any reduction in force that might occur in this period of reduced military budgets.[ - ] some men doubted that the new program, as they imperfectly understood it, would truly integrate the service. they could, for example, see no way for the air force to break through what the press called the "community patterns" around southern bases, and they were generally suspicious of the motives of senior department officials. the pittsburgh _courier_ summarized this attitude by quoting one black officer who expressed doubt "that a fair program will be enforced from the top echelon."[ - ] [footnote - : washington _post_, april , ; usaf oral history program, interview with lt col spann watson (usaf, ret.), apr .] [footnote - : pittsburgh _courier_, january , .] but such suspicions were unfounded, for the air force's senior officials were determined to enforce the new program both fairly and expeditiously. general vandenberg, the chief of staff, reported to the war council on january that the air force would "effect full and complete implementation" of its integration plan not only by issuing the required directives and orders, but also by assigning responsibility for monitoring the worldwide implementation of the program to his deputy for personnel. the chief of staff also planned to call a meeting of his senior commanders to discuss and solve problems rising from the plan and impress on them the personal attention they must give to carrying it out in the field.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, vandenberg, cofs, usaf, for secaf, jan , secaf files.] the air force commanders' conference, assembled on april , heard lt. gen. idwal edwards, the deputy chief of staff for personnel, explain the genesis of the integration plan and outline its major provisions. he mentioned two major steps to be taken in the first phase of the program. first, the d fighter wing would be inactivated on or before june, and all blacks would be removed from lockbourne. the commander of the continental air command would create a board of lockbourne officers to screen those assigned to the all-black base, dividing them into three groups. the skilled and qualified officers and airmen would be reassigned worldwide to white units "just like any other officers or airmen of similar skills (p.  ) and qualifications." general edwards assumed that the number of men in this category would not be large. some officers and , airmen, he estimated, would be found sufficiently qualified and proficient for such reassignment. he added parenthetically that colonel davis understood the "implications" of the new policy and intended to recommend only an individual "of such temperament, judgment, and common sense that he can get along smoothly as an individual in a white unit, and second, that his ability is such as to warrant respect of the personnel of the unit to which he is transferred." the technically unqualified but still "usable" men would be reassigned to black service units. the staff recognized, general edwards added, that some negroes were unsuited for assignment to white units for "various reasons" and had specifically authorized the retention of "this type of negro" in black units. finally, those who were found neither qualified nor useful would be discharged under current regulations. the second major action would be taken at the same time as the first. all commands would similarly screen their black troops with the object of reassigning the skilled and qualified to white units and eliminating the chronically unqualified. at the same time racial quotas for recruitment and school attendance would be abolished. henceforth, blacks would enter the air force under the same standards as whites and would be classified, assigned, promoted, or eliminated in accordance with rules that would apply equally to all. "in other words," edwards commented, "no one is either helped or hindered because of the color of his skin; how far or how fast each one goes depends upon his own ability." to assure equal treatment and opportunity, he would closely monitor the problem. edwards admitted that the subject of integrated living quarters had caused discussion in the staff, but based on the navy's years of good experience with integrated quarters and bolstered by the probability that the number of negroes in any white unit would rarely exceed percent, the staff saw no need for separate sleeping accommodations. general edwards reminded the assembled commanders that, while integration was new to the air force, the navy had been following a similar policy for years, encountering no trouble, even in the deep south where black troops as well as the nearby civilian communities understood that when men left the base they must conform to the laws and customs of the community. and as a parting shot he made the commanders aware of where the command responsibility lay: there will be frictions and incidents. however, they will be minimized if commanders give the implementation of this policy their personal attention and exercise positive command control. unless our young commanders are guided and counselled by the senior commanders in unbiased implementation, we may encounter serious troubles which the navy has very ably avoided. it must have your _personal attention and personal control_.[ - ] [footnote - : lt gen i. h. edwards, "remarks on major personnel problems presented to usaf commanders' conference headquarters, usaf," apr , secaf files. italics in the original.] compelling reasons for reform notwithstanding, the effectiveness of an integration program would in the end depend on the attitude and initiative of the local commander. in the air force's case the (p.  ) ultimate effectiveness owed much to the fact that the determination of its senior officials was fully explained and widely circulated throughout the service. as lt. gen. daniel (chappie) james, jr., later recalled, those who thought to frustrate the process were well aware that they risked serious trouble if their opposition was discovered by the senior commanders. none of the obvious excuses for preserving the racial _status quo_ remained acceptable after vandenberg and edwards made their positions clear.[ - ] [footnote - : usaf oral history program, interview with lt gen daniel james, jr., oct . james was to become the first four-star black officer in the armed forces.] the fact that the control of the new plan was specifically made a personal responsibility of the senior commanders spoke well for its speedy and efficient execution. this was the kind of talk commanders understood, and as the order filtered down to the lower echelons its terms became even more explicit.[ - ] "direct attention to this changed condition is required throughout the command," maj. gen. laurence s. kuter notified his subordinate commanders at the military air transport service. "judgment, leadership, and ingenuity are demanded. commanders who cannot cope with the integration of negroes into formerly white units or activities will have no place in the air force structure."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, marr to author, jun .] [footnote - : mats hq ltr no. , may , secaf files.] the order itself, as approved by the secretary of defense on may and published on the same day as air force letter - , was unmistakable in intent and clearly spelled out a new bill of rights for negroes in the air force.[ - ] the published directive differed in some respects from the version drafted by the chief of staff in january. despite general edwards's comments at the commanders' conference in april, the provision for allowing commanders to segregate barracks "if considered necessary" was removed even before the plan was first forwarded to the secretary of defense. this deletion was made in the office of the secretary of the air force, probably by zuckert.[ - ] later zuckert commented, "i wouldn't want to give the commanders that kind of sweeping power. i would be afraid of how it might be exercised."[ - ] from the beginning, black airmen were billeted routinely in the living quarters of the units to which they were assigned. [footnote - : af ltr - , may . effective until may , the order was superseded by a new but similar letter, af ltr - , on september .] [footnote - : memo, asecaf for symington, jan , af negro affairs , secaf files.] [footnote - : usaf oral hist interv with zuckert.] the final version of the directive also deleted reference to a percent limitation on black strength in formerly white units. zuckert had assured the fahy committee this limitation was designed to facilitate, not frustrate, the absorption of negroes into white units, and edwards even agreed that given the determination of air force officials to make a success of their program, the measure was probably unnecessary.[ - ] in the end zuckert decided to drop any reference to such limitations "because of the confusion that seemed to arise from this statement."[ - ] [footnote - : testimony of zuckert and edwards, usaf, before the fahy committee, mar , afternoon session, pp. - .] [footnote - : memo, asecaf for symington, apr , sub: department of the air force implementation of the department of defense policy on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, secaf files.] [illustration: assistant secretary zuckert.] zuckert also deleted several clauses in the supplementary letter (p.  ) to air force commanders that was to accompany and explain the order. these clauses had listed possible exemptions from the new order: one made it possible to retain a man in a black unit if he was one of the "key personnel" considered necessary for the successful functioning of a black unit, and the other allowed the local commander to keep those negroes he deemed "best suited" for continued assignment to black units. the free reassignment of all eligible negroes, particularly the well-qualified, was essential to the eventual dissolution of the all-black units. the fahy committee had objected to these provisions and considered it important for the air force to delete them,[ - ] but the matter was not raised during the committee hearings. there is evidence that the deletions were actually requested by the secretary of defense's personnel policy board, whose influence in the integration of the air force is often overlooked.[ - ] [footnote - : _freedom to serve_, pp. - .] [footnote - : memo, secaf for chmn, ppb, apr , copy in fc file. mccoy and ruetten, _quest and response_, p. , call the deletion a victory for the committee.] the screening of officers and men at lockbourne got under way on may. a board of officers under the presidency of col. davis, the commander of lockbourne, and composed of representatives of air force headquarters, the continental air command, and the air training command, and important officers of lockbourne, interviewed every officer in the wing. after considering each man's technical training, his performance, and his career field preference, the board recommended him for reassignment in a specific duty field. although edwards had promised that the screening boards would also judge each man's "adaptability" to integrated service, this requirement was quickly dropped by davis and his fellow board members.[ - ] in fact, the whole idea of having screening boards was resented by some black officers. zuckert later admitted that the screening may have been a mistake, but at the time it had been considered the best mechanism for ascertaining the proper assignment for the men.[ - ] [footnote - : usaf oral hist interv with davis.] [footnote - : usaf oral hist interv with zuckert.] at the same time, a screening team in the air training command gave a written examination to lockbourne's more than , airmen and waf's to determine if they were in appropriate military occupational specialties. a team of personnel counselors interviewed all (p.  ) airmen, weighed test scores, past performances, qualifications outside of assigned specialty, and choices of a career field, and then placed them in one of three categories. first, they could be earmarked for general reassignment in a specific military occupational specialty different from the one they were now in; second, they could be scheduled for additional or more advanced technical training; or third, they could be trained in their current specialties. the screeners referred marginal or extraordinary cases to colonel davis's board for decision.[ - ] [footnote - : nme fact sheet no. - , jul .] concurrently with the lockbourne processing, individual commanders established similar screening procedures wherever black airmen were then assigned. all these teams uncovered a substantial number of men and women considered eligible for further training or reassignment. (_table _) table --disposition of black personnel at eight air force bases, percentages total asgmt to asgmt to asgmt to recom for base tested instr tech present board duty school mos action lockbourne male . . . . female . . . . lackland . . . . barksdale . . . . randolph . . . . waco . . . . mather . . . . williams . . . . goodfellow . . . . total , . . . . _source_: president's cmte on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces, "a first report on the racial integration program of the air force," feb , fc file. the process of screening lockbourne's troops was quickly completed, but the process of reassigning them was considerably more drawn-out. the reassignments were somewhat delayed in the first place by indecision, caused by budgetary uncertainties, on the future of lockbourne itself. by july, a full two months after the screening began, the lockbourne board had recommended only officers and airmen to air force headquarters for new assignment. a short time later, however, lockbourne was placed on inactive status and its remaining men and women, with the exception of a small caretaker detachment, were quickly reassigned throughout the air force. the staff had predicted that the speed with which the integration order was carried out would follow a geographical pattern, with southern bases the last to integrate, but in fact no special pattern prevailed. for the many negroes assigned to all-black base squadrons for administrative purposes but serving on a day-to-day basis in integrated units, the change was relatively simple. these men had already demonstrated their ability to perform their duties competently under integration, and in conformity with the new order most (p.  ) commanders immediately assigned them to the units in which they were already working. except for their own squadron overhead, some base service squadrons literally disappeared when these reassignments were effected. after the screening process, most commanders also quickly reassigned troops serving in the other all-black units, such as squadron f's, air ammunition, motor transport, vehicle repair, signal heavy construction, and aviation engineer squadrons.[ - ] [footnote - : "report on the first year of implementation of current policies regarding negro personnel," incl to memo, maj gen richard e. nugent for asecaf, jul , sub: distribution of negro personnel, ppb . ( jul ) (hereafter referred to as marr report). see also usaf oral hist interv with marr.] there were of course a few exceptions. some commanders, noticeably more cautious than the majority, began the integration process with considerably less ease and speed.[ - ] as late as january , for example, the fahy committee's executive secretary found that, with the exception of a small number of negroes assigned to white units, the black airmen at maxwell air force base were still assigned to the all-black th base service squadron, the only such unit he found, incidentally, in a tour of seven installations.[ - ] but as the months went by even the most cautious commander, learning of the success of the new policy in other commands, began to reassign his black airmen according to the recommendations of the screening board. despite the announcement that some black units would be retained, practically all units were integrated by the end of the first year of the new program. even using the air staff's very restricted definition of a "negro unit," that is, one whose strength was over percent black, statistics show how radical was the change in just one year. (_table _) [footnote - : usaf oral hist interv with davis.] [footnote - : president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces, "a first report on the racial integration program of the air force," feb , fc file (hereafter cited as kenworthy report).] table --racial composition of air force units negroes assigned negroes assigned month black integrated to black to integrated units units units units[ ] june not available not available july , , august , , september , , october , , , november , , , december , , , january , , , february , , , march , , , april , , , may , , , [tablenote : figures extracted from the marr report; see also monthly reports on af integration, for example memo, dir, pers plng, for osthagen (secaf office), mar , sub: distribution of negro personnel, secaf files.] despite the predictions of some analysts, the effect of (p.  ) integration on black recruitment proved to be negligible. in a service whose total strength remained about , men during the first year of integration, negroes numbered as follows (_table _): table --black strength in the air force percentage officer enlisted of air force date strength[ ] strength[ ] strength december not available not available . june ( ) , ( , ) . august ( ) , ( , ) . december ( ) , ( , ) . may ( ) , ( , ) . [tablenote : includes in parentheses the special category army personnel with air force (scarwaf), those soldiers assigned for duty in the air force but still administratively under the segregated army, leftovers from the department of defense reorganization of . figures extracted from marr report.] the air staff explained that the slight surge in black recruits in the early months of integration was related less to the new policy than to the abnormal recruiting conditions of the period. in addition to the backlog of negroes who for some time had been trying to enlist only to find the air force quota filled, there were many black volunteers who had turned to the quota-free air force when the army, its quota of negroes filled for some time, stopped recruiting negroes. with negroes serving in over , separate units there was no need to invoke the percent racial quota in individual units as vandenberg had ordered. one notable exception during the first months of the program was the air training command, where the rapid and unexpected reassignment of many black airmen caused some bases, james connally in texas, for example, to acquire a great many negroes while others received few or none. to prevent a recurrence of the connally experience and "to effect a smooth operation and proper adjustment of social importance," the commander of the air training command imposed an to percent black quota on his units and established a procedure for staggering the assignment of black airmen in small groups over a period of thirty to sixty days instead of assigning them to any particular base in one large increment. these quotas were not applied to the basic training flights, which were completely integrated. it was not uncommon to find black enlistees in charge of racially mixed training flights.[ - ] of all air force organizations, the training command received the greatest number of black airmen as a result of the screening and reassignment. (_table _) [footnote - : atc, "history of atc, july-december ," i: - ; new york _times_, september , .] table --racial composition of the training command, december (p.  ) a. flight training _percent_ _white_ _black_ _black_ officers , . enlisted , . total , . b. technical training officers , . enlisted , , . total , , . c. indoctrination (basic) training white , black , total , percent black . [a] d. officers candidate training (candidates graduating from november through december ) white black total percent black . e. course representation _base_ _no. of courses_[b] _no. of courses with blacks_ chanute warren keesler lowry scott sheppard [tablenote a: in january , probably as a result of a decline in backlog and the raising of enlistment standard to gct , this percentage dropped to . .] [tablenote b: negroes in percent of the courses offered as of dec .] _source_: kenworthy report. at the end of the first year under the new program, the acting deputy chief of staff for personnel, general nugent, informed zuckert that integration had progressed "rapidly, smoothly and virtually without incident."[ - ] in view of this fact and at nugent's recommendation, the air force canceled the monthly headquarters check on the program. [footnote - : memo, actg dcsper for zuckert, jul , usaf file no. , secaf files.] to some extent the air force's integration program ran away with itself. whatever their personal convictions regarding discrimination, senior air force officials had agreed that integration would be limited. they were most concerned with managerial problems associated with continued segregation of the black flying unit and the black specialists scattered worldwide. other black units were not considered an immediate problem. assistant secretary zuckert admitted as much in march when he reported that black service units would be retained since they performed a "necessary air force function."[ - ] as originally conceived, the air force plan was frankly imitative of the navy's postwar program, stressing merit and ability as the limiting factors of change. the air force promised to discharge all its substandard men, but those black airmen either ineligible for discharge or for reassignment to specialist duty would remain in segregated units. [footnote - : memo, asecaf for symington, mar , sub: salient factors of air force policy regarding negro personnel, secaf files.] yet once begun, the integration process quickly became universal. by the end of , for example, the air force had reduced the number of black units to nine with percent of its black airmen serving in integrated units. the number of black officers rose to , an (p.  ) increase of percent over the previous year, and black airmen to , , an increase of percent, although the proportion of blacks to whites continued to remain between and percent.[ - ] some eighteen months later only one segregated unit was left, a -man outfit, itself more than percent white. negroes were then serving in , integrated units.[ - ] [footnote - : _air force times_, february . these figures do not take into account the scarwaf (army personnel) who continued to serve in segregated units within the air force.] [footnote - : memo, depsecaf for manpower and organizations for asd/m, sep , secaf files.] there were several reasons for the universal application of what was conceived as a limited program. first, the air force was in a sense the captive of its own publicity. while secretary symington had carefully delineated the limits of his departmental plan for the personnel policy board in january , he was carried considerably beyond these limits when he addressed president truman in the open forum of the fahy committee's first formal meeting: as long as you mentioned the air force, sir, i just want to report to you that our plan is to completely eliminate segregation in the air force. for example, we have a fine group of colored boys. our plan is to take those boys, break up that fine group, and put them with the other units themselves and go right down the line all through these subdivisions one hundred percent.[ - ] [footnote - : transcript of the meeting of the president and the four service secretaries with the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services, jan , fc file, which reports the president's response as being "that's all right."] later, symington told the fahy committee that while the new program would probably temporarily reduce air force efficiency "we are ready, willing, and anxious to embark on this idea. we want to eliminate the fundamental aspect of class in this picture."[ - ] clearly, the retention of large black units was incompatible with the elimination of class distinctions. [footnote - : testimony of the secretary of the air force before the fahy committee, mar , afternoon session, p. .] the more favorable the publicity garnered by the plan in succeeding months, the weaker the distinction became between the limited integration of black specialists and total integration. reinforcing the favorable publicity were the monthly field reports that registered a steady drop in the number of black units and a corresponding rise in the number of integrated black airmen. this well-publicized progress provided another, almost irresistible reason for completing the task. more to the point, the success of the program provided its own impetus to total integration. the prediction that a significant number of black officers and men would be ineligible for reassignment or further training proved ill-founded. the air force, it turned out, had few untrainable men, and after the screening process and transfer of those eligible was completed, many black units were so severely reduced in strength that their inactivation became inevitable. the fear of white opposition that had inhibited the staff planners and local commanders also proved groundless. according to a fahy committee staff report in march , integration had been readily accepted at all levels and the process had been devoid of friction. "the men," e. w. (p.  ) kenworthy reported, "apparently were more ready for equality of treatment and opportunity than the officer corps had realized."[ - ] at the same time, kenworthy noted the effect of successful integration on the local commanders. freed from the charges of discrimination that had plagued them at every turn, most of the commanders he interviewed remarked on the increased military efficiency of their units and the improved utilization of their manpower that had come with integration. they liked the idea of a strictly competitive climate of equal standards rigidly applied, and some expected that the air force example would have an effect, eventually, on civilian attitudes.[ - ] [footnote - : kenworthy report, as quoted and commented on in memo, worthington thompson (personnel policy board staff) for leva, mar , sub: some highlights of fahy committee report on air force racial integration program, sd . .] [footnote - : ltr, kenworthy to zuckert, jan , secaf files.] [illustration: music makers _of the u.s. far east air force prepare to celebrate christmas, korea, _.] for the air force, it seemed, the problem of segregation was all over but for the celebrating. and there was plenty of that, thanks to the fahy committee and the press. in a well-publicized tour of a cross section of air force installations in early , kenworthy surveyed the integration program for the committee. his favorable report won the air force laudatory headlines in the national press and formed the core of the air force section of the fahy committee's final report, _freedom to serve_.[ - ] for its part, the black press covered the program in great detail and gave its almost unanimous approval. as early as july , for example, dowdal h. davis, president of the negro newspaper publishers association, reported on the highly encouraging reaction to the breakup of the d, and the headlines reflected this attitude: "the air force leads the way," the chicago _defender_ headlined; "salute to the air force," the minneapolis _spokesman_ editorialized; and "the swiftest and most amazing upset of racial policy in the history of the u.s. military," _ebony_ concluded. pointing to the air force program as the best, the pittsburgh _courier_ called the progress toward total integration "better than most dared hope."[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, the washington _post_, march , .] [footnote - : press reaction summarized in memo, james c. evans for ppb, jan , ppb . . see also, ltr, dowdal davis, gen manager of the kansas city _call_, to evans, jul , sd . ; memo, evans for secaf, jul ; and memo, zuckert for secaf, aug , both in secaf files; chicago _defender_, june , ; minneapolis _spokesman_, january , ; _ebony_ magazine, (september ): ; pittsburgh _courier_, july , ; detroit _free press_, may , .] general vandenberg and his staff were well aware of the rapid and (p.  ) profound change in the air force wrought by the integration order. from the start his personnel chief carefully monitored the program and reviewed the reports from the commands, ready to investigate any racial incidents or differences attributable to the new policy. the staff had expected a certain amount of testing of the new policy by both white and black troops, and with few exceptions the incidents reported turned out to be little more than that. some arose from attempts by negroes to win social acceptance at certain air force installations, but the majority of cases involved attempts by white airmen to introduce their black comrades into segregated off-base restaurants and theaters. two examples might stand for all. the first involved a transient black corporal who stopped off at the bolling air force base, washington, d.c., to get a haircut in a post exchange barbershop. he was refused service and in the absence of the post exchange officer he returned to the shop to trade words and eventually blows with the barber. the corporal was subsequently court-martialed, but the sentence was set aside by a superior court.[ - ] another case involved a small group of white airmen who ordered refreshments at a segregated lunch counter in san antonio, texas, for themselves "and a friend who would join them later." the friend, of course, was a black airman. the inspector general reported this incident to be just one of a number of attempts by groups of white and black airmen to integrate lunch counters and restaurants. in each case the commanders concerned cautioned their men against such action, and there were few reoccurrences.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, ig, usaf, for asecaf, jul , secaf files.] [footnote - : idem for dcsper, sep , copy in secaf files; see also acofs, g- , fourth army, ft. sam houston, summary of information, sep , copy in sa . .] the commanders' warnings were understandable because, as any official from secretary symington on down would quickly explain, the air force did not regard itself as being in the business of forcing changes in american society; it was simply trying to make the best use of its manpower to build military efficiency in keeping with its national defense mission.[ - ] but in the end the integration order proved effective on both counts. racial feelings, racial incidents, charges of discrimination, and the problems of procurement, training, and assignment always associated with racially designated units had been reduced by an appreciable degree or eliminated entirely. the problems anticipated from the mingling of blacks and whites in social situations had proved to be largely imaginary. the air force adopted a standard formula for dealing with these problems during the next decade. incidents involving black airmen were treated as individual incidents and dealt with on a personal basis like any ordinary disciplinary case. only when there was no alternative was an incident labeled "racial" and then the commander was expected to deal speedily and firmly with the troublemakers.[ - ] this sensible procedure freed the air force for a decade from the charges of on-base discrimination that had plagued it in the past. [footnote - : see, for example, memo, secaf for secdef, feb ; ltr, secaf to sen. burnet r. maybank, jul ; both in secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, evans, osd, for worthington thompson, may , sub: summary of topics reviewed in thompson's office may , sd . .] [illustration: maintenance crew, _ d strategic fighter squadron, disassembles aft section of an f- thunderstreak_.] without a doubt the new policy improved the air force's manpower (p.  ) efficiency, as the experience of the d installation group illustrates. a segregated unit serving at eglin air force base, florida, the d was composed of an all-black heavy maintenance and construction squadron, a black maintenance repair and utilities squadron, and an all-white headquarters and headquarters squadron. this rigid segregation had caused considerable trouble for the unit's personnel section, which was forced to assign men on the basis of color rather than military occupational specialty. for example, a white airman with mos , a truck driver, although assigned to the unit, could not be assigned to the heavy maintenance and construction squadron where his specialty was authorized but had to be assigned to the white headquarters squadron where his specialty was not authorized. clearly operating in an inefficient manner, the unit was charged with misassignment of personnel by the air inspector; in july it was swiftly and peaceably, if somewhat belatedly, integrated, and its three squadrons were converted to racially mixed units, allowing an airman to be assigned according to his training and not his color.[ - ] [footnote - : history officer, d installations groups, "history of the d installations group, july- october ," eglin afb, fla., pp. - .] the preoccupation of high officials with the effects of integration on a soldier's social life seemed at times out of keeping with the issues of national defense and military efficiency. at one of the fahy committee hearings, for instance, an exasperated charles fahy asked omar bradley, "general, are you running an army or a dance?"[ - ] yet social life on military bases at swimming pools, dances, bridge parties, and service clubs formed so great a part of the fabric of military life that the air force staff could hardly ignore the possibility of racial troubles in the countless social exchanges that characterized the day-to-day life in any large american institution. the social situation had been seriously considered before the new racial policy was approved. at that time the staff had predicted that problems developing out of integration would not prove insurmountable, and indeed on the basis of a year's experience a member of the air staff declared that (p.  ) at the point where the negro and the white person are actually in contact the problem has virtually disappeared. since all races of air force personnel work together under identical environmental conditions on the base, it is not unnatural that they participate together, to the extent that they desire, in certain social activities which are considered a normal part of service life. this type of integration has been entirely voluntary, without incident, and considerably more complete and more rapid than was anticipated.[ - ] [footnote - : this off-the-record comment occurred during the committee hearings in the pentagon and was related to the author by e. w. kenworthy in interview on october . see also memo, kenworthy to brig gen james l. collins, jr., oct , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : marr report.] [illustration: jet mechanics _work on an f- supersabre, foster air force base, texas_.] the air staff had imposed only two rules on interracial social activities: with due regard for sex and rank all air force facilities were available for the unrestricted use of all its members; troublemakers would get into trouble. under these inflexible rules, the fahy committee later reported, there was a steady movement in the direction of shared facilities. "here again, mutual respect engendered on the job or in the school seemed to translate itself into friendly association."[ - ] whether it liked it or not, the air force was in the business of social change. [footnote - : _freedom to serve_, p. .] typical of most unit reports was one from the commander of the st air transport wing, great falls air force base, montana, who wrote secretary symington that the unit's eighty-three negroes, serving in ten different organizations, lived and worked with white airmen "on an apparently equal and friendly basis."[ - ] the commander had been unable to persuade local community leaders, however, to promote equality of treatment outside the base, and beyond its movie theaters great falls had very few places that allowed black airmen. the commander was touching upon a problem that would eventually trouble all the services: airmen, he reported to secretary symington, although they have good food and entertainment on the base, sooner or later want to go to town, sit at a table, and order what they want. the air force was now coming into conflict with local custom which it could see no way to control. as the _air force times_ put it, "the air force, like the other services, feels circumspect policy in this regard is the only advisable one on the grounds that off-base segregation is a matter for civilian rather than military decision."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, col paul h. prentiss, cmdr, st at wing, to secaf, dec , secaf files.] [footnote - : _air force times_, february .] but this problem could not detract from what had been accomplished on the bases. judged by the standards it set for itself before the fahy committee, the air force had achieved its goals. further, they (p.  ) were achieved in the period between and when the percentage of blacks in the service doubled, an increase resulting from the defense department's qualitative distribution of manpower rather than the removal of the racial quota.[ - ] during these years the number of black airmen rose from . to . percent of the enlisted strength and the black officers from . to . percent. reviewing the situation in , _ebony_ noted that the program begun in was working well and that white men were accepting without question progressive racial practices forbidden in their home communities. minor racial flare-ups still occurred, but integration was no longer a major problem in the air force; it was a fact of life.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, ads(m), sep , sub: integration percentages, ads(m) . . for further discussion of the qualitative distribution program, see navy section, below.] [footnote - : "integration in the air force abroad," _ebony_ (march ): .] _the navy and executive order _ the changing government attitude toward integration in the late 's had less dramatic effect on the navy than upon the other services because the navy was already the conspicuous possessor of a racial policy guaranteeing equal treatment and opportunity for all its members. but as the fahy committee and many other critics insisted, the navy's equality guarantee was largely theoretical; its major racial problem was not one of policy but of practice as statistics demonstrated. it was true, for example, that the navy had abolished racial quotas in recruitment, yet the small number of black sailors-- , during , averaging . percent of the total strength--made the absence of a quota academic.[ - ] it was true that negroes served side by side with white sailors in almost every occupation and training program in the navy, but it was also a fact that percent of all negroes in the navy in were still assigned to the nonwhite steward's branch. this figure shows that as late as december fewer than , black sailors were serving in racially integrated assignments.[ - ] again, with only black officers, including nurses, in a average officer strength of , , it meant little to say that the navy had an integrated officer corps. a shadow had fallen, then, between the promise of the navy's policy and its fulfillment, partly because of indifferent execution. [footnote - : unless otherwise noted all statistics are from information supplied by the bureau of naval personnel. the exact percentage on july was . ; see memo for rcd, asd(m), sep , sub: integration percentages, asd(m) . .] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for under secnav, dec , sub: proposed report to chairman personnel policy board regarding the implementation of executive order , pers , genrecsnav.] submitted to and approved by the secretary of defense, the new navy plan announced on june called for a specific series of measures to bring departmental practices into line with policy.[ - ] once he had gained johnson's approval, secretary of the navy matthews did not tarry. on june he issued an explicit statement to all ships and stations, abjuring racial distinctions in the navy and marine (p.  ) corps and ordering that all personnel be enlisted or appointed, trained, advanced or promoted, assigned and administered without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.[ - ] admirable and comprehensive, matthew's statement scarcely differed in intent from his predecessor's general declaration of equal treatment and opportunity of december and the more explicit directive of the chief of naval operations on the same subject on february . yet despite the close similarity, a reiteration was clearly necessary. as even the most ardent apologist for the navy's postwar racial policy would admit, these groundbreaking statements had not done the job, and, to satisfy the demands of the fahy committee and the secretary of defense, secretary matthews had to convince his subordinates that the demand for equal treatment and opportunity was serious and had to be dealt with immediately. his specific mention of the marine corps and the problems of enlistment, assignment, and promotion, subjects ignored in the earlier directives, represented a start toward the reform of his department's racial practices currently out of step with its expressed policy. [footnote - : memo, secnav for secdef, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces, copy in fc file.] [footnote - : alnav - , which remained in force until march when secnav instruction . superseded it without substantial change.] yet a restatement of policy, no matter how specific, was not enough. as under secretary dan a. kimball admitted, the navy had the formidable task of convincing its own people of the sincerity of its policy and of erasing the distrust that had developed in the black community "resulting from past discriminating practices."[ - ] those who were well aware of the navy's earlier failure to achieve integration by fiat were bound to greet secretary matthews's directive with skepticism unless it was accompanied by specific reforms. matthews, aware of the necessity, immediately inaugurated a campaign to recruit more black sailors, commission more black officers, and remove the stigma attached to service in the steward's branch. [footnote - : memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , sub: implementation of executive order , ppb . .] it was logical enough to start a reform of the navy's integration program by attacking the perennial problem of too few negroes in the general service. in his annual report to the secretary of defense, matthews outlined some of the practical steps the navy was taking to attract more qualified young blacks. the bureau of naval personnel, he explained, planned to assign black sailors and officers to its recruiting service. as a first step it assigned eight negroes to recruitment procurement school and subsequently to recruit duty in eight major cities with further such assignments planned when current manpower ceilings were lifted.[ - ] [footnote - : secnav, annual report to secdef, fy , p. ; memo, under secnav chmn, ppb, dec , sub: implementation of executive order , ppb . .] the bureau of naval personnel had also polled black reservists on the possibility of returning to active duty on recruiting assignments, and from this group had chosen five officers for active duty in the new york, philadelphia, washington, detroit, and chicago recruiting offices. at the same time black officers and petty officers were sent to extol the advantages of a naval career before black student (p.  ) bodies and citizen groups.[ - ] their performances were exceedingly well received. the executive secretary of the dayton, ohio, urban league, for example, thanked secretary matthews for the appearances of lieutenant nelson before groups of students, reporters, and community leaders in the city. the lieutenant, he added, not only "clearly and effectively interpreted the opportunities open to negro youth in the united states navy" but also "greatly accelerated" the community's understanding of the navy's integration program.[ - ] nelson, himself, had been a leading advocate of an accelerated public relations program to advertise the opportunities for negroes in the navy.[ - ] the personnel bureau had adopted his suggestion that all recruitment literature, including photographs testifying to the fact that negroes were serving in the general service, be widely distributed in predominantly black institutions. manpower ceilings, however, had forced the bureau to postpone action on nelson's suggestion that posters, films, pamphlets, and the like be used.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir, recruiting div, bupers, for admin aide to secnav, dec , sub: negro officer in recruiting on the west coast; ltr, secnav to actg exec dir, urban league, los angeles, dec ; both in pers b , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : ltr, charles w. washington, exec secy, dayton, ohio, urban league, to secnav, oct , copy in pers , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, nelson for charles durham, fahy committee, sub: implementation of proposed navy racial policy, jun , fc file.] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , sub: implementation of executive order , ppb . .] an obvious concomitant to the increase in the number of black sailors was an increase in the number of black officers. the personnel bureau was well aware of this connection; comdr. luther c. heinz, officer in charge of naval reserve officer training, called the shortage of negroes in his program a particularly important problem. he promised, "in accord with the desires of the president," as he put it, to increase black participation in the naval reserve officers' training corps, and his superior, the chief of naval personnel, started a program in the bureau for that purpose.[ - ] with the help of the national urban league, heinz arranged a series of lectures by black officers at forty-nine black schools and other institutions to interest negroes in the navy's reserve officers program. in august , for example, ens. wesley brown, the first negro to be graduated from annapolis, addressed gatherings in chicago on the opportunities for negroes as naval officers.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, off in charge, nrotc tng, for chief, plans & policy div, bupers, jul , sub: nrotc personnel problems, pers , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : ltr, granger to chief, navpers, aug , pers , bupersrecs.] at the same time the bureau of naval personnel wrote special press releases, arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the black press, and distributed publicity materials in predominantly black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men that race was no bar to their selection. in this connection commander heinz bid for and received an invitation to address the urban league's annual conference in august to outline the navy's program. the chief of naval personnel, rear adm. thomas l. sprague, also (p.  ) arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the program--professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and the like. in states where such assignments were considered acceptable, sprague planned to appoint negroes to selection committees.[ - ] in a related move he also ordered that when local law or custom required the segregation of facilities used for the administration of qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the navy would use its own facilities for testing. this ruling was used when the examinations were given in atlanta and new orleans; to the delight of the black press the navy transferred the test site to its nearby facilities.[ - ] these efforts had some positive effect. in alone some , black youths indicated an interest in the naval reserve officers' training corps by submitting applications.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir of tng, bupers, for chief, navpers, jul ; ltr, granger to cmdr luther heinz, aug ; ltr, heinz to granger, aug . all in pers , bupersrecs. see also interv, author with nelson, may , and ltr, nelson to author, feb , both in cmh files.] [footnote - : ltr, chief, navpers, to cmdt, all continental naval dists, mar , pers , bupersrecs; memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , ppb . .] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , ppb . .] despite these well-intentioned efforts, the navy failed to increase significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next decade (_table _). the percentage of negroes in the navy increased so slowly that not until , in the wake of the great manpower buildup during the korean war, did it exceed the figure. although the percentage of black enlistments increased significantly at times--approximately percent of all enlistments in were black, for example--the proportion of negroes in the navy's enlisted ranks was only . percent higher in than in . while the number of black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it was still considerably less than percent of the total officer strength, well below army and air force percentages. table --black manpower, u.s. navy a. enlisted strength _percent _year_ _total strength_ _black strength_ black_ , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . , , . b. percentage of blacks enlisted in steward's and other branches _year_ _steward's branch_ _other branches_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c. officer strength (selected years) _year_ _black officers on active duty_ _total officers_ , , , , _source_: bupers, personnel statistics branch. see especially bupers, "memo on discrimination of the negro," jan , baf - . bupers technical library. all figures represent yearly averages. the navy had an explanation for the small number of negroes. the reduced manpower ceilings imposed on the navy, even during the korean war, had caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. at the same time, with the brief exception of the korean war, the navy had depended on volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety or higher on the general classification test. the percentage of those who scored above ninety was lower for blacks than for whites-- percent against percent, a ratio, naval spokesmen suggested, that explained the enlistment figures. furthermore, the low enlistment quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to volunteer. all applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly screened, and competition was so keen that any negroes accepted for the monthly quota had to be extraordinarily well qualified.[ - ] [footnote - : for a public expression of these sentiments see, for example, ltr, capt r. b. ellis, policy control br, bupers, to president of birmingham, ala., branch, naacp, mar , pers mm, genrecsnav.] what the navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and decline in the navy's black strength during the 's was intimately related to the number of group iv enlistees being forced on the services under the provisions of the defense department's program (p.  ) for the qualitative distribution of manpower. each service was required to accept percent of all recruits in group iv from fiscal year to , percent in fiscal year , and percent thereafter. between and the navy accepted well above the required percent of group iv men, but in fiscal year took only . percent, and in only . percent. in , with the knowledge of the secretary of defense, all the services took in fewer of the group iv's than the distribution program required, but justified the reduction on the grounds that declining strength made it necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. in a move endorsed by the navy, the air force finally requested in that the qualitative distribution program be held in abeyance. on the basis of this request the navy temporarily ceased to accept all group iv and some group iii men, but resumed recruiting them when it seemed likely that the (p.  ) secretary of defense would refuse the request.[ - ] [footnote - : bupers, "memo on discrimination of the negro," january , pers a , bupers tech library.] [illustration: christmas in korea, .] the correlation between the rise and fall of the group iv enlistments and the percentage of negroes in the navy shows that all the increases in black strength between and came not through the navy's publicized and organized effort to attract the qualified black volunteers it had promised the fahy committee, but from the men forced upon it by the defense department's distribution program. the correlation also lends credence to the charges of some of the civil rights critics who saw another reason for the shortage of negroes. they claimed that there had been no drop in the number of applicants but that fewer negroes were being accepted by navy recruiters. one naacp official claimed that negroes were "getting the run around." those who had fulfilled all enlistment requirements were not being informed, and others were being given false information by recruiters. he concluded that the navy was operating under an unwritten policy of filling recruit quotas with whites, accepting negroes only when whites were unavailable.[ - ] if these accusations were true, the navy was denying itself the services of highly qualified black applicants at a time when the defense department's qualitative distribution program was forcing it to take large numbers of the less gifted. certainly the number of negroes capable of moving up the career and promotion ladder was reduced and the navy left vulnerable to further charges of discrimination. [footnote - : ltr, exec secy, birmingham, ala., branch, naacp, to chief, navpers, mar , pers a, genrecsnav.] as for the shortage of officers, nelson cited the awareness among candidates that promotions were slower for blacks in the navy than in the other services where there was "less caste and class to buck."[ - ] nelson was aware that out of the , blacks who had indicated an interest in the reserve officer training program in only actually took the aptitude tests. of these, only two passed the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. an urban league spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out of fear of failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program was not entirely open to all regardless of race.[ - ] reinforcing this suspicion was the fact that, despite the intentions of the (p.  ) bureau of naval personnel and the navy's increasing control over the appointment process, as of not a single negro had been appointed to any of the -man state selection committees on reserve officer training.[ - ] also to be considered, as the american civil liberties union later pointed out, was the promotion record of black officers. as late as no black officer had ever commanded a ship, and while both black and white officers started up the same promotion ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff billets.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with nelson, , in nichols collection; ltr, nelson to author, feb ; both in cmh files.] [footnote - : quoted in memo, dir of tng, bupers, for chief, navpers, jul , pers , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo for rcd, evans, jun , sub: nrotc boards, asd/m . .] [footnote - : ltr, exec dir, aclu, to secnav, nov , genrecsnav.] [illustration: rearming at sea. _ordnancemen at work on the deck of the uss philippine sea, off korea, october ._] given the pressure on the personnel bureau to develop some respectable black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated, black recruits can be blamed on widespread subterfuge at the recruiting level. far more likely is the explanation offered by under secretary kimball, that the black community distrusted the navy.[ - ] first apparent in the 's, this distrust lasted throughout the next decade as young negroes continued to show a general apathy toward the navy, which at times turned into open hostility. in september the chief of naval personnel reported that recruiters were not infrequently being treated to "booing, hissing and other disorderly conduct" when they tried to discuss the opportunities for naval careers before black audiences.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , sub: implementation of executive order , ppb . .] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for pers b, sep , copy in harris wofford collection, j. f. kennedy library.] the navy's poor reputation in the black community centered on the continued existence of the racially separate servants' branch, in the eyes of many the symbol of the service's racial exclusiveness. the steward's branch remained predominantly black. in it had , negroes, , filipinos, other nonwhites, and white man. chief stewards continued to be denied the grade of chief petty officer, on the grounds that since stewards were not authorized to exercise military command over others than stewards because of their lack of military training, chief stewards were not chiefs in the military sense of the word. this difference in authority also explained, as the chief of naval personnel put it, why as a general rule chief stewards were not quartered with other petty officers.[ - ] these (p.  ) distinctions were true also for stewards in the first, second, and third classes, a fact in their case symbolized by differences in uniform. most of the thousands of black stewards continued to be recruited, trained, and employed exclusively in that branch, and thus for over half the negroes-- percent--in the navy the chance for advancement was severely limited and the chance to qualify for a different job almost nonexistent. [footnote - : testimony of vice adm william m. fechteler before the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services (the fahy cmte), mar , p. .] [illustration: broadening skills. _stewards on the uss valley forge volunteer for classes leading to advancement in other fields, korea, ._] the navy instituted several changes in the branch in the wake of the fahy committee's recommendations. on july the chief of naval personnel ordered all chief stewards designated chief petty officers with all the prerogatives of that status; in precedence they came immediately after chief dental technicians,[ - ] who were at the bottom of the list. that the change was limited to chief stewards did not go unnoticed. joseph evans of the fahy committee staff charged that the bureau "seemed to have ordered this to accede to the committee's recommendations never intending to go beyond chief stewards."[ - ] nelson, by now a sort of unofficial ombudsman and gadfly for black sailors, urged his superiors to broaden the reform, and kimball warned admiral sprague that limiting the change to chief stewards might be "justified on the literal statement of (p.  ) intention, but is vulnerable to criticism of continued discrimination." without compelling reasons to the contrary, he added, "i do not feel that we can afford to risk any possible impression of reluctant implementation of the spirit of the directive."[ - ] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , jul .] [footnote - : memo, evans for fahy cmte, aug , sub: progress in navy, fahy papers, truman library.] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for chief, navpers, aug , mm ( ) genrecsnav.] admiral sprague got the point, and on august he announced that effective with the new year, stewards--first, second, and third class--would be designated petty officers with appropriate pay, prerogatives, and precedence, and that their uniforms would be changed to conform to those of other petty officers. he also amended the bureau's manual to allow commanding officers to change the ratings of stewards without headquarters approval, thus enlarging the opportunity for stewards, in all other respects qualified, to transfer into other ratings.[ - ] these reforms brought about a slow but steady change in the assignment of black sailors. between january and august , the percentage of negroes in the general service rose from to percent of the navy's , man black strength, with a corresponding drop in the percentage of those assigned to the steward's branch.[ - ] [footnote - : bupers cir ltr - , aug . see also memo, under secnav for chmn, ppb, dec , sub: implementation of executive order , ppb . ; memo, chief, navpers, for secnav, may , sub: equality of treatment and opportunity, pers , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, dir, plans and policy, bupers, for capt brooke schumm, usn, ppb, jul , sub: secretary of defense semi-annual report, negro enlisted personnel data for, pers b; memo, head, strength and statistics br, bupers, for head, technical info br, bupers, aug , sub: information requested by lcdr d. d. nelson concerning negro strength, pers a ; both in bupersrecs.] yet these reforms were modest in terms of the pressing need for a substantive change in the racial composition of the steward's branch. despite the changes in assignment policy, the steward's branch was still nearly percent black in , and the rest were mostly filipino citizens under contract. secretary of the navy kimball's observation that stewards had transferred out of the branch in a recent four-month period hardly promised any speedy change in the current percentages.[ - ] in fact there was evidence even at that late date that some staff members in the personnel bureau were working at cross-purposes to the navy's expressed policy. worried about the shortages of volunteers for the steward's branch, a group of officials had met in august to discuss ways of improving branch morale. some suggested publicizing the branch to the black press and schools, showing that negroes were in all branches of the navy including the steward's. they also studied a pamphlet called "the advantages of stewards duty in the navy" that gave nine reasons why a man should become a steward.[ - ] [footnote - : kimball was sworn in as secretary of the navy on july . ltr, secnav to granger, nov , secnav files, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : bupers, plans and policy div, "review of suggestions and recommendations to improve standards, morale, and attitudes toward stewards branch of u.s. navy" (ca. aug ), bupersrecs.] obviously the navy had to set a steady course if it intended any lasting racial reform of the steward's branch, but its leaders seemed ambivalent toward the problem. despite his earlier efforts to raise the status of stewards, kimball, in a variation on an old postwar argument, tried to show that the exclusiveness of the steward's (p.  ) branch actually worked to the negro's advantage. as he explained to lester granger in november , any action to effect radical or wholesale changes in ratings "would not only tend to reduce the efficiency of the navy, but also in many instances be to the disadvantage or detriment of the individuals concerned, particularly those in the senior steward ratings."[ - ] supporting this line of argument, the chief of naval personnel announced the reenlistment figures for the steward's branch--over percent during the korean war period. these figures, vice admiral james l. holloway, jr., added, proved the branch to be the most popular in the navy and offered "a rational measure of the state of the morale and job satisfaction."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav for granger, nov , secnav files, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : ltrs, chief, navpers, to james c. evans, osd, jun , and granger, jul , both in p ( ), bupersrecs.] these explanations still figured prominently in the navy's defense of its racial statistics. discussing the matter at a white house meeting of civil rights leaders, the chief of naval personnel pointed out that all the black stewards could be replaced with filipinos, but the navy had refrained from such a course for several reasons. the branch still had the highest reenlistment rate. it provided jobs for those group iv men the navy was obliged to accept but could never use in technical billets. without the opportunity provided by the branch, moreover, "many of the rated black stewards would probably not achieve a petty officer rating at all."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for pers b, sep , harris wofford collection, j. f. kennedy library. see also memo, chief, navpers, for asd/m, mar , sub: stewards in u.s. navy, pers ( ), bupersrecs; memo, special asst to secdef, adam yarmolinsky, for frederic dutton, special asst to president, oct , sub: yarmolinsky memo of october , harris wofford collection, j. f. kennedy library.] however well founded these arguments were, they did not satisfy the navy's critics, who continued to press for the establishment of one recruitment standard and the assignment of men on the basis of interest and training rather than race. lester granger, for example, warned secretary kimball of the skepticism that persisted among sections of the black community: "as long as that branch [the steward's branch] is composed entirely of nonwhite personnel, the navy is apt to be held by some to be violating its own stated policy."[ - ] to kimball's successor, robert b. anderson,[ - ] granger was even more blunt. the steward's branch, he declared, was "a constant irritant to the negro public." he saw some logical reason for the continued concentration of negroes in the branch but added "logic does not necessarily imply wisdom and i sincerely believe that it is unwise from the standpoint of efficiency and public relations to continue the stewards branch on its present basis."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, oct , secnav files, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : secretary anderson, appointed by president eisenhower, became secretary of the navy on february .] [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, apr , secnav files, genrecsnav.] granger's suggestion for change was straightforward. he wanted the bureau of naval personnel to find a way to introduce a sufficiently large number of whites into the branch to transform its racial composition. the task promised to be difficult if the charges leveled in the detroit _free press_ were accurate. in may the paper (p.  ) reported incidents of naval recruiting officers who, "by one ruse or another," were shunting young volunteers, sometimes without their knowledge, into the steward's branch.[ - ] [footnote - : detroit _free press_, may , .] granger's suggestions were taken up by secretary anderson, who announced his intention of integrating the steward's branch and ordered the chief of naval personnel to draw up plans to that end.[ - ] to devise some practical measures for handling the problem, the personnel bureau brought back to active duty three officers who had been important to the development of the navy's integration policy. their study produced three recommendations: abolish the segregation of the steward's branch from the general service and separate recruitment for its members; consider consolidating the branch with the predominantly white commissary branch; and change the steward's insignia.[ - ] [footnote - : up news release, september , , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, cmdr durwood w. gilmore, usnr et al., to chief, navpers, vice adm j. l. holloway, jr., aug , p ( ), bupersrecs.] the group acknowledged that the steward's branch was a "sore spot with the negroes, and is our weakest position from the standpoint of public relations," and two of their recommendations were obviously aimed at immediate improvement of public relations. combining the messmen and commissary specialists would of course create an integrated branch, which granger estimated would be only percent black, and would probably provide additional opportunities for promotions, but in the end it could not mask the fact that a high proportion of black sailors were employed in food service and valet positions. nor was it clear how changing the familiar crescent insignia, symbolic of the steward's duties, would change the image of a separate group that still performed the most menial duties. long-term reform, everyone agreed, demanded the presence of a significant number of whites in the branch, and there was strong evidence that the general service contained more than a few group iv white sailors. the group's proposal to abolish separate recruiting would probably increase the number of blacks in the general service and eliminate the possibility that unsuspecting black recruits would be dragooned into a messman's career; both were substantial reforms but did not guarantee that whites would be attracted or assigned to the branch. admiral holloway was concerned about this latter point, which dominated his discussions with the secretary of the navy on september . he had, he told anderson, discussed with his recruiting specialists the possibility of recruiting white sailors for the branch, and while they all agreed that whites must not be induced to join by "improper procedures," such as preferential recruitment to escape the draft, they felt that whites could be attracted to steward duty by skillful recruiters, especially in areas of the country where industrial integration had already been accomplished. his bureau was considering the abolition of separate recruiting, but to make specific recommendations on matters involving the stewards he had created an ad hoc committee, under the deputy chief of naval personnel and composed of (p.  ) representatives of the other bureaus. when he received this committee's views, holloway promised to take "definite administrative action."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for secnav, sep , sub: mr. granger's visit and related matters, pers, genrecsnav.] [illustration: integrated stewards class graduates, great lakes, .] the three recommendations of the reservist experts did not survive intact the ad hoc committee's scrutiny. at the committee's suggestion, holloway rejected the proposed merger of the commissary and steward functions on the grounds that such a move was unnecessary in an era of high reenlistment. he also decided that stewards would retain their branch insignia. he did approve, however, in a decision announced on february , putting an end to the separate recruitment of stewards with the exception of the contract enlistment of filipino citizens. as anderson assured congressman adam clayton powell of new york, only after recruit training and "with full knowledge of the opportunities in various categories of administrative specialties" would an enlistee be allowed to volunteer for messman's duty.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to congressman adam c. powell, mar , secnav files, genrecsnav.] admiral holloway promised a further search for ways to eliminate "points of friction" regarding the stewards, and naval officials discussed the problem with civil rights leaders and defense department officials on several occasions in the next years.[ - ] the (p.  ) special assistant to the secretary of defense, adam yarmolinsky, reported in that the bureau of naval personnel "was not sanguine" about recruiting substantial numbers of white seamen for the steward's branch.[ - ] in answer, the chief of naval personnel could only point out that no matter what their qualifications or ambitions all men assigned to the steward's branch were volunteers. as one commentator observed, white sailors were very rarely attracted to the messmen's field because of its reputation as a black specialty.[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, asd/m, thursday reports, jan and apr , copies in dep asd (civil rights) files; see also memo, chief, navpers, for special asst to secdef, mar , sub: stewards in u.s. navy, bupersrecs.] [footnote - : memo, adam yarmolinsky for fred dutton, oct , sub: yarmolinsky memo of october , harris wofford collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : greenberg, _race relations and american law_, p. .] nevertheless, by a definite pattern of change had emerged in the steward's branch. the end of separate recruitment drastically cut the number of negroes entering the rating, while the renewed emphasis on transferring eligible chief stewards to other specialties somewhat reduced the number of negroes already in the branch. between and , some men out of the , tested transferred to other rating groups or fields. the substantial drop in black strength resulting from these changes combined with a corresponding rise in the number of contract messmen from the western pacific region reduced for the first time in some thirty years negroes in the steward's branch to a minority. even for those remaining in the branch, life changed considerably. separate berthing for stewards, always justified on the grounds of different duties and hours, was discontinued, and the amount of time spent by stewards at sea, with the varied military work that sea duty involved, was increased.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, chief, navpers, for special asst to secdef, mar , sub: stewards in u.s. navy, pers ( ), genrecsnav.] if these changes caused by the increased enlistment of stewards from the western pacific relieved the steward's branch of its reputation as the black man's navy, they also perpetuated the notion that servants' duties were for persons of dark complexion. the debate over a segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the navy since was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to change against its will. to some extent the navy in the 's failed to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about the stewards. in the fifties the navy expended considerable time and energy advertising for black officer candidates and recruits whom they guaranteed a genuinely equal chance to participate in all specialties, but these efforts were to some extent dismissed by critics as not germane. in , for example, only negroes served in the glamorous submarine assignments and even fewer in the naval air service.[ - ] yet this obvious underrepresentation caused no great outcry from the black community. what did cause bitterness and (p.  ) protest in an era of aroused racial pride was the fact that servants' duties fell almost exclusively on nonwhite americans. that these duties were popular--the percent reenlistment rate in the steward's branch continued throughout the decade and the transfer rate into the branch almost equaled the transfer out--was disregarded by many of the more articulate spokesmen, who considered the branch an insult to the black public. as congressman powell informed the navy in , "no one is interested in today's world in fighting communism with a frying pan or shoe polish."[ - ] although statistics showed nearly half the black sailors employed in other than menial tasks, powell voiced the mood of a large segment of the black community. [footnote - : the navy commissioned its first black pilot, ens. jesse l. brown, in . he was killed in action in korea.] [footnote - : ltr, powell to john floberg, asst secnav for air, jun , secnav files, genrecsnav.] [illustration: wave recruits, _naval training center, bainbridge, maryland, _.] the fahy committee had acknowledged that manpower statistics alone were not a reliable index of equal opportunity. convinced that negroes were getting a full and equal chance to enlist in the general service and compete for officer commissions, the committee had approved the navy's policy, trusting to time and equal opportunity to produce the desired result. unfortunately for the navy, there would be many critics both in and out of government in the 's who disagreed with the committee's trust in time and good intentions, for equal opportunity would remain very much a matter of numbers and percentages. in an (p.  ) era when a premium would be placed on the size of minority membership, the palm would go to the other services. "the blunt fact is," granger reminded the secretary of the navy in , "that as a general rule the most aspiring negro youth are apt to have the least interest in a navy career, chiefly because the army and air force have up to now captured the spotlight."[ - ] a decade later the statement still held. [footnote - : ltr, granger to secnav, jan , secnav files, genrecsnav.] [illustration: admiral gravely (_ portrait_).] it was ironic that black youth remained aloof from the navy in the 's when the way of life for negroes on shipboard and at naval bases had definitely taken a turn for the better. the general service was completely integrated, although the black proportion, . percent in , was still far less than might reasonably be expected, considering the black population.[ - ] negroes were being trained in every job classification and attended all the navy's technical schools. although not yet represented in proportionate numbers in the top grades within every rating, negroes served in all ratings in every branch, a fact favorably noticed in the metropolitan press.[ - ] black officers, still shockingly out of proportion to black strength, were not much more so than in the other services and were serving more often with regular commissions in the line as well as on the staff. their lack of representation in the upper ranks demonstrated that the climb to command was slow and arduous even when the discriminatory tactics of earlier times had been removed. in the navy could finally announce that a black officer, lt. comdr. samuel l. gravely, jr., had been ordered to command a destroyer escort, the uss _falgout_.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd/m for sa et al., nov , sub: manuscript on the negro in the armed forces, secdef . .] [footnote - : see new york _herald tribune_, december , , and new york post, march , .] [footnote - : gravely would eventually become the first black admiral in the u.s. navy.] but how were these changes being accepted among the rank and file? comments from official sources and civil rights groups alike showed the leaven of racial tolerance at work throughout the service.[ - ] reporter lee nichols, interviewing members of all the services in (p.  ) ,[ - ] found that whites expected blacks to prove themselves in their assignments while blacks were skeptical that equal opportunities for assignment were really open to them. yet the nichols interviews reveal a strain of pride and wonderment in the servicemen at the profound changes they had witnessed. [footnote - : see, for example, ltr, exec secy, president's cmte on equal treatment and opportunity in the armed services, to cno, jun , fc file; memo, chief, navpers, for secnav, bupersrecs; memo, asd/m for sa et al., nov , sub: manuscript on the negro in the armed forces, secdef . ; ltr, exec secy, aclu, to secnav, nov , secnav files, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : nichols's sampling, presented in the form of approximately a hundred interviews with men and women from all the services, was completely unscientific and informal and was undertaken for the preparation of his book, _breakthrough on the color front_. considering their timing, the interviews supply an interesting sidelight to the integration period. they are included in the nichols collection, cmh.] in time integrated service became routine throughout the navy, and instances of negroes in command of integrated units increased. bigots of both races inevitably remained, and the black community continued to resent the separate steward's branch, but the sincerity of the navy's promise to integrate the service seemed no longer in doubt. chapter (p.  ) the army integrates the integration of the united states army was not accomplished by executive fiat or at the demand of the electorate. nor was it the result of any particular victory of the civil rights advocates over the racists. it came about primarily because the definition of military efficiency spelled out by the fahy committee and demonstrated by troops in the heat of battle was finally accepted by army leaders. the army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as indeed it had always, but this time efficiency led the service unmistakably toward integration. _race and efficiency: _ the army's postwar planners based their low estimate of the black soldier's ability on the collective performance of the segregated black units in world war ii and assumed that social unrest would result from mixing the races. the army thus accepted an economically and administratively inefficient segregated force in peacetime to preserve what it considered to be a more dependable fighting machine for war. insistence on the need for segregation in the name of military efficiency was also useful in rationalizing the prejudice and thoughtless adherence to traditional practice which obviously played a part in the army's tenacious defense of its policy. an entirely different conclusion, however, could be drawn from the same set of propositions. the fahy committee, for example, had clearly demonstrated the inefficiency of segregation, and more to the point, some senior army officials, in particular secretary gray and chief of staff collins, had come to question the conventional pattern. explaining later why he favored integration ahead of many of his contemporaries, collins drew on his world war ii experience. the major black ground units in world war ii, and to a lesser degree the th pursuit squadron, he declared, "did not work out." nor, he concluded, did the smaller independent black units, even those commanded by black officers, who were burdened with problems of discipline and inefficiency. on the other hand, the integrated infantry platoons in europe, with which collins had personal experience, worked well. his observations had convinced him that it was "pointless" to support segregated black units, and while the matter had "nothing to do with sociology itself," he reasoned that if integration worked at the platoon level "why not on down the line?" the best plan, he believed, was to assign two negroes to each squad in the army, always assuming that the quota limiting the total number of black soldiers would be preserved.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with collins.] but the army had promised the fahy committee in april it (p.  ) would abolish the quota. if carried out, such an agreement would complicate an orderly and controlled integration, and collins's desire for change was clearly tempered by his concern for order and control. so long as peacetime manpower levels remained low and inductions through the draft limited, a program such as the one contemplated by the chief of staff was feasible, but any sudden wartime expansion would change all that. fear of such a sudden change combined with the strong opposition to integration still shared by most army officials to keep the staff from any initiative toward integration in the period immediately after the fahy committee adjourned. even before gray and collins completed their negotiations with the fahy committee, they were treated by the chamberlin board to yet another indication of the scope of army staff opposition to integration. gray had appointed a panel of senior officers under lt. gen. stephen j. chamberlin on september in fulfillment of his promise to review the army's racial policy periodically "in the light of changing conditions and experiences of this day and time."[ - ] after sitting four months and consulting more than sixty major army officials and some officers and men, the board produced a comprehensive summary of the army's racial status based on test scores, enlistment rates, school figures, venereal disease rates, opinion surveys, and the like. [footnote - : memo, sa for lt gen stephen j. chamberlin, nov , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the army, csgpa . . see also dir, p&a, summary sheet to cofs, nov , sub: board to study the utilization of negro manpower in peacetime army, csgpa . , and tag to chamberlin, nov , same sub, ag ( nov ). in addition to chamberlin, the board included maj. gen. withers a. buress, commanding general of the infantry center; maj. gen. john m. divine, commanding general of th infantry division, fort dix; and col. m. vanvoorst, personnel and administration division, as recorder without vote.] the conclusions and recommendations of the chamberlin board represent perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a segregated army.[ - ] the army's postwar racial policy and related directives, the board assured secretary gray, were sound, were proving effective, and should be continued in force. it saw only one objection to segregated units: black units had an unduly high proportion of men with low classification test scores, a situation, it believed, that could be altered by raising the entrance level and improving training and leadership. at any rate, the board declared, this disadvantage was a minor one compared to the advantages of an organization that did not force negroes into competition they were unprepared to face, did not provoke the resentment of white soldiers with the consequent risk of lowered combat effectiveness, and avoided placing black officers and noncommissioned officers in command of white troops, "a position which only the exceptional negro could successfully fill." [footnote - : memo, gen chamberlin et al. for sa, feb , sub: report of board of officers on utilization of negro manpower in the army, ag . ( dec ). a copy of the report and many of the related and supporting documents are in cmh.] a decision on these matters, the board stated, had to be based on combat effectiveness, not the use of black manpower, and what constituted maximum effectiveness was best left to the judgment of war-tested combat leaders. these men, "almost without exception," vigorously opposed integration. ignoring the army's continuing (p.  ) negotiations with the fahy committee on the matter, the board called for retaining the percent quota. to remove the quota without imposing a higher entrance standard, it argued, would result in an influx of negroes "with a corresponding deterioration of combat efficiency." in short, ignoring the political and budgetary realities of the day, the board called on secretary gray to repudiate the findings of the fahy committee and the stipulations of executive order and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully regulated percentage of black members. while gray and collins let the recommendations of the chamberlin board go unanswered, they did very little to change the army's racial practices in the year following their agreements with the fahy committee. the periodic increase in the number of critical specialties for which negroes were to be trained and freely assigned did not materialize. the number of trained black specialists increased, and some were assigned to white units, but this practice, while substantially different from the gillem board's idea of limiting such integration to overhead spaces, nevertheless produced similar results. black specialists continued to be assigned to segregated units in the majority of cases, and in the minds of most commanders such assignment automatically limited black soldiers to certain jobs and schools no matter what their qualifications. kenworthy's blunt conclusion in may was that the army had not carried out the policy it had agreed to.[ - ] certainly the army staff had failed to develop a successful mechanism for gauging its commanders' compliance with its new policy. despite the generally progressive sentiments of general collins and secretary gray's agreement with the fahy committee, much of the army clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons. [footnote - : kenworthy, "the case against army segregation," p. .] the catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and practices was the korean war. ranking among the nation's major conflicts, the war caused the army to double in size in five months. by june it numbered . million, with , men serving in korea in the eighth army. this vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the army's racial policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free army. when the quota was lifted in april , negroes accounted for . percent of the total enlisted strength; by august this figure reached . percent. on january , negroes comprised . percent of the army, and in december the ratio was . percent. the cause of this striking rise in black strength was the large number of negroes among wartime enlistments. the percentage of negroes among those enlisting in the army for the first time jumped from . in march to . in august, averaging percent of all first-term enlistments during the first nine months of the war. black reenlistment increased from . to . percent of the total reenlistment during the same period, and the percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied by selective service averaged percent.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, g- for vcofs, sub: negro statistics, jun - oct , cs . negro; idem for g- , apr , sub: training spaces for negro personnel, ops . ; memo, chief, mil opers management branch, g- , for g- , feb , sub: distribution of negro manpower in the army, g- . , and memo, chief, procurement and distribution div, g- , for g- , oct , same sub and file.] [illustration: moving up. _ th division infantrymen head for the front, korea, july ._] the effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. (p.  ) by april , black units throughout the army were reporting large overstrengths, some as much as percent over their authorized organization tables. overstrength was particularly evident in the combat arms because of the steady increase in the number of black soldiers with combat occupational specialties. largely assigned to service units during world war ii--only percent, about half the white percentage, were in combat units--negroes after the war were assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties in keeping with the gillem board recommendation that they be trained in all branches of the service. by some percent of all black soldiers were in combat units, and by june they were being assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, percent.[ - ] [footnote - : stm- , strength of the army, sep , mar , and jul .] the chief of staff's concern with the army's segregation policy went beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases. speaking to maj. gen. lewis a. craig, the inspector general, in august , collins declared that the army's social policy was unrealistic and did not represent the views of younger americans whose attitudes were much more relaxed than those of the senior officers who (p.  ) established policy. reporting collins's comment to the staff, craig went on to say the situation in korea confirmed his own observations that mixing whites and blacks "in reasonable proportions" did not cause friction. continued segregation, on the other hand, would force the army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its ineffectiveness and frustrations, to answer the negro's demand for equitable promotions and job opportunities. in short, both collins and craig agreed that the army must eventually integrate, and they wanted the use of black servicemen restudied.[ - ] [footnote - : ig summary sheet for cofs, dec , sub: policy regarding negro segregation, cs . ( dec ).] their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by most officers on the army staff and in the major commands in december . his rank notwithstanding, collins still had to persuade these men of the validity of his views before they would accept the necessity for integration. moreover, with his concept of orderly and controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise in the number of black soldiers, collins himself would need to assess the effects of racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. these necessities explain the plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations pertaining to the employment of black troops that characterized the next six months, a period during which every effort was made to convince senior officers of the practical necessity for integration. the chief of staff's exchange of views with the inspector general was not circulated within the staff until december . at that time the personnel chief, lt. gen. edward h. brooks, recommended reconvening the chamberlin board to reexamine the army's racial policy in light of the korean experience. brooks wanted to hold off the review until february by which time he thought adequate data would be available from the far east command. his recommendation was approved, and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly rejected integration less than a year before.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet for cofs, dec , sub: policy regarding negro segregation, g- . .] even as the chamberlin board was reconvening, another voice was added to those calling for integration. viewing the critical overstrength in black units, assistant secretary earl d. johnson recommended distributing excess black soldiers among other units of the army.[ - ] the response to his proposal was yet another attempt to avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. maj. gen. anthony c. mcauliffe, the g- , advised against integrating the organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far on the social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its effect on "overall army efficiency." since the army could not continue assigning more men to the overstrength black units, mcauliffe wanted to organize additional black units to accommodate the excess, and he asked maj. gen. maxwell d. taylor, the g- , to activate the necessary units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asa for sa, apr , sub: present overstrength in segregated units, g- . .] [footnote - : memo, g- for cofs, may , sub: present overstrength in segregated units; df, g- for g- , apr , sub: training spaces for negro personnel; both in g- . .] the chief of the army field forces was even more direct. integration was untimely, general mark w. clark advised, and the army should instead reimpose the quota and push for speedy implementation of the secretary of defense's directive on the qualitative distribution (p.  ) of manpower.[ - ] clark's plea for a new quota was one of many circulating in the staff since black enlistment percentages started to rise. but time had run out on the quota as a solution to overstrength black units. although the army staff continued to discuss the need for the quota, and senior officials considered asking the president for permission to reinstitute it, the secretary of defense's acceptance of parity of enlistment standards had robbed the army of any excuse for special treatment on manpower allotments.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cg, aff, for g- , may , sub: negro strength in the army, g- . .] [footnote - : memo, asa for sa, jul , and draft memo, sa for president (not sent), both in sa . .] [illustration: men of battery a, _ th field artillery battalion, fire -mm. howitzer, korea, august _.] mcauliffe's recommendation for additional black units ran into serious opposition and was not approved. taylor's staff, concerned with the practical problems of army organization, objected to the proposal, citing budget limitations that precluded the creation of additional units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units merely to accommodate black recruits. the operations staff recommended instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements without regard for specific assignment. mcauliffe's personnel staff, in turn, warned that on the basis of a monthly average dispatch of , replacements to the far east command, the portion of negroes in those shipments would be percent for may , percent for june, percent for july, and percent for august. mcauliffe listed the familiar problems that would accrue to the far east commanders from this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in washington. thus the problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the overseas commanders for resolution.[ - ] [footnote - : cmt (brig gen d. a. ogden, chief, orgn & tng div, g- ), may , cmt (brig gen w. e. dunkelberg, chief, manpower control div, g- ), may , and cmt (ogden), may , to g- summary sheet for cofs, apr , sub: negro overstrengths, g- . .] commanders in korea had already begun to apply the only practical remedy. confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing surplus of black replacements arriving in japan, the eighth army began assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning individual korean soldiers to understrength units.[ - ] in august , for example, initial replacements for battle casualties in (p.  ) the th infantry of the u.s. d infantry division included two black officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. the commander assigned them to units in his severely undermanned all-white st and d battalions. in september sixty more soldiers from the regiment's all-black d battalion returned to the regiment for duty. they were first attached but later, with the agreement of the officers and men involved, assigned to units of the st and d battalions. subsequently, black replacements were routinely assigned wherever needed throughout the regiment.[ - ] by december the th infantry had absorbed negroes to about their proportion of the national population, percent. of six black officers among them, one commanded company c and another was temporarily in command of company b when that unit fought in november on the ch'ongch'on river line. s. l. a. marshall later described company b as "possibly the bravest" unit in that action.[ - ] [footnote - : the korean augmentation to the united states army, known as katusa, a program for integrating korean soldiers in american units, was substantially different from the integration of black americans in terms of official authorization and management; see cmh study by david c. skaggs, "the katusa program," in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, co, th inf, for tig, oct , attached to ig summary sheet for cofs, dec , sub: policy regarding negro segregation, cs . ( dec ); fec, "g- command report, january- october ."] [footnote - : s. l. a. marshall, "integration," detroit _news_, may , .] the practice of assigning individual blacks throughout white units in korea accelerated during early and figured in the manpower rotation program which began in korea during may. by this time the practice had so spread that . percent of all negroes in the theater were serving in some forty-one newly and unofficially integrated units.[ - ] another . percent were in integrated but predominantly black units. the other percent continued to serve in segregated units: in march these numbered black regiment, battalions, separate companies, and separate detachments. looked at another way, by may some percent of the eighth army's infantry companies were at least partially integrated. [footnote - : oro technical memorandum t- , a preliminary report on the utilization of negro manpower, jun , p. , copy in cmh.] though still limited, the conversion to integrated units was permanent. the korean expedient, adopted out of battlefield necessity, carried out haphazardly, and based on such imponderables as casualties and the draft, passed the ultimate test of traditional american pragmatism: it worked. and according to reports from korea, it worked well. the performance of integrated troops was praiseworthy with no report of racial friction.[ - ] it was a test that could not fail to impress field commanders desperate for manpower. [footnote - : ibid., p. . for a popular report on the success of this partial integration, see harold h. martin, "how do our negro troops measure up?," _saturday evening post_ (june , ): - .] _training_ training units in the united states were subject to many of the stresses suffered by the eighth army, and without fanfare they too began to integrate. there was little precedent for the change. true, the army had integrated officer training in world war ii and basic training at the women's army corps training center at fort lee, virginia, in april . but beyond that only the rare black trainee designated for specialist service was assigned to a white training unit. until there was no effort to mix black and white trainees because the army's manpower experts always predicted a "social (p.  ) problem," a euphemism for the racial conflict they feared would follow integration at large bases in the united states. not that demands for integration ever really ceased. civil rights organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the army, and the selective service system itself complained that black draftees were being discriminated against even before induction.[ - ] because so many protests had focused on the induction process, james evans, the civilian aide to the secretary of defense, recommended that the traditional segregation be abandoned, at least during the period between induction and first assignment.[ - ] congressman jacob javits, always a critic of the army's segregation policy, was particularly disturbed by the segregation of black trainees at fort dix, new jersey. his request that training units be integrated was politely rejected in the fall of by general marshall, who implied that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude characteristic of the defense department's war-distracted feelings toward integration.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, lewis b. hershey to sa, sep , sa . ; memo, col w. preston corderman, exec, office of asa, for cofs, sep , sub: racial complaints, cs . . for an example of complaints by a civil rights organization, see telg, j. l. lefore, mobile, ala., naacp, to president, sep , and ltr, a. philip randolph to secdef, oct , both in sd . neg.] [footnote - : memo, evans for leva, asd, oct , sub: racial complaint from the mobile area, sd . neg ( sep ).] [footnote - : ltrs, javits to secdef, sep and oct ; ltrs, secdef to javits, sep and oct . all in sd . neg.] again, the change in army policy came not because the staff ordered it, but because local commanders found it necessary. the commanders of the nine training divisions in the continental united states were hard pressed because the number of black and white inductees in any monthly draft call, as well as their designated training centers, depended on selective service and was therefore unpredictable. it was impossible for commanders to arrange for the proper number of separate white and black training units and instructors to receive the inductees when no one knew whether a large contingent of black soldiers or a large group of whites would get off the train. a white unit could be undermanned and its instructors idle while a black unit was overcrowded and its instructors overworked. this inefficient use of their valuable training instructors led commanders, first at fort ord and then at the other training divisions and replacement centers throughout the united states, to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in the same units for messing, housing, and training. as the commander of fort jackson, south carolina, put it, sorting out the rapidly arriving inductees was "ridiculous," and he proceeded to assign new men to units without regard to color. he did, however, divert black inductees from time to time "to hold the negro population down to a workable basis."[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet for vcofs, apr , sub: information for the g- information book, g- . ; memo, asa (m&pr) for asd (m&pr), aug , sub: progress report on elimination of segregation in the army, sd . ; memo, vcofs for sa, jun , sub: assimilation of negroes at ft. jackson, s.c., sa . . see also lt col william m. nichols, "the dod program to ensure civil rights within the services and between the services and the community," rpt , , industrial college of the armed forces, p. .] the commanding general of the th infantry division at fort dix raised another question about integrating trainees. he had integrated all white units other than reserve units at his station, he explained (p.  ) to the first army commander in january , but since he was receiving many more white trainees than black he would soon be forced to integrate his two black training regiments as well by the unprecedented assignment of white soldiers to black units with black officers and noncommissioned officers.[ - ] actually, such reverse integration was becoming commonplace in korea, and in the case of fort dix the army g- solved the commander's dilemma by simply removing the asterisk, which meant black, from the names of the th and th infantry regiments.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen w. k. harrison, cg, th inf div, ft. dix, n.j., to cg, first army, jan , sub: request for an additional training regiment, g- . .] [footnote - : memo, da, g- for cgia, for th inf div, feb , g- . ; agao-i, mar , ag .] the nine training divisions were integrated by march , with fort dix, new jersey, and fort knox, kentucky, the last to complete the process. conversion proved trouble-free and permanent; no racial incidents were reported. in june assistant secretary of the army johnson assured the assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel, anna rosenberg, that current expansion of training divisions would allow the army to avoid in the future even the occasional funneling of some inductees into temporarily segregated units in times of troop overstrengths.[ - ] logic dictated that those who trained together would serve together, but despite integrated training, the plethora of negroes in overseas replacement pipelines, and the increasing amount of integrated fighting in korea, percent of the army's black soldiers still served in segregated units in april , almost three years after president truman issued his order. [footnote - : memo, asa for asd (m&p), jun ; memo, sa for asd (m&p), sep ; both in sd . .] _performance of segregated units_ another factor leading to a change in racial policy was the performance of segregated units in korea. despite "acts of heroism and capable performance of duty" by some individuals, the famous old th infantry regiment as a whole performed poorly. its instability was especially evident during the fighting on battle mountain in august , and by september the regiment had clearly become a "weak link in the th division line," and in the eighth army as well.[ - ] on september the division commander recommended that the regiment be removed from combat. "it is my considered opinion," maj. gen. william b. kean told the eighth army commander, that the th infantry has demonstrated in combat that it is untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions expected of an infantry regiment. in making this statement, i am fully cognizant of the seriousness of the charges that i am making, and the implications involved.... the continued use of this regiment in combat will jeopardize the united nations war effort in korea.[ - ] [footnote - : roy e. appleman, _south to the naktong, north to the yalu_ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - . for a detailed account of the battlefield performance of the th and other segregated units, see ibid., passim.] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen w. b. kean to cg, eighth army, sep , sub: combat effectiveness of the th infantry regiment, ag . (a).] kean went on to spell out his charges. the regiment was unreliable (p.  ) in combat, particularly on the defensive and at night; it abandoned positions without warning to troops on its flanks; it wasted equipment; it was prone to panic and hysteria; and some of its members were guilty of malingering. the general made clear that his charges were directed at the unit as an organization and not at individual soldiers, but he wanted the unit removed and its men reassigned as replacements on a percentage basis in the other units of the eighth army. general kean also claimed to have assigned unusually able officers to the regiment, but to no avail. in attempting to lead their men in battle, all the unit's commanders had become casualties. concluding that segregated units would not work in a combat situation, the general believed that the combat value of black soldiers would never be realized unless they were integrated into white units at a rate of not more than percent.[ - ] [footnote - : observer report, lt col j. d. stevens, plans div, g- , oct , g- pac (sec i-d), case , tab g.] the th division commander's charges were supported by the eighth army inspector general, who investigated the th infantry at length but concluded that the inactivation of the th was unfeasible. instead he suggested integrating negroes in all eighth army units up to percent of their strength by means of the replacement process. the far east command's inspector general, brig. gen. edwin a. zundel, concurred, stating that the rotation process would provide a good opportunity to accomplish integration and expressing hope that the theater would observe the "spirit" of the army's latest racial regulations.[ - ] [footnote - : fecom check sheet, ig to g- , fec, may , sub: report of investigation; memo, fec g- for cofs, fec, apr , sub: g- topics which cinc may discuss with gen taylor; both are quoted in fecom mil hist section, "history of the korean war," iii (pt. ): - , in cmh.] lt. gen. walton h. walker, the eighth army commander, accepted the inspector general's report, and the th infantry remained on duty in korea through the winter. zundel meanwhile continued the investigation and in march offered a more comprehensive assessment of the th. it was a fact, for example, that percent of the unit's troops were in categories iv and v as against percent of the troops in the th infantry and percent in the th, the th division's white regiments. the gillem board had recommended supplying all such units with percent more officers in the company grades, something not done for the th infantry. some observers also reported evidence in the regiment of the lack of leadership and lack of close relationships between officers and men; absence of unit _esprit de corps_; discrimination against black officers; and poor quality of replacements. whatever the cause of the unit's poor performance, the unanimous recommendation in the eighth army, its inspector general reported, was integration. yet he perceived serious difficulty in integration. to mix the troops of the eighty-four major segregated units in the eighth army under wartime conditions would create an intolerable administrative burden and would be difficult for the individuals involved. if integration was limited to the th infantry alone, on the other hand, its members, indeed even its former members, would share the onus of its failure. the inspector general therefore (p.  ) again recommended retaining the th, assigning additional officers and noncommissioned officers to black units with low test averages, and continuing the integration of the eighth army.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, eusak ig to cg, eusak, mar , sub: report of investigation concerning th infantry regiment and negro soldiers in combat, eusak ig report.] [illustration: survivors of an intelligence and reconnaissance platoon, _ th infantry, korea, may _.] the eighth army was not alone in investigating the th infantry. the naacp was also concerned with reports of the regiment's performance, in particular with figures on the large number of courts-martial. thirty-six of the men convicted, many for violation of article of the articles of war (misbehavior before the enemy), had appealed to the association for assistance, and thurgood marshall, then one of its celebrated attorneys, went to the far east to investigate. granted _carte blanche_ by the far east commander, general douglas macarthur, marshall traveled extensively in korea and japan reviewing the record and interviewing the men. his conclusions: "the men were tried in an atmosphere making justice impossible," and the naacp had the evidence to clear most of them.[ - ] contrasting the army's experiences with those of the navy and the air force, marshall attributed (p.  ) discrimination in the military justice system to the army's segregation policy. he blamed macarthur for failing to carry out truman's order in the far east and pointed out that no negroes served in the command's headquarters. as long as racial segregation continued, the civil rights veteran concluded, the army would dispense the kind of injustice typical of the courts-martial he reviewed. [footnote - : thurgood marshall, _report on korea: the shameful story of the courts martial of negro gis_ (new york: naacp, ).] it would be hard to refute marshall's contention that discrimination was a handmaiden of segregation. not so walter white's contention that the reports of the th infantry's poor performance constituted an attempt to discredit the combat ability of black soldiers and return them to labor duties. the association's executive secretary had fought racial injustice for many decades, and, considering his world war ii experiences with the breakup of the d cavalry division into labor units, his acceptance of a conspiracy theory in korea was understandable. but it was inaccurate. the army operated under a different social order in , and many combat leaders in the eighth army were advocating integration. the number of black service units in the eighth army, some ninety in march , was comparable to the number in other similar army commands. nor, for that matter, was the number of black combat units in the eighth army unusual. in march the eighth army had eighty-four such units ranging in size from regiment to detachment. far from planning the conversion of black combat troops to service troops, most commanders were recommending their assignment to integrated combat units throughout korea. apprised of these various conclusions, macarthur ordered his staff to investigate the problem of segregation in the command.[ - ] the far east command g- staff incorporated the inspector general's report in its study of the problem, adding that "negro soldiers can and do fight well when integrated." the staff went on to dismiss the importance of leadership as a particular factor in the case of black troops by observing that "no race has a monopoly on stupidity."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, lt gen edward almond, cofs, fecom, to tig, mar , ig . .] [footnote - : fecom check sheet, ig to g- , fec, may , sub: report of investigation; memo, fec g- for cofs fec, apr , sub: g- topics which cinc may discuss with gen taylor.] before the staff could finish its investigation, general matthew b. ridgway replaced macarthur as far east commander. fresh from duty as eighth army commander, ridgway had had close-hand experience with the th infantry's problems; from both a military and a human viewpoint he had concluded that segregation was "wholly inefficient, not to say improper." he considered integration the only way to assure _esprit de corps_ in any large segment of the army. as for segregation, ridgway concluded, "it has always seemed to me both un-american and un-christian for free citizens to be taught to downgrade themselves this way as if they were unfit to associate with their fellows or to accept leadership themselves."[ - ] he had planned to seek authorization to integrate the major black units of the eighth army in mid-march, but battlefield preoccupations and his sudden elevation to theater command interfered. once he became commander in chief, however, he quickly concurred in his inspector general's recommendation, adding that "integration in white combat units in korea is a practical (p.  ) solution to the optimum utilization of negro manpower provided the overall theater level of negroes does not exceed percent of troop level and does not exceed over percent in any combat unit."[ - ] [footnote - : matthew b. ridgway, _the korean war_ (new york: doubleday, ), pp. - .] [footnote - : memorandum for file, fecom ig, may , copy in ag . .] the th infantry's experiences struck yet another blow at the army's race policy. reduce the size of black units, the gillem board had reasoned, and you will reduce inefficiency and discrimination. such a course had not worked. the same troubles that befell the d division in italy were now being visited in korea on the th infantry, a unit rich with honors extending back to the indian fighting after the civil war, the war with spain, and the philippine insurrection. the unit could also boast among its medal of honor winners the first man to receive the award in korea, pfc. william thompson of company m. before its inactivation in the th had yet another member so honored, sgt. cornelius h. carlton of company h. _final arguments_ to concentrate on the widespread sentiment for integration in the far east would misrepresent the general attitude that still prevailed in the army in the spring of . this attitude was clearly reflected again by the chamberlin board, which completed its reexamination of the army's racial policy in light of the korean experience in april. the board recognized the success of integrated units and even cited evidence indicating that racial friction had decreased in those units since the men generally accepted any replacement willing to fight. but in the end the board retreated into the army's conventional wisdom: separate units must be retained, and the number of negroes in the army must be regulated.[ - ] [footnote - : report of board of officers on utilization of negro manpower ( d chamberlin report), apr , g- ( nov ).] the board's recommendations were not approved. budgetary limitations precluded the creation of more segregated units and the evidence of korea could not be denied. yet the board still enjoyed considerable support in some quarters. the vice chief of staff, general haislip, who made no secret of his opposition to integration, considered it "premature" to rely and act solely on the experience with integration in korea and the training divisions, and he told secretary pace in may that "no action should be taken which would lead to the immediate elimination of segregated units."[ - ] and then there was the assessment of lt. gen. edward m. almond, world war ii commander of the d division and later x corps commander in korea and macarthur's chief of staff. twenty years after the korean war almond's attitude toward integration had not changed. i do not agree that integration improves military efficiency; i believe that it weakens it. i believe that integration was and is a political solution for the composition of our military forces because those responsible for the procedures either do not understand the characteristics of the two human elements (p.  ) concerned, the white man and the negro as individuals. the basic characteristics of negro and white are fundamentally different and these basic differences must be recognized by those responsible for integration. by trial and error we must test the integration in its application. these persons who promulgate and enforce such policies either have not the understanding of the problem or they do not have the intestinal fortitude to do what they think if they do understand it. there is no question in my mind of the inherent difference in races. this is not racism--it is common sense and understanding. those who ignore these differences merely interfere with the combat effectiveness of battle units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, actg cofs for sa, may , sub: negro strength in the army, cs . negroes ( apr ); see also interv, author with haislip, feb , cmh files.] [footnote - : incl to ltr, almond to cmh, apr , cmh files.] the opinions of senior commanders long identified with segregated units in combat carried weight with the middle-ranking staff officers who, lacking such experience, were charged with devising policy. behind the opinions expressed by many staff members there seemed to be a nebulous, often unspoken, conviction that negroes did not perform well in combat. the staff officers who saw proof for their convictions in the troubles of the th infantry ignored the possibility that segregated units, not individual soldiers, was the problem. their attitude explains why the army continued to delay changes made imperative by its experience in korea. it also explains why at this late date the army turned to the scientific community for still another review of its racial policy. the move originated with the army's g- , maj. gen. maxwell d. taylor, who in february called for the collection of all information on the army's experiences with black troops in korea. if the g- , general mcauliffe, did not consider the available data sufficient, general taylor added, he would join in sponsoring further investigation in the far east.[ - ] the result was two studies. the g- sent an army personnel research team, which left for korea in april , to study the army's regulations for assigning men under combat conditions and to consider the performance of integrated units.[ - ] on march, maj. gen. ward s. maris, the g- , requested the operations research office, a contract agency for the army, to make a study of how best to use black manpower in the army.[ - ] the g- investigation, undertaken by manpower experts drawn from several army offices, concentrated on the views of combat commanders; the contract agency reviewed all available data, including a detailed battlefield survey by social scientists. both groups submitted preliminary reports in july . [footnote - : memo, acofs, g- , for acofs, g- , feb , wdgpa . .] [footnote - : memo, chief, pers mgmt div, g- , for cofs, g- , mar , wdgpa . .] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen ward maris, g- , for dir, oro, mar , g- . . the operations research office, a subsidiary of the johns hopkins university, performed qualitative and quantitative analyses of strategy, tactics, and materiel. some of its assignments were subcontracted to other research institutions; all were assigned by the g- 's research and development division and coordinated with the department of defense.] their findings complemented each other. the g- team reported that integration of black soldiers into white combat units in korea had been accomplished generally "without undue friction and with better utilization of manpower." combat commanders, the team added, "almost unanimously favor integration."[ - ] the individual soldier's own motivation determined his competence, the team concluded. the (p.  ) contract agency, whose report was identified by the code name project clear,[ - ] observed that large black units were, on average, less reliable than large white units, but the effectiveness of small black units varied widely. the performance of individual black soldiers in integrated units, on the other hand, approximated that of whites. it found that white officers commanding black units tended to attribute their problems to race; those commanding integrated units saw their problems as military ones. the contract team also confirmed previous army findings that efficient officers and noncommissioned officers, regardless of race, were accepted by soldiers of both races. integration, it decided, had not lowered white morale, but it had raised black morale. virtually all black soldiers supported integration, while white soldiers, whatever their private sentiments, were not overtly hostile. in most situations, white attitudes toward integration became more favorable with firsthand experience. although opinions varied, most combat commanders with integration experience believed that a squad should contain not more than two negroes. in sum, the project clear group concluded that segregation hampered the army's effectiveness while integration increased it. ironically, this conclusion practically duplicated the verdict of the army's surveys of the integration of black and white units in europe at the end of world war ii. [footnote - : da personnel research team, "a preliminary report on personnel research data" (ca. jul ), ag . .] [footnote - : oro-t- , "a preliminary report on the utilization of negro manpower," jun , s -s , copy in cmh. a draft version of a more comprehensive study on the same subject was prepared in seven volumes (oro-r- ) in november . these several documents are usually referred to as project clear, the code name for the complete version. the declassification and eventual publication of this very important social document had a long and interesting history; see, for example, memo, howard sacks, office of the general counsel, sa, for james c. evans, nov , in cmh. for over a decade a "sanitized" version of project clear remained for official use only. the study was finally cleared and published under the title _social research and the desegregation of the u.s. army_, ed. leo bogart (chicago: markham, ).] general collins immediately accepted the project clear conclusions when presented to him verbally on july .[ - ] his endorsement and the subsequent announcement that the army would integrate its forces in the far east implied a connection which did not exist. actually, the decision to integrate in korea was made before project clear or the g- study appeared. this is not to denigrate the importance of these documents. their justification of integration in objective, scientific terms later helped convince army traditionalists of the need for worldwide change and absolved the secretary of the army, his chief of staff, and his theater commander of the charge of having made a political and social rather than a military decision.[ - ] [footnote - : oro, "utilization of negro manpower in the army: a study" (advance draft), pp. viii-ix, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, dir, oro, to g- , nov , g- . ; see also interv, nichols with davis.] _integration of the eighth army_ on may general ridgway forced the issue of integration by formally requesting authority to abolish segregation in his command. he would begin with the th infantry, which he wanted to replace after reassigning its men to white units in korea. he would then integrate the other combat units and, finally, the service units. (p.  ) where special skills were not a factor ridgway wanted to assign his black troops throughout the theater to a maximum of percent of any unit. to do this he needed permission to integrate the th and th divisions, the federalized national guard units then stationed in japan. he based his proposals on the need to maintain the combat effectiveness of his command where segregated units had proved ineffective and integrated units acceptable.[ - ] [footnote - : msg, cincfe to da, da in , may , sub: utilization of negro manpower in the fec; ibid., da in , may , same sub. see also ltrs, cg, eighth army, to cincfe, may , sub: redesignation of negro combat units, and ridgway to author, dec , both in cmh.] when it finally arrived, the proposal for wide-scale integration of combat units encountered no real opposition from the army staff. general ridgway had rehearsed his proposal with the g- when the latter visited the far east in april. taylor "heartily approved," calling the times auspicious for such a move.[ - ] of course his office quickly approved the plan, and mcauliffe in g- and the rest of the staff followed suit. there was some sentiment on the staff, eventually suppressed, for retaining the th infantry as an integrated unit since the statutory requirement for the four black regiments had been repealed in .[ - ] the staff did insist, over the g- 's objections, on postponing the integration of the two national guard divisions until their arrival in korea, where the change could be accomplished through normal replacement-rotation procedures.[ - ] there were other minor complications and misunderstandings between the far east command and the army staff over the timing of the order, but they were easily ironed out.[ - ] collins discussed the plan with the appropriate congressional chairmen, ridgway further briefed the secretary of defense during general marshall's visit to japan, and secretary of the army pace kept the president informed.[ - ] [footnote - : ridgway, _the korean war_, p. .] [footnote - : section , army organization act of (pl , st cong.), published in da bull , jul . see also msg, da to cincfe, da , may ; g- summary sheet for cofs and sa, may , sub: utilization of negro manpower; memo for rcd, g- (ca. may ). all in g- . .] [footnote - : g- summary sheets for cofs, and may , sub: utilization of negro troops in fecom, g- . . see also elva stillwaugh's study, "personnel problems in the korean conflict," pp. - , in cmh.] [footnote - : see, for example, msg, da to cincfe, da , may ; msg, cincfe to da, c , jun .] [footnote - : memo, actg cofs for sa, may , sub: utilization of negro manpower, cs . .] pace had succeeded gordon gray as secretary in april and participated in the decisions leading to integration. a harvard-trained lawyer with impressive managerial skills, pace did not originate any of the army's racial programs, but he fully supported the views of his chief of staff, general collins.[ - ] meeting with his senior civilian assistants, the g- and g- of the army, and assistant secretary of defense rosenberg on june, pace admitted that their discussions were being conducted "probably with a view to achieving complete integration in the army." nevertheless, he stressed a cautionary approach because "once a step was taken it was very much harder to retract." he was particularly worried about the high percentage of black soldiers, . percent of the army's total, compared with the percentage of negroes in the other services. he summarized the three options still under discussion in the department of the army: ridgway's call for complete integration in korea, followed by integration of army elements in japan, with a percent limit (p.  ) on black replacements; mark clark's proposal to ship black combat battalions to korea to be used at the division commanders' discretion, with integration limited to combat-tested individuals and then only in support units; and, finally, the army staff's decision to continue sending replacements for use as the far east command saw fit. [footnote - : interv, author with collins.] [illustration: general ridgway.] commenting on the ridgway proposal, one participant pointed out that a percent limit on black replacements, even if integration spread to the european command, would mean that the majority of the army's negroes would remain in the united states. rosenberg, however, preferred the ridgway plan. stressing that it was an army decision and that she was "no crusader," she nevertheless reminded secretary pace that the army needed to show some progress. rosenberg mentioned the threat of a congress which might force more drastic measures upon the army and pointedly offered to defer answering her many congressional inquisitors until the army reached a decision.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, col james f. collins, asst to asd (m&p), jun , sd . .] the decision was finally announced on july . a message went out to general ridgway approving "deactivation of the th infantry and your general plan for integration of negroes into all units (with the temporary exception of the th and th divisions)."[ - ] the staff wanted the move to be gradual, progressive, and secret to avoid any possible friction in the eighth army and to win general acceptance for integration. but it did not remain secret for long. in the face of renewed public criticism for its segregated units and after lengthy staff discussion, the army announced the integration of the far east command on july, the third anniversary of the truman order.[ - ] prominent among the critics of the army's delay was general macarthur, who publicly blamed president truman for the continued segregation of his former command. the charge, following as it did the general's dismissal, was much discussed in the press and the department of defense. easily disputed, it was eventually overtaken by the fact of integration. [footnote - : msg, da to cincfe, da , jul .] [footnote - : memo, chief, public info div, cinfo, for dir, office of public info, dod, jul ; dod press release, jul . for last-minute criticism of the continued segregation see, for example, ltr, sens. herbert lehman and hubert humphrey to secdef, jul ; memo, asa for asd (m&p), jul , sub: racial segregation in fecom; telg, elmer w. henderson, dir, american council on human rights, to george c. marshall, secdef, may . all in secdef . .] three problems had to be solved in carrying out the integration (p.  ) order. the first, inactivation of the th infantry and the choice of a replacement, was quickly overcome. from the replacements suggested, ridgway decided on the th infantry, which had been recently assigned, minus men and equipment, to the far east command. it was filled with troops and equipment from the th infantry, then training replacements in japan. on october it was assigned to the th's zone of responsibility in the th division's line. the th infantry, its men and equipment transferred to other infantry units in korea, was inactivated on october and "transferred to the control of the department of the army."[ - ] [footnote - : per ltr, tag to cincfe, aug , agao-i ( jul ), implemented by eighth army go , sep .] the second problem, integration of units throughout the command, proved more difficult and time-consuming. ridgway considered the need most urgent in the infantry units and wanted their integration to take precedence. the d battalion of the th infantry was reorganized first, many of its black members scattered throughout other infantry units in the d division. but then things got out of phase. to speed the process the army staff dropped its plan for inactivating all segregated units and decided simply to remove the designation "segregated" and assign white soldiers to formerly all-black units. before this form of integration could take place in the d battalion, th infantry, the last major black infantry unit, the th tank battalion and the th armored field artillery battalion began the process of shifting their black troops to nearby white units. the th engineer combat company was the last combat unit to lose the asterisk, the army's way of designating a unit black.[ - ] the command was originally committed to an army contingency plan that would transfer black combat troops found superfluous to the newly integrated units to service units, but this proved unnecessary. all segregated combat troops were eventually assigned to integrated combat units.[ - ] [footnote - : msg, da , sep ; eighth army go , oct .] [footnote - : fecom mil hist section, "history of the korean war," iii (pt. ): - .] to soften the emotional aspects of the change, troop transfers were scheduled as part of the individual soldier's normal rotation. by the end of october the eighth army had integrated some percent of its infantry units. the process was scheduled for completion by december, but integration of the rest of its combat units and the great number of service units dragged on for another half year. it was not until may that the last divisional and nondivisional organizations were integrated.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asa (m&rf) for asd (m&p), aug , sub: integration of negro manpower, sd . .] the third and greatest problem in the integration of the far east command was how to achieve a proportionate distribution of black troops throughout the command. ridgway was under orders to maintain black strength at a maximum percent except in combat infantry units, where the maximum was percent. the temporary restriction on integrating the th and th divisions and the lack of specially trained negroes eligible for assignment to the japan logistical command added to the difficulty of achieving this goal, but the basic cause of delay was the continued shipment of black troops to the (p.  ) far east in excess of the prescribed percentage. during the integration period the percentage of black replacements averaged between . and percent and occasionally rose above percent.[ - ] ridgway finally got permission from washington to raise the ratio of black soldiers in his combat infantry units to percent, and further relief could be expected in the coming months when the two national guard divisions began integrating.[ - ] still, in october the proportion of negroes in the eighth army had risen to . percent, and the flow of black troops to the far east continued unabated, threatening the success of the integration program. ridgway repeatedly appealed for relief, having been warned by his g- that future black replacements must not exceed percent if the integration program was to continue successfully.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid.; stillwaugh, "personnel problems in the korean conflict," pp. - .] [footnote - : msg, csa to cincfe, da , jul .] [footnote - : journal files, g- , fec, oct , annex .] [illustration: machine gunners of company l, th infantry, _hill , korea, september _.] ridgway was particularly concerned with the strain on his program caused by the excessive number of black combat replacements swelling the percentage of negroes in his combat units. by september black combat strength reached . percent, far above the limits set by the army staff. ridgway wanted combat replacements limited to (p.  ) percent. he also proposed that his command be allowed to request replacements by race and occupational specialty in order to provide army headquarters with a sound basis for allotting black enlisted men to the far east. while the army staff promised to try to limit the number of black combat troops, it rejected the requisition scheme. selection for occupational specialist training was not made by race, the g- explained, and the army could not control the racial proportions of any particular specialty. since the army staff had no control over the number of negroes in the army, their specialties or the replacement needs of the command, no purpose would be served by granting such a request.[ - ] [footnote - : rad, cincfe for da, da in , sep , sub: negro personnel; msg, da to cincfe, sep , g- . .] yet ridgway's advice could not be ignored, because by year's end the whole army had developed a vested interest in the success of integration in the far east. the service was enjoying the praise of civil rights congressmen, much of the metropolitan press, and even some veterans' groups, such as the amvets.[ - ] secretary pace was moved to call the integration of the eighth army a notable advance in the field of human relations.[ - ] but most of all, the army began to experience the fruits of racial harmony. much of the conflict and confusion among troops that characterized the first year of the war disappeared as integration spread, and senior officials commented publicly on the superior military efficiency of an integrated army in korea.[ - ] as for the men themselves, their attitudes were in sharp contrast to those predicted by the army traditionalists. the conclusion of some white enlisted men, wounded and returned from korea, were typical: far as i'm concerned it [integration] worked pretty good.... when it comes to life or death, race does not mean any difference.... it's like one big family.... got a colored guy on our machine gun crew--after a while i wouldn't do without him.... concerning combat, what i've seen, an american is an american. when we have to do something we're all the same.... each guy is like your own brother--we treated all the same.... had a colored platoon leader. they are as good as any people.... we [an integrated squad] had something great in common, sleeping, guarding each other--sometimes body against body as we slept in bunkers.... takes all kinds to fight a war.[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, press release by senator herbert h. lehman, july , which expressed the praise of nine u.s. senators; editorial in the baltimore sun, december , ; ltr, national cmdr, amvets, to cincfe, dec , copies in cmh.] [footnote - : _semiannual report of the secretary of defense, july -december , _ (washington: government printing office, ), p. .] [footnote - : see, for example, interv, nichols with bradley; ltr, ridgway to author, dec ; mark s. watson, "most combat gi's are unsegregated," datelined dec (probably prepared for the baltimore _sun_). all in cmh files. see also james c. evans and david lane, "integration in the armed services," _annals of the american academy of political and social sciences_ (march ): .] [footnote - : extracted from a series of interviews conducted by lee nichols with a group of wounded soldiers at walter reed army medical center, november , in nichols collection, cmh.] integration was an established fact in korea, but the question remained: could an attitude forged in the heat of battle be sustained on the more tranquil maneuver grounds of central europe and the american south? [illustration: color guard, th infantry, korea, .] _integration of the european and continental commands_ (p.  ) since the army was just percent negro in september , it should have been possible to solve ridgway's problem of black overstrength simply by distributing black soldiers evenly throughout the army. but this solution was frustrated by the segregation still in force in other commands. organized black units in the united states were small and few in number, and black recruits who could not be used in them were shipped as replacements to the overseas commands, principally in the far east and europe.[ - ] consequently, ridgway's problem was not an isolated one; his european counterpart was operating a largely segregated command almost percent black. the army could not prevent black overstrengths so long as negroes were ordered into the quota-free service by color-blind draft boards, but it could equalize the overstrength by integrating its forces all over the world. [footnote - : in the european command was the major army headquarters in the european theater. it was, at the same time, a combined command with some , members of the air force and navy serving along with , army troops. in august a separate army command (u.s. army, europe) was created within the european command. discussion of the european command and its commander in the following paragraphs applies only to army troops.] this course, along with the knowledge that integration was working in the far east and the training camps, was leading senior army officials toward full integration. but they wanted certain reassurances. believing that integration of the continental commands would create, in the words of the g- , "obstacles and difficulties vastly greater than those in fecom," the army staff wanted these problems (p.  ) thoroughly analyzed before taking additional moves, "experimental or otherwise," to broaden integration.[ - ] general collins, although personally committed to integration, voiced another widespread concern over extending integration beyond the far east units. unlike the navy and the air force, which were able to secure more highly qualified men on a volunteer basis, the army had long been forced to accept anyone meeting the draft's minimum standards. this circumstance was very likely to result, he feared, in an army composed to an unprecedented degree of poorly educated black soldiers, possibly as much as percent in the near future.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, g- for dcofs, admin, jul , g- . .] [footnote - : ltr, eli ginzberg to lt col edward j. barta, hist div, usareur, attached to ltr, ginzberg to carter burgess, asd (m&p), nov , sd . ( nov ).] the army's leaders received the necessary reassurances in the coming months. the secretary of defense laid to rest their fear that the draft-dependent army would become a dumping ground for the ignorant and untrainable when, in april , he directed that troops must be distributed among the services on a qualitative basis. assistant secretary of the army johnson asked professor eli ginzberg, a social scientist and consultant to the army, to explain to the army policy council the need for aggressive action to end segregation.[ - ] and once again, but this time with considerable scientific detail to support its recommendations, the project clear final report told army leaders that the service should be integrated worldwide. again the researchers found that the army's problem was not primarily racial, but a question of how best to use underqualified men. refining their earlier figures, they decided that black soldiers were best used in integrated units at a ratio of to . integration on the job was conducive to social integration, they discovered, and social integration, dependent on several variables, was particularly amenable to firm policy guidance and local control. finally, the report found that integration on military posts was accepted by local civilians as a military policy unlikely to affect their community.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, ginzberg to burgess, nov .] [footnote - : oro-r- , rpt, utilization of negro manpower in the army, project clear, vol. ; g- summary sheet for cofsa, jan , sub: evaluation of oro-r- on utilization of negro manpower in the army, cs . negroes ( jan ).] the chief of staff approved the project clear final report, although his staff had tried to distinguish between the report's view of on-the-job integration and social integration, accepting the former with little reservation, but considering the latter to be "weak in supporting evidence." the personnel staff continued to stress the need to reimpose a racial quota quickly without waiting for black enrollment to reach percent as the project clear report suggested. it also believed that integration should be limited to the active federal service, exempting national guard units under state control. general mcauliffe agreed to drop racial statistics but warned that investigation of discrimination charges depended on such statistics. he also agreed that blacks could be mixed with whites at to percent of the strength of any white unit, but to assign whites in similar percentages to black units "would undoubtedly present difficulties and place undue burdens on the assigned white personnel." finally, mcauliffe stressed that commanders would have flexibility (p.  ) in working out the nonoperational aspects of integration so long as their methods and procedures were consistent with army policy.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet for cofsa, jan .] these reservations aside, mcauliffe concluded that integration was working in enough varied circumstances to justify its extension to the entire army. general collins agreed, and on december he ordered all major commanders to prepare integration programs for their commands. integration was the army's immediate goal, and, he added, it was to be progressive, in orderly stages, and without publicity.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., dec , sub: integration of negro enlisted personnel, g- . negroes.] the chief of staff's decision was especially timely for the european command where general thomas t. handy faced manpower problems similar to if not so critical as those in the far east. during army strength in europe had also risen sharply--from , to , men. black strength had increased even more dramatically, from , (or percent) to , (or percent). the majority of black soldiers in europe served in segregated units, the number of which more than doubled because of the korean war. from sixty-six units in june , the figure rose to in march . most of these units were not in divisions but in service organizations; were service units, of which fifty-three were transportation units. again as in the far east, some integration in europe occurred in response to the influx of new soldiers as well as to army directives. handy integrated his noncommissioned officers' academy in in an operation involving thousands of enlisted men. after he closed the segregated kitzingen training center in february , black troops were absorbed into other training and replacement centers on an integrated basis. for some time army commanders in europe had also been assigning certain black soldiers with specialist training to white units, a practice dramatically accelerated in when the command began receiving many negroes with occupation specialties unneeded in black units. in march handy directed that, while the assignment of negroes to black units remained the first priority, negroes possessing qualifications unusable or in excess of the needs of black units would be assigned where they could be used most effectively.[ - ] consequently, by the end of some percent of all black enlisted men, percent of the black officers, and all black soldiers of the women's army corps in the command were serving in integrated units. [footnote - : ltr, eucom to sub cmds, mar , sub: utilization of negro personnel, usareur sgs . . see also eucom hist div, "integration of negro and white troops in the u.s. army, europe, - ," p. , in cmh. this monograph, prepared by ronald sher, will be cited hereafter as sher monograph.] in sharp contrast to the far east command, there was little support among senior army officials in europe for full integration. sent by assistant secretary johnson to brief european commanders on the army's decision, eli ginzberg met with almost universal skepticism. most commanders were unaware of the army's success with integration in the far east and in the training divisions at home; when so informed they were quick to declare such a move impractical for europe. they warned of the social problems that would arise with the all-white civilian population and predicted that the army would be forced to abandon (p.  ) the program in midstream.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, ginzberg to burgess, nov , cmh files.] there were exceptions. lt. gen. manton s. eddy, the commander of the seventh army, described the serious operational problems caused by segregation in his command. most of his black units were unsatisfactory, and without minimizing the difficulties he concluded in that integration was desirable not only for the sake of his own mission but for the army's efficiency and the nation's world leadership. officers at headquarters, supreme allied powers, europe, also recited personnel and training problems caused in their command by segregation, but here, ginzberg noted, the attitude was one of cautious silence, an attitude that made little difference because general eisenhower's command was an international organization having nothing to do with the army's race policies. it would, however, be of some interest during the political campaign when some commentators made the false claim that eisenhower had integrated american units in europe.[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, _pathfinder_ magazine (may , ): . see also ltr, philleo nash to donald dawson, may , nash collection, truman library; ltr, brig gen charles t. lanham to evans, aug , cmh files; cinfo summary sheet, jun , sub: query washington bureau, naacp, csa . .] obviously it was going to take more than a visit from ginzberg to move the european command's staff, and later in the year collins took the matter up personally with handy. this consultation, and a series of exchanges between mcauliffe and command officials, led collins to ask handy to submit an integration plan as quickly as possible.[ - ] handy complied with a proposal that failed on the whole to conform to the army's current plans for worldwide integration and was quickly amended in washington. the european command would not, collins decreed, conduct a special screening of its black officers and noncoms for fitness for combat duty. the command would not retain segregated service units, although the army would allow an extension of the program's timetable to accomplish the integration of these units. finally, the command would stage no publicity campaign but would instead proceed quietly and routinely. the program was to begin in april .[ - ] [footnote - : msg, cofsa to cinceur, dec , da .] [footnote - : ltr, ag, eucom, to cofsa, dec , sub: racial integration in combat units; g- summary sheet, jan , same sub; ltr, cofsa to handy, feb ; msg, cinceur to cofsa, mar , da in ; msg, cofsa to cinceur, da , mar . all in cs . .] integration of the european command proceeded without incident, but the administrative task was complicated and frequently delayed by the problem of black overstrength. handy directed that negroes be assigned as individuals in a to ratio in all units although he would tolerate a higher ratio in service and temporary duty units during the early stages of the program.[ - ] this figure was adjusted upward the following year to a maximum of percent black for armor and infantry units, percent for combat engineers and artillery, and . percent for all other units. during the process of integrating the units, a percent black strength was authorized.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cinceucom for commanding generals et al., apr , sub: racial integration of eucom army units, copy in cs . .] [footnote - : sher monograph, p. .] the ratios were raised because the percentage of negroes in the (p.  ) command continued to exceed the to ratio and was still increasing. in september the new commander, general alfred m. gruenther, tried to slow the rate of increase.[ - ] he got washington to halt the shipment of black units, and he himself instituted stricter reenlistment standards in europe. finally, he warned that with fewer segregated units to which black troops might be assigned, the racial imbalance was becoming more critical, and he asked for a deferment of the program's completion.[ - ] the army staff promised to try to alleviate the racial disproportions in the replacement stream, but asked gruenther to proceed as quickly as possible with integration.[ - ] [footnote - : as of august the major joint american command in europe was designated u.s. european command (useucom). the u.s. army element in this command was designated u.s. army, europe (usareur). gruenther was the commander in chief of the european command from july to november . at the same time he occupied the senior position in the nato command under the title supreme allied commander, europe (saceur).] [footnote - : memo, uscinceur for tag, sep , sub: racial integration of usareur units, ag . ( sep ); see also sher monograph, pp. - .] [footnote - : memos, g- for tag, oct , sub: negro overstrength in usareur, and tag for uscinceur, nov , same sub; both in ag . ( oct ).] there was little the army staff could do. the continental commands had the same overstrength problem, and the staff considered the european command an inappropriate place to raise black percentages. by mid- negroes accounted for some percent of army personnel in europe and, more important to the command, the number of negroes with combat occupation specialties continued to increase at the same rate. as an alternative to the untenable practice of reclassifying combat-trained men for noncombat assignments purely on account of race, gruenther again raised the acceptable ratio of blacks in combat units. at the same time he directed the seventh army commander to treat ratios in the future merely as guidelines, to be adhered to as circumstances permitted.[ - ] the percentage of negroes in the command leveled off at this time, but not before the black proportion of the command's transportation units reached . percent. summing up his command's policy on integration, gruenther concluded: "i cannot permit the assignment of large numbers of unqualified personnel, regardless of race, to prejudice the operation readiness of our units in an effort to attain percent racial integration, however desirable that goal may be."[ - ] a heavy influx of white replacements with transportation specialties allowed the european command to finish integrating the elements of the seventh army in july .[ - ] the last black unit in the command, the th engineer battalion, was inactivated in november. [footnote - : ltr, uscinceur to cg, seventh army, jul , sub: racial integration of usareur units, usareur ag . ( ).] [footnote - : ltr, cincusareur to saceur, apr , usareur sgs . ( ), quoted in sher monograph, p. .] [footnote - : hq usareur, "annual historical report, january - june ," p. , in cmh.] integration of black troops in europe proved successful on several counts, with the army, in assistant secretary fred korth's words, "achieving benefits therefrom substantially greater than we had anticipated at its inception."[ - ] the command's combat (p.  ) readiness increased, he claimed, while its racial incidents and disciplinary problems declined. the reaction of the soldiers was, again in korth's words, "generally good" with incidents stemming from integration "fewer and much farther between." moreover, the program had been a definite advantage in counteracting communist propaganda, with no evidence of problems with civilians arising from social integration. more eloquent testimony to the program's success appeared in the enthusiasm of the european command's senior officials.[ - ] their fears and uncertainties eased, they abruptly reversed their attitudes and some even moved from outright opposition to praise for the program as one of their principal achievements. [footnote - : memo, asa (m&rf) for j. c. evans, oasd (m), nov , sub: negro integration in europe, sd . .] [footnote - : ltr, ginzberg to burgess, nov , cmh files; ernest leiser, "for negroes, it's a new army now," _saturday evening post_ (december , ): - , - .] the smaller overseas commands also submitted plans to army headquarters for the breakup of their segregated units in , and integration of the alaskan command and the rest proceeded during without incident.[ - ] at the same time the continental army commands, faced with similar manpower problems, began making exceptions, albeit considerably more timidly than the great overseas commands, to the assignment of negroes to black units. as early as september the army g- discovered instances of unauthorized integration in every army area,[ - ] the result of either unrectified administrative errors or the need to find suitable assignments for black replacements. "the concern shown by you over the press reaction to integrating these men into white units," the sixth army commander, lt. gen. joseph m. swing, reported to the army staff, "causes me to guess that your people may not realize the extent to which integration has already progressed--at least in the sixth army."[ - ] swing concluded that gradual integration had to be the solution to the army's race problems everywhere. mcauliffe agreed with swing that the continental commands should be gradually integrated, but, as he put it, "the difficulty is that my superiors are not prepared to admit that we are already launched on a progressive integration program" in the united states. the whole problem was a very touchy one, mcauliffe added.[ - ] [footnote - : on the integration of these commands, see, for example, g- summary sheet, sep , sub: utilization of negro personnel; ltr, cg, usaral, to da, sep ; ltr, g- to maj gen julian cunningham, oct . all in g- . .] [footnote - : memo, chief, manpower control div, g- , for gen taylor, sep , sub: negro integration, g- . .] [footnote - : ltr, cg, sixth army, to acofs, g- , sep , g- . negroes.] [footnote - : ltr, g- to cg, sixth army, sep , g- . .] the army staff had agreed to halt the further integration of units in the united states until the results of the overseas changes had been carefully analyzed. nevertheless, even while the integration of the far east forces was proceeding, general mcauliffe's office prepared a comprehensive two-phase plan for the integration of the continental armies. it would consolidate all temporary units then separated into racial elements, redistributing all negroes among the organized white units; then, negroes assigned to black components of larger white units would be absorbed into similar white units through normal attrition or by concentrated levies on the black units. mcauliffe (p.  ) estimated that the whole process would take two years.[ - ] [footnote - : g- summary sheet for cofs, sep , sub: g- attitude toward integration of negroes into conus units, cs . negroes ( sep ). the staff's decision to halt further integration was announced in memo, acofs, g- , for acofs, g- , jul , g- . .] [illustration: visit with the commander. _soldiers of the ordnance branch, berlin command, meet with brig. gen. charles f. craig._] mcauliffe's plan was put into effect when general collins ordered worldwide integration in december . the breakdown of the " percent army" proceeded uneventfully, and the old black units disappeared. the th and th cavalry regiments, now converted into the th and th tank battalions (negro), received white replacements and dropped the racial designation. the th infantry, now broken down into smaller units, was integrated in september . on october assistant secretary of defense john hannah announced that percent of the army's negroes were serving in integrated units with the rest to be so assigned not later than june .[ - ] his estimate was off by several months. the european (p.  ) command's th engineer battalion, the last major all-black unit, was inactivated in november , several weeks after the secretary of defense had announced the end of all segregated units.[ - ] [footnote - : _u.s. news and world report_ (october , ): - .] [footnote - : hq usareur, "annual historical report, july - june ," p. .] [illustration: brothers under the skin, _inductees at fort sam houston, texas, _.] like a man who discovers that his profitable deeds are also virtuous, the army discussed its new racial policy with considerable pride. from company commander to general officer the report was that the army worked better; integration was desirable, and despite all predictions to the contrary, it was a success. military commentators in and out of uniform stoutly defended the new system against its few critics.[ - ] most pointed to korea as the proving ground for the new policy. assistant secretary of defense hannah generalized about the change to integration: "official analyses and reports indicate a definite increase in combat effectiveness in the overseas areas.... from experience in korea and elsewhere, army commanders have (p.  ) determined, also, that more economical and effective results accrue from the policies which remove duplicate facilities and operations based upon race."[ - ] the army, it would seem, had made a complete about-face in its argument from efficiency. [footnote - : see, for example, _semiannual report of the secretary of defense, january -june , _, p. ; ibid., january -june , , pp. - ; and annual reports of the secretary of the army for same period, as well as cincusareur's response to criticisms by general mark clark, _army times_, may , , and s. l. a. marshall's devastating rejoinder to general almond in the detroit _news_, may , . clark's views are reported in _u.s. news and world report_ (may , ). see also ltr, lt col gordon hill, cinfo, to joan rosen, wcbs, apr , cmh files; new york _herald tribune_, may , ; new york _times_ may , .] [footnote - : ltr, hannah, asd (m), to sen. lyndon b. johnson, feb , asd (m) . .] but integration did more than demonstrate a new form of military efficiency. it also stilled several genuine fears long entertained by military leaders. many thoughtful officials had feared that the social mingling that would inevitably accompany integration in the continental united states might lead to racial incidents and a breakdown in discipline. the new policy seemed to prove this fear groundless.[ - ] a army-sponsored survey reported that, with the single major exception of racially separate dances for enlisted men at post-operated service clubs on southern bases, segregation involving uniformed men and women now stopped at the gates of the military reservation.[ - ] army headquarters, carefully monitoring the progress of social integration, found it without incident.[ - ] at the same time the survey revealed that some noncommissioned officers' clubs and enlisted men's clubs tended to segregate themselves, but no official notice was taken of this tendency, and not one such instance was a source of racial complaint in . the survey also discovered that racial attitudes in adjacent communities had surprisingly little influence on the relations between white and black soldiers on post. nor was there evidence of any appreciable resentment toward integration on the part of white civilian employees, even when they worked with or under black officers and enlisted men. [footnote - : one exception was the strong objection in some states to racially mixed marriages contracted by soldiers. twenty-seven states had some form of miscegenation law. the army therefore did not assign to stations in those states soldiers who by reason of their mixed marriages might be subject to criminal penalties. see memo, chief, classification and standards branch, dcsper, for planning office, feb , sub: assignment of personnel; df, dcsper to tag, jun ; both in dcsper . . for further discussion of the matter, see tago, policy paper, july ; new york _post_, november , .] [footnote - : humrro, integration of social activities on nine army posts, aug . see also interv, nichols with davis. a dcsper action officer, davis was intimately involved with the army's integration program during this period.] [footnote - : interv, author with evans, dec , cmh files.] the on-post dance, a valuable morale builder, was usually restricted to one race because commanders were afraid of arousing antagonism in nearby communities. but even here restrictions were not uniform. mutual use of dance floors by white and black couples was frequent though not commonplace and was accepted in officers' clubs, many noncommissioned officers' clubs, and at special unit affairs. the rules for social integration were flexible, and many adjustments could be made to the sentiments of the community if the commander had the will and the tact. some commanders, unaware of what was being accomplished by progressive colleagues, were afraid to establish a precedent, and often avoided practices that were common elsewhere. social scientists reviewing the situation suggested that the army should acquaint the commanders with the existing wide range of social possibilities. fear of congressional disapproval, another reason often given for deferring integration, was exaggerated, as a meeting between senator richard b. russell and james evans in early demonstrated. (p.  ) at the request of the manpower secretary, evans went to capitol hill to inform the chairman of the armed services committee that for reasons of military efficiency the army was going to integrate. senator russell observed that he had been unable to do some things he wanted to do "because your people [black voters] weren't strong enough politically to support me." tell the secretary, russell added, "that i won't help him integrate, but i won't hinder him either--and neither will anyone else."[ - ] the senator was true to his word. news of the army's integration program passed quietly through the halls of congress without public or private protest. [footnote - : ibid.] much opposition to integration was based on the fear that low-scoring black soldiers, handicapped by deficiencies in schooling and training, would weaken integrated units as they had the all-black units. but integration proved to be the best solution. as one combat commander put it, "mix 'um up and you get a strong line all the way; segregate 'um and you have a point of weakness in your line. the enemy hits you there, and it's bug out."[ - ] korea taught the army that an integrated unit was not as weak as its weakest men, but as strong as its leadership and training. integration not only diluted the impact of the less qualified by distributing them more widely, but also brought about measurable improvement in the performance and standards of a large number of black soldiers. [footnote - : quoted in john b. spore and robert f. cocklin, "our negro soldiers," _reporter_ (january , ): - .] closely related to the concern over the large number of ill-qualified soldiers was the fear of the impact of integration on a quota-free army. the project clear team concluded that a maximum of to percent black strength "seems to be an effective interim working level."[ - ] general mcauliffe pointed out in november that he was trying to maintain a balanced distribution of black troops, not only geographically but also according to combat and service specialties (_see tables and _). collins decided to retain the ceiling on black combat troops--no more than percent in any combat unit--but he agreed that a substantially higher percentage was acceptable in all other units.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dir, oro, to acofs, g- , nov , g- . .] [footnote - : memo for rcd, g- , nov , ref: acofs, g- , memo for cofs, sub: distribution of negro personnel, oct , g- . .] table --worldwide distribution of enlisted personnel by race, october (in thousands) european far east other overseas continental category command command commands united total states white . . . . , . black . . . [a] . . total . . . . , . percent black . . . . . [tablenote a: restrictions remained in effect on the assignment of negroes to certain stations in usarpac, trust, and usarcarib.] _source_: memo, chief, per and dist br, g- , for acofs, g- , oct , sub: distribution of negro enlisted personnel, g- , . . table --distribution of black enlisted personnel by branch and rank, october aus regular branch total percent[b] total percent[b] armor , . , . artillery , . , . infantry , . , . adjutant general's corps , . . chemical corps , . . corps of engineers , . , . military police corps , . , . finance corps . . army medical service , . , . ordnance corps , . , . quartermaster corps , . , . signal corps , . , . transportation corps , . , . women's army corps , . , . no branch assignment[a] , . , . total , [c] , [tablenote a: in training.] [tablenote b: figures show black percentage of total army enlistments.] [tablenote c: discrepancy with table , which is based on september figures.] _source_: stm- , oct . these percentages were part of a larger concern over the number of negroes in the army as a whole. based on the evidence of draft-swollen enlistment statistics, it seemed likely that the to percent figure would be reached or surpassed in or , and there was some discussion in the staff about restoring the quota. but such talk quickly faded as the korean war wound down and the percentage declined. negroes constituted . percent of enlisted strength in december and leveled off by the summer of at . percent. statistics for the european command illustrated the trend. in june , negroes accounted for . percent of the command's officer strength and . percent of its enlisted strength. the enlisted figure represents a drop from a high of . percent in june . the percentage of black troops was down to . percent of the (p.  ) command's total strength--officers, warrant officers, and enlisted men--by june . the reduction is explained in part by a policy adopted by all commands in february of refusing, with certain exceptions, to reenlist three-year veterans who scored less than ninety in the classification tests. in europe alone some , enlisted men were not permitted to reenlist in . slightly more than percent were black.[ - ] [footnote - : hq usareur, "annual historical report, july - june ," pp. - , ; ibid., july - june , pp. - .] the racial quota, in the guise of an "acceptable" percentage of negroes in individual units, continued to operate long after the army agreed to abandon it. no one, black or white, appears to have voiced in the early 's the logical observation that the establishment of a racial quota in individual army units--whatever the percentage and the grounds for that percentage--was in itself a residual form of discrimination. nor did anyone ask how establishing a race quota, clearly distinct from restricting men according to mental, moral, or professional standards, could achieve the "effective working (p.  ) level" posited by the army's scientific advisers. these questions would still be pertinent years later because the alternative to the racial quota--the enlistment and assignment of men without regard for color--would continue to be unacceptable to many. they would argue that to abandon the quota, as the services did in the 's, was to violate the concept of racial balance, which is yet another hallmark of an egalitarian society. for example, during the vietnam war some black americans complained that too many negroes were serving in the more dangerous combat arms. since men were assigned without regard to race, these critics were in effect asking for the quota again, reminding the service that the population of the united states was only some percent black. and during discussions of the all-volunteer army a decade later, critics would be asking how the white majority would react to an army or even percent black. these considerations were clearly beyond the ken of the men who integrated the army in the early 's. they concentrated instead on the perplexities of enlisting and assigning vast numbers of segregated black soldiers during wartime and closely watched the combat performance of black units in korea. integration provided the army with a way to fill its depleted combat units quickly. the shortage of white troops forced local commanders to turn to the growing surplus of black soldiers awaiting assignment to a limited number of black units. manpower restrictions did not permit the formation of new black units merely to accommodate the excess, and in any case experience with the th infantry had strengthened the army staff's conviction that black combat units did not perform well. however commanders may have felt about the social implications of integration, and whatever they thought of the fighting ability of black units, the only choice left to them was integration. when the chief of staff ordered the integration of the far east command in , what had begun as a battlefield expedient became official policy. segregation became unworkable when the army lost its power to limit the number of black soldiers. abandonment of the quota on enlistments, pressed on the army by the fahy committee, proved compatible with segregated units only so long as the need for fighting men was not acute. in korea the need became acute. ironically, the gillem board, whose work became anathema to the integrationists, accurately predicted the demise of segregation in its final report, which declared that in the event of another major war the army would use its manpower "without regard to antecedents or race." chapter (p.  ) integration of the marine corps even more so than in the army, the history of racial equality in the marine corps demonstrates the effect of the exigencies of war on the integration of the armed forces. the truman order, the fahy committee, even the demands of civil rights leaders and the mandates of the draft law, all exerted pressure for reform and assured the presence of some black marines. but the marine corps was for years able to stave off the logical outcome of such pressures, and in the end it was the manpower demands of the korean war that finally brought integration. in the first place the korean war caused a sudden and dramatic rise in the number of black marines: from , men, almost half of them stewards, in may , to some , men, only of them serving in separate stewards duty, in october .[ - ] whereas the careful designation of a few segregated service units sufficed to handle the token black representation in , no such organization was possible in , when thousands of black marines on active duty constituted more than percent of the total enlistment. the decision to integrate the new black marines throughout the corps was the natural outcome of the service's early experiences in korea. ordered to field a full division, the corps out of necessity turned to the existing black service units, among others, for men to augment the peacetime strength of its combat units. these men were assigned to any unit in the far east that needed them. as the need for more units and replacements grew during the war, newly enlisted black marines were more and more often pressed into integrated service both in the far east and at home. [footnote - : all statistics from official marine corps sources, hist div, hqmc.] most significantly, the war provided a rising generation of marine corps officers with a first combat experience with black marines. the competence of these negroes and the general absence of racial tension during their integration destroyed long accepted beliefs to the contrary and opened the way for general integration. although the corps continued to place special restrictions on the employment of negroes and was still wrestling with the problem of black stewards well into the next decade, its basic policy of segregating marines by race ended with the cancellation of the last all-black unit designation in . hastily embraced by the corps as a solution to a pressing manpower problem, integration was finally accepted as a permanent manpower policy. _impetus for change_ (p.  ) this transformation seemed remote in in view of commandant clifton b. cates's strong defense of segregation. at that time cates made a careful distinction between allocating men to the services without regard to race, which he supported, and ordering integration of the services themselves. "changing national policy in this respect through the armed forces," he declared, "is a dangerous path to pursue inasmuch as it effects [_sic_] the ability of the national military establishment to fulfill its mission."[ - ] integration of the services had to follow, not precede, integration of american society. [footnote - : memo, cmc for asst secnav for air, mar , mc files.] the commandant's views were spelled out in a series of decisions announced by the corps in the wake of the secretary of the navy's call for integration of all elements of the navy department in . on november the corps' acting chief of staff announced a new racial policy: individual black marines would be assigned in accordance with their specialties to vacancies "in any unit where their services can be effectively utilized," but segregated black units would be retained and new ones created when appropriate in the regular and reserve components of the corps. in the case of the reserve component, the decision on the acceptance of an applicant was vested in the unit commander.[ - ] on the same day the commandant made it clear that the policy was not to be interpreted too broadly. priority for the assignment of individual black marines, cates informed the commander of the pacific department, would be given to the support establishment and black officers would be assigned to black units only.[ - ] [footnote - : mc memo - , nov , sub: policy regarding negro marines, hist div, hqmc, files. unless otherwise noted, all documents in this section are located in these files.] [footnote - : msg, cmc (signed c. b. cates) to cg, dept of pacific, nov . aware of the delicate public relations aspects of this subject, the director of plans and policies recommended that this message be classified; see memo, e. a. pollock for asst cmc, nov .] further limiting the chances that black marines would be integrated, cates approved the creation of four new black units. the director of personnel and the marine quartermaster had opposed this move on the grounds that the new units would require technical billets, particularly in the supply specialties, which would be nearly impossible to fill with available enlisted black marines. either school standards would have to be lowered or white marines would have to be assigned to the units. cates met this objection by agreeing with the director of plans and policies that no prohibition existed against racial mixing in a unit during a period of on-the-job training. the director of personnel would decide when a unit was sufficiently trained and properly manned to be officially designated a black organization.[ - ] in keeping with this arrangement, for example, the commanding general of the d marine division reported in february that his black marines were sufficiently trained to assume complete operation of the depot platoon within the division's service command. cates then designated the platoon as a unit suitable for general (p.  ) duty black marines, which prompted the coordinator of enlisted personnel to point out that current regulations stipulated "after a unit has been so designated, all white enlisted personnel will be withdrawn and reassigned."[ - ] [footnote - : dp&p study - , nov , sub: designation of units for assignment of negro marines, approved by cmc, dec .] [footnote - : memo, cg, d marine div, for cmc, feb , sub: assignment of negro enlisted personnel; memo, cmc to cg, d marine div, mar , sub: designation of the depot platoon, support company, second combat service group, service command, for assignment of negro enlisted marines; mc routing sheet, enlisted coordinator, personnel department, mar , same sub.] nor were there any plans for the general integration of black reservists, although some negroes were serving in formerly all-white units. the th infantry battalion, for instance, had a black lieutenant. as the assistant commandant, maj. gen. oliver p. smith, put it on january , black units would be formed "in any area where there is an expressed interest" provided that the black population was large enough to support it.[ - ] when the naacp objected to the creation of another all-black reserve unit in new york city as being contrary to defense department policy, the marine corps justified it on the grounds that the choice of integrated or segregated units must be made by the local community "in accord with its cultural values."[ - ] notwithstanding the secretary of the navy's integration order and assignment policies directed toward effective utilization, it appeared that the marine corps in early was determined to retain its system of racially segregated units indefinitely. [footnote - : ltr, smith to franklin s. williams, asst special counsel, naacp, jan , ao- , mc files.] [footnote - : ltr, roy wilkins to secdef, feb ; memo, secnav for secdef, apr , sub: activation of negro reserve units in the u.s. marine corps; both in secdef . . see also ltr, asst cmc to franklin williams, feb .] but the corps failed to reckon with the consequences of the war that broke out suddenly in korea in june. two factors connected with that conflict caused an abrupt change in marine race policy. the first was the great influx of negroes into the corps. although the commandant insisted that race was not considered in recruitment, and in fact recruitment instructions since contained no reference to the race of applicants, few negroes had joined the marine corps in the two years preceding the war.[ - ] in its defense the corps pointed to its exceedingly small enlistment quotas during those years and its high enlistment standards, which together allowed recruiters to accept only a few men. the classification test average for all recruits enlisted in was , while the average for black enlistees during the same period was . . new black recruits were almost exclusively enlisted for stewards duty.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, cmc to walter white, jul .] [footnote - : memo, div of plans and policies for asst dir of public info, jun , sub: article in pittsburgh _courier_ of may .] a revision of defense department manpower policy combined with the demands of the war to change all that. the imposition of a qualitative distribution of manpower by the secretary of defense in april meant that among the thousands of recruits enlisted during the korean war the marine corps would have to accept its share of the large percentage of men in lower classification test categories. among these men were a significant number of black enlistees who had failed to qualify under previous standards. they were joined by thousands (p.  ) more who were supplied through the nondiscriminatory process of the selective service system when, during the war, the corps began using the draft. the result was a percent jump in the number of black marines in the first year of war, a figure that would be multiplied almost six times before war inductions ran down in . (_table _) table --black marines, - percent date officers enlisted men of corps july , . july , . january , . july , . january , . july na , . january , . july , . november , . june , . january , . a second factor forcing a change in racial policy was the manpower demands imposed upon the corps by the war itself. when general macarthur called for the deployment of a marine regimental combat team and supporting air group on july , the secretary of the navy responded by sending the st provisional marine brigade, which included the th marine regiment, the st battalion of the th marines (artillery), and marine air group . by september the st marine division and the st marine air wing at wartime strength had been added. fielding these forces placed an enormous strain on the corps' manpower, and one result was the assignment of a number of black service units, often combined with white units in composite organizations, to the combat units. the pressures of battle quickly altered this neat arrangement. theoretically, every marine was trained as an infantryman, and when shortages occurred in combat units commanders began assigning black replacements where needed. for example, as the demand for more marines for the battlefield grew, the marine staff began to pull black marines from routine duties at the marine barracks in new jersey, pennsylvania, and hawaii and send them to korea to bring the fighting units up to full strength. the first time black servicemen were integrated as individuals in significant numbers under combat conditions was in the st provisional marine brigade during the fighting in the pusan perimeter in august . the assignment of large numbers of black marines throughout the combat units of the st marine division, beginning in september, provided the clearest instance of a service abandoning a social policy in response to the demands of the battlefield. the th marines, for example, an organic element of the st marine division since august , received into its rapidly expanding ranks, along with many recalled white reservists and men from small, miscellaneous marine units, a -man black (p.  ) service unit. the regimental commander immediately broke up the black unit, assigning the men individually throughout his combat battalions. that the emergency continued to influence the placement of negroes is apparent from the distribution of black marines in march , when almost half were assigned to combat duty in integrated units.[ - ] before the war was over, the st marine division had several thousand black marines, serving in its ranks in korea, where they were assigned to infantry and signal units as well as to transportation and food supply organizations. one of the few black reserve officers on active duty found himself serving as an infantry platoon commander in company b of the division's th marines. [footnote - : _location of black marines, march _ posts and stations inside the united states posts and stations outside the united states troop training units aviation fleet marine force (ground) , ships en route missing in action total , _source_: tab to memo, acofs, g- , to asst dir of public info, jun , sub: queries concerning negro marines.] the shift to integration in korea proved uneventful. in the words of the th marines commander: "never once did any color problem bother us.... it just wasn't any problem. we had one negro sergeant in command of an all-white squad and there was another--with a graves registration unit--who was one of the finest marines i've ever seen."[ - ] serving for the first time in integrated units, negroes proceeded to perform in a way that not only won many individuals decorations for valor but also won the respect of commanders for negroes as fighting men. reminiscing about the performance of black marines in his division, lt. gen. oliver p. smith remembered "they did everything, and they did a good job because they were integrated, and they were with good people."[ - ] in making his point the division commander contrasted the performance of his integrated men with the army's segregated th infantry. the observations of field commanders, particularly the growing opinion that a connection existed between good performance and integration, were bound to affect the deliberations of the division of plans and policies when it began to restudy the question of black assignments in the fall of . [footnote - : washington _post_, february , .] [footnote - : usmc oral history interview, lt gen oliver p. smith, jun .] as a result of the division's study, the commandant of the marine corps announced a general policy of racial integration on december , thus abolishing the system first introduced in of designating certain units in the regular forces and organized reserves as black units.[ - ] he spelled out the new order in some detail (p.  ) on december, and although his comments were addressed to the commanders in the fleet marine force, they were also forwarded to various commands in the support establishment that still retained all-black units. the order indicated that the practices now so commonplace in korea were about to become the rule in the united states.[ - ] some six months later the commandant informed the chief of naval personnel that the marine corps had no segregated units and while integration had been gradual "it was believed to be an accomplished fact at this time."[ - ] [footnote - : mc policy memo - , dec , sub: policy regarding negro marines.] [footnote - : memo, cmc for cg, fmf, pacific, et al., dec , sub: assignment of negro enlisted personnel.] [footnote - : idem for chief, navpers (ca. jun ), mc files.] [illustration: marines on the kansas line, korea. _men of the st marines await word to move out._] the change was almost immediately apparent in other parts of the corps, for black marines were also integrated in units serving with the fleet. reporting on a mediterranean tour of the d battalion, th marines (reinforced), from april to october , capt. thomas l. faix, a member of the unit, noted: "we have about fifteen negro marines in our unit now, out of fifty men. we have but very little trouble and they sleep, eat and go on liberty together. it would be hard for many to believe but the thought is that here in the service all are facing a common call or summons to service regardless of color."[ - ] finally, in august , lt. gen. gerald c. thomas, (p.  ) who framed the postwar segregation policy, announced that "integration of negroes in the corps is here to stay. colored boys are in almost every military occupation specialty and certainly in every enlisted rank. i believe integration is satisfactory to them, and it is satisfactory to us."[ - ] [footnote - : extract from thomas l. faix, "marines on tour (an account of mediterranean goodwill cruise and naval occupation duty), third battalion, sixth marines (reinforced), april -october , ," in essays and topics of interest: # , race relations, p. .] [footnote - : the chief of staff was quoted in "integration of the armed forces," _ebony_ (july ): .] [illustration: marine reinforcements. _a light machine gun squad of d battalion, st marines, arrives during the battle for "boulder city."_] _assignments_ the integration order ushered in a new era in the long history of the marine corps, but despite the abolition of segregated units, the new policy did not bring about completely unrestricted employment of negroes throughout the corps. the commandant had retained the option to employ black marines "where their services can be effectively utilized," and in the years after the korean war it became apparent that the corps recognized definite limits to the kinds of duty to which black marines could be assigned. following standard assignment procedures, the department of personnel's detail branch selected individual staff noncommissioned officers for specific duty billets. after screening the records of a marine and considering his race, the branch could reject the assignment of a negro to a billet for any (p.  ) reason "of overriding interest to the marine corps."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, head of detail br, pers dept, for dir of pers, jun , sub: policy regarding negro marines, mc files. this method of assigning staff noncommissioned officers still prevailed in .] by the same token, the assignment of marines in the lower ranks was left to the individual commands, which filled quotas established by headquarters. commanders usually filled the quotas from among eligible men longest on station, but whether or not negroes were included in a transfer quota was left entirely to the discretion of the local commander. the department of personnel reserved the right, however, to make one racial distinction in regard to bulk quotas: it regulated the number of black marines it took from recruit depots as replacements, as insurance against a "disproportionate" number of negroes in combat units. under the screening procedures of marine headquarters and unit commanders, black enlisted men were excluded from assignment to reserve officer training units, recruiting stations, the state department for duty at embassies and legations, and certain special duties of the department of defense and the navy department.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., aug .] for the service to reserve the right to restrict the assignment of negroes when it was of "overriding interest to the marine corps" was perhaps understandable, but it was also susceptible to considerable misinterpretation if not outright abuse. the personnel department was "constantly" receiving requests from commanders that no black noncoms be assigned to their units. while some of these requests seemed reasonable, the chief of the division's detail branch noted, others were not. commanders of naval prison retraining centers did not want black noncommissioned officers assigned because, they claimed, negroes caused unrest among the prisoners. the marine barracks in washington, d.c., where the commandant lived, did not want black marines because of the ceremonial nature of its mission. the marine barracks at dahlgren, virginia, did not want negroes because conflicts might arise with civilian employees in cafeterias and movies. other commanders questioned the desirability of assigning black marines to the naval academy, to inspector-instructor billets in the clerical and supply fields, and to billets for staff chauffeurs. the detail branch wanted a specific directive that listed commands to which black marines should not be assigned.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., jun .] restrictions on the assignment of black marines were never codified, but the justification for them changed. in place of the "overriding interest to the marine corps" clause, the corps began to speak of restrictions "solely for the welfare of the individual marine." in the director of personnel, maj. gen. robert o. bare, pointed to the unusually severe hardships imposed on negroes in some communities where the attitude toward black marines sometimes interfered with their performance of duty. since civilian pressures could not be recognized officially, bare reasoned, they had to be dealt with informally on a person-to-person basis.[ - ] by this statement (p.  ) he meant the marine corps would informally exclude negroes from certain assignments. of course no one explained how barring negroes from assignment to recruitment, inspector-instructor, embassy, or even chauffeur duty worked for "the welfare of the individual marine." such an explanation was just what congressman powell was demanding in january when he asked why black marines were excluded from assignments to the american embassy in paris.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen r. o. bare to co, st mar div, jul ; ltr, dir of pers to cg, st mar div (ca. dec ). the quotation is from ltr, co, marine barracks, nad, hawthorne, nev., to dir of pers, dec .] [footnote - : ltr, powell to secdef, jan . see also unsigned draft ltr for the commandant's signature to powell, feb .] community attitudes toward negroes in uniform had become a serious matter in all the services by the late 's, and concern for the welfare of black marines was repeatedly voiced by marine commanders in areas as far-flung as nevada, florida, and southern california.[ - ] but even here there was reason to question the motives of some local commanders, for during a lengthy discussion in the personnel department some officials asserted that the available evidence indicated no justification for restricting assignments. anxiety over assignments anywhere in the united states was unfounded, they claimed, and offered in support statistics demonstrating the existence of a substantial black community in all the duty areas from which negroes were unofficially excluded. the assignment and classification branch also pointed out that the corps had experienced no problems in the case of the thirteen black marines then assigned to inspector-instructor duty, including one in mobile, alabama. the branch went on to discuss the possibility of assigning black marines to recruiting duty. since recruiters were assigned to areas where they understood local attitudes and customs, some officials reasoned, negroes should be used to promote the corps among potential black enlistees whose feelings and attitudes were not likely to be understood by white recruiters. [footnote - : see ltrs, a. w. gentleman, hq mc cold weather tng cen, bridgeport, calif., to col hartley, nov ; co, mb, nas, jacksonville, fla., to personnel dept, dec ; co, mb, nad, hawthorne, nev., to same, dec .] these matters were never considered officially by the marine corps staff, and as of the inspector general was still keeping a list of stations to which negroes would not be assigned. but the picture quickly changed in the next year, and by june all restrictions on the assignment of black marines had been dropped with the exception of several installations in the united states where off-base housing was unavailable and some posts overseas where the use of black marines was limited because of the attitudes of foreign governments.[ - ] [footnote - : draft memo, head of assignment and classification br for dir, pers (ca. ), sub: restricted assignments; memo, ig for dir, pers, aug ; ltr, lt col a. w. snell to col r. s. johnson, co, mb, port lyautey, jun . see also memo, maj e. w. snelling, mb, nad, charleston, s.c., for maj duncan, nov ; and the following ltrs: col s. l. stephan, co, mb, norfolk nav shipyard, to dir, pers, dec ; k. a. jorgensen, co, mb, nav base, charleston, s.c., to duncan, dec ; col r. j. picardi, co, mb, lake mead base, to duncan, nov .] the perennial problem of an all-black steward's branch persisted into the 's. stewards served a necessary though unglamorous function in the marine corps, and education standards for such duty were (p.  ) considerably lower than those for the rest of the service. everyone understood this, and beyond the stigma many young people felt was attached to such duties, many negroes particularly resented the fact that while the branch was officially open to all, somehow none of the less gifted whites ever joined. stewards were acquired either by recruiting new marines with stewards-duty-only contracts or by accepting volunteers from the general service. the evidence suggests that there was truth in the commonly held assumption among stewards that when a need for more stewards arose, "volunteers" were secured by tampering with the classification test scores of men in the general service.[ - ] [footnote - : shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, pp. - .] [illustration: training exercises _on iwo jima, march _.] the commandant seemed less concerned with methods than results when stewards were needed. in june he had reaffirmed the policy of allowing stewards to reenlist for general duty, but when he learned that some stewards had made the jump to general duty without being qualified, he announced that men who had signed contracts for stewards duty only were not acceptable for general duty unless they scored at least in the st percentile of the qualifying tests. to make the change to general duty even less attractive, he ruled that if a steward reenlisted for general duty he would have to revert to the rank of private, first class.[ - ] such measures did nothing to improve the morale of black stewards, many of whom, according to civil rights critics, felt confined forever to performing menial tasks, nor did it prevent constant shortages in the steward's branch and problems arising from the lack of men with training in modern mess management. [footnote - : speed ltr, cmc to distribution list, jun ; routing sheet, pers dept, jun , sub: enlistment of stewards.] the corps tried to attack these problems in the mid- 's. at the behest of the secretary of the navy it eliminated the stewards-duty-only contract in ; henceforth all marines were enlisted for general duty, and only after recruit training could volunteers sign up for stewards duty. acceptance of men scoring below ninety in the classification tests would be limited to percent of those volunteering each month for stewards duty.[ - ] the corps also instituted special training in modern mess management for stewards. in the quartermaster general had created an inspection and demonstration team composed of senior stewards to instruct members (p.  ) of the branch in the latest techniques of cooking and baking, supervision, and management.[ - ] in august the commandant established an advanced twelve-week course for stewards based on the navy's successful system. [footnote - : ltrs, cmc to distribution list, apr and nov .] [footnote - : memo, head, enlisted monitoring unit, detail br, for lt col gordon t. west, oct , pers a. see also shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, pp. - .] [illustration: marines from camp lejeune on the uss valley forge _for training exercises, _.] these measures, however, did nothing to cure the chronic shortage of men and the attendant problems of increased work load and low morale that continued to plague the steward's branch throughout the 's. consequently, the corps still found it difficult to attract enough black volunteers to the branch. in , for example, the branch was still percent short of its -man goal.[ - ] the obvious solution, to use white volunteers for messman duty, would be a radical departure from tradition. true, before world war ii white marines had been used in the marine corps for duties now performed by black stewards, but they had never been members of a branch organized exclusively for that purpose. in tradition was broken when white volunteers were quietly signed up for the branch. by march the branch had eighty white men, percent of its total. reviewing the situation later that year, the commandant decided to increase the number of white stewards by setting a racial quota on steward assignment. henceforth, he ordered, half the volunteers accepted (p.  ) for stewards duty would be white.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, j. j. holicky, detail br, for dir of pers, usmc, aug , sub: inspection of occupational field (stewards), pers , mc files.] [footnote - : memo, asst chief for plans, bupers (rear adm b. j. semmes, jr.), for chief of navpers, jun .] [illustration: colonel petersen (_ photograph_).] the new policy made an immediate difference. in less than two months the steward's branch was percent white. in marked contrast to the claims of navy recruiters, the marines reported no difficulty in attracting white volunteers for messman duties. curiously, the volunteers came mostly from the southeastern states. as the racial composition of the steward's branch changed, the morale of its black members seemed to improve. as one senior black warrant officer later explained, simply opening stewards duty to whites made such duty acceptable to many negroes who had been prone to ask "if it [stewards duty] was so good, why don't you have some of the whites in it."[ - ] when transfer to general service assignments became easy to obtain in the 's, the marine corps found that only a small percentage of the black stewards now wished to make the change. [footnote - : usmc oral history interview, cwo james e. johnson, mar .] there were still inequities in the status of black marines, especially the near absence of black officers (two on active duty in , nineteen in january ) and the relatively slow rate of promotion among black marines in general. the corps had always justified its figures on the grounds that competition in so small a service was extremely fierce, and, as the commandant explained to walter white in , a man had to be good to compete and outstanding to be promoted. he cited the selection figures for officer training: out of , highly qualified men applying, only half were selected and only half of those were commissioned.[ - ] promotion to senior billets for noncommissioned officers was also highly competitive, with time in service an important factor. it was unlikely in such circumstances that many black marines would be commissioned from the ranks or a higher percentage of black noncommissioned officers would be promoted to the most senior positions during the 's.[ - ] the marine corps had begun commissioning negroes so recently that the development of a representative group of black officers in a system of open competition was of necessity a slow and arduous task. the task was further complicated because most of the nineteen black officers on (p.  ) active duty in were reservists serving out tours begun in the korean war. only a few of them had made the successful switch from reserve to regular service. the first two were d lt. frank e. petersen, jr., the first black marine pilot, and d lt. kenneth h. berthoud, jr., who first served as a tank officer in the d marine division. both men would advance to high rank in the corps, petersen becoming the first black marine general. [footnote - : ltr, cmc to walter white, jul , ao- , mc files. see also memo, div of plans and policies (t. j. colley) for asst dir of public info, jun , sub: article in pittsburgh _courier_ of may .] [footnote - : memo, exec off, acofs, g- , for william l. taylor, asst staff dir, u.s. commission on civil rights, feb , sub: personnel information requested, ao- c, mc files.] [illustration: sergeant major huff.] as for the noncommissioned officers, there were a number of senior enlisted black marines in the 's, many of them holdovers from the world war ii era, and negroes were being promoted to the ranks of corporal and sergeant in appreciable numbers. but the tenfold increase in the number of black marines during the korean war caused the ratio of senior black noncommissioned officers to black marines to drop. here again promotion to higher rank was slow. the first black marine to make the climb to the top in the integrated corps was edgar r. huff. a gunnery sergeant in an integrated infantry battalion in korea, huff later became battalion sergeant major in the th marines and eventually senior sergeant major of the marine corps.[ - ] [footnote - : shaw and donnelly, _blacks in the marine corps_, pp. - . .] by there were , black enlisted men, . percent of the corps' strength, and black officers ( captains, lieutenants, and warrant officers) serving in integrated units in all military occupations. these statistics illustrate the racial progress that occurred in the marine corps during the 's, a change that was both orderly and permanent, and, despite the complicated forces at work, in essence a gift to the naval establishment from the korean battlefield. chapter (p.  ) a new era begins on october the secretary of defense announced that the last racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the united states had been abolished.[ - ] considering the department's very conservative definition of a segregated unit--one at least percent black--the announcement celebrated a momentous change in policy. in the little more than six years since president truman's order, all black servicemen, some quarter of a million in , had been intermingled with whites in the nation's military units throughout the world. for the services the turbulent era of integration had begun. [footnote - : new york _times_, october , ; ibid., editorial, november , .] the new era's turbulence was caused in part by the decade-long debate that immediately ensued over the scope of president truman's guarantee of equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. on one side were ranged most service officials, who argued that integration, now a source of pride to the services and satisfaction to the civil rights movement, had ceased to be a public issue. abolishing segregated units, they claimed, fulfilled the essential elements of the executive order, leaving the armed forces only rare vestiges of discrimination to correct. others, at first principally the civil rights bloc in congress and civil rights organizations, but later black servicemen themselves, contended that the truman order committed the department of defense to far more than integration of military units. they believed that off-base discrimination, so much more apparent with the improvement of on-base conditions, seriously affected morale and efficiency. they wanted the department to challenge local laws and customs when they discriminated against black servicemen. this interpretation made little headway in the department of defense during the first decade of integration. both the eisenhower and kennedy administrations made commitments to the principle of equal treatment within the services, and both admitted the connection between military efficiency and discrimination, but both presumed, at least until , severe limitations on their power to change local laws and customs. for their part, the services constantly referred to the same limitations, arguing that their writ in regard to racial reform ran only to the gates of the military reservation. yet while there was no substantive change in the services' view of their racial responsibilities, the department of defense was able to make significant racial reforms between and . more than expressing the will of the chief executive, these changes reflected the fact that military society was influenced by some of the same forces that were operating on the larger american society. possessed of a discipline that enabled it to reform rapidly, military society still shared the prejudices as well as the reform impulses of the (p.  ) body politic. racial changes in the services during the first decade of integration were primarily parochial responses to special internal needs; nevertheless, they took place at a time when civil rights demands were stirring the whole country. their effectiveness must be measured against the expectations such demands were kindling in the black community. _the civil rights revolution_ the post-world war ii civil rights movement was unique in the nation's history. contrasting this era of black awakening with the post-civil war campaign for black civil rights, historian c. vann woodward found the twentieth century phenomenon "more profound and impressive ... deeper, surer, less contrived, more spontaneous."[ - ] again in contrast to the original, the so-called second reconstruction period found black americans uniting in a demand for social justice so long withheld. in , the year before the supreme court decision to desegregate the schools, clarence mitchell of the naacp gave voice to the revolutionary rise in black expectations: twenty years ago the negro was satisfied if he could have even a half-decent school to go to (and took it for granted that it would be a segregated school) or if he could go to the hotel in town or the restaurant maybe once a year for some special interracial dinner and meeting. twenty years ago much of the segregation pattern was taken for granted by the negro. now it is different.[ - ] [footnote - : c. vann woodward, _strange career of jim crow_, p. . this account of the civil rights movement largely follows woodward's famous study, but the following works have also been consulted: benjamin muse, _ten years of prelude: the story of integration since the supreme court's decision_ (new york: viking press, ); constance m. green, _the secret city: a history of race relations in the nation's capital_ (princeton: princeton university press, ); anthony lewis and the new york _times_, _portrait of a decade_ (new york: new york _times_, ); franklin, _from slavery to freedom; freedom to the free: a report to the president by the u.s. commission on civil rights_ (washington: government printing office, ); _report of the national advisory commission on civil disorders_; interv, nichols with clarence mitchell, , in nichols collection, cmh.] [footnote - : interv, nichols with mitchell.] the difference was understandable. the rapid urbanization of many black americans, coupled with their experience in world war ii, especially in the armed forces and in defense industries, had enhanced their economic and political power and raised their educational opportunities. and what was true for the war generation was even truer for its children. possessed of a new self-respect, young negroes began to demonstrate confidence in the future and a determination to reject the humiliation of second-class citizenship. out of this attitude grew a widespread demand among the young for full equality, and when this demand met with opposition, massive participation in civil rights demonstrations became both practical and inevitable. again historian woodward's observations are pertinent: more than a black revolt against whites, it was in part a generational rebellion, an uprising of youth against the older generation, against the parental "uncle toms" and their inhibitions. it even took the n.a.a.c.p. and core (congress of racial equality) by surprise. negroes were in charge of their (p.  ) own movement, and youth was in the vanguard.[ - ] [footnote - : woodward, _strange career of jim crow_, p. .] [illustration: clarence mitchell.] to a remarkable extent, this youthful vanguard was strongly religious and nonviolent. the influence of the church on the militant phase of the civil rights movement is one of the movement's salient characteristics. this black awakening paralleled a growing realization among an increasing number of white americans that the demands of the civil rights leaders were just and that the government should act. world war ii had made many thoughtful americans aware of the contradiction inherent in fighting fascism with segregated troops. in the postwar years, the cold war rivalry for the friendship and allegiance of the world's colored peoples, who were creating a multitude of new states, added a pragmatic reason for ensuring equal treatment and opportunity for black americans. a further inducement, and a particularly forceful one, was the size of the northern black vote, which had become the key to victory in several electorally important states and had made the civil rights cause a practical political necessity for both major parties. the u.s. supreme court was the real pacesetter. significantly broadening its interpretation of the fourteenth amendment, the court reversed a century-old trend and called for federal intervention to protect the civil rights of the black minority in transportation, housing, voting, and the administration of justice. in the _morgan_ v. _virginia_ decision of ,[ - ] for example, the court launched an attack on segregation in interstate travel. in another series of cases it proclaimed the right of negroes to be tried only in those courts where negroes could serve on juries and outlawed the all-white primary system, which in some one-party states had effectively barred negroes from the elective process. the latter decision partly explains the rise in the number of qualified black voters in twelve southern states from , in to some . million by . however, many difficulties remained in the way of full enfranchisement. the poll tax, literacy tests, and outright intimidation frustrated the registration of negroes in many areas, and in some rural counties black voter registration actually declined in the early 's. but the court's intervention was crucial because its decisions established the precedent for federal action that would culminate in the voting rights act of . [footnote - : u.s. ( ).] these judicial initiatives whittled away at segregation's hold on (p.  ) the constitution, but it was the supreme court's rulings in the field of public education that dealt segregation a mortal blow. its unanimous decision in the case of _oliver brown et al._ v. _board of education of topeka, kansas_, on may [ - ] not only undermined segregation in the nation's schools, but by an irresistible extension of the logic employed in the case also committed the nation at its highest levels to the principle of racial equality. the court's conclusion that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" exposed segregation in all public areas to renewed judicial scrutiny. it was, as professor woodward described it, the most far-reaching court decision in a century, and it marked the beginning of the end of jim crow's reign in america.[ - ] [footnote - : u.s. ( ); see also u.s. ( ).] [footnote - : woodward, _strange career of jim crow_, p. .] but it was only the beginning, for the court's order that the transition to racially nondiscriminatory school systems be accomplished "with all deliberate speed"[ - ] encountered massive resistance in many places. despite ceaseless litigation and further affirmations by the court, and despite enforcement by federal troops in the celebrated cases of little rock, arkansas, and oxford, mississippi, and by federal marshals in new orleans, louisiana,[ - ] elimination of segregated public schools was painfully slow. as late as , for example, only . percent of the more than three million negroes of school age in the southern and border states attended integrated schools. [footnote - : u.s. ( ).] [footnote - : for an outline of the federal and national guard intervention in these areas, see robert w. coakley, paul j. scheips, vincent h. demma, and m. warner stark, "use of troops in civil disturbances since world war ii" ( to with two supplements through ), center of military history study .] the executive branch also took up the cause of civil rights, albeit in a more limited way than the courts. the eisenhower administration, for instance, continued president truman's efforts to achieve equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen. just before the _brown_ decision the administration quickly desegregated most dependent schools on military bases. it also desegregated the school system of washington, d.c., and, with a powerful push from the supreme court in the case of the _district of columbia_ v. _john r. thompson co._ in ,[ - ] abolished segregation in places of public accommodation in the nation's capital. eisenhower also continued truman's fight against discrimination in federal employment, including jobs covered by government contracts, by establishing watchdog committees on government employment policy and government contracts. [footnote - : u.s. ( ).] independent federal agencies also began to attack racial discrimination. the interstate commerce commission, with strong assistance from the courts, made a series of rulings that by had outlawed segregation in much interstate travel. the federal housing authority, following the supreme court's abrogation of the state's power to enforce restrictive covenants in the sale of housing, began in the early 's to push toward a federal open-occupancy policy in public housing and all housing with federally guaranteed loans. (p.  ) the u.s. commission on civil rights, an investigatory agency appointed by the president under the civil rights act of , examined complaints of voting discrimination and denials of equal protection under the law. both eisenhower and kennedy dispatched federal officials to investigate and prosecute violations of voting rights in several states. but civil rights progress was still painfully slow in the 's. the fight for civil rights in that decade graphically demonstrated a political fact of life: any profound change in the nation's social system requires the concerted efforts of all three branches of the national government. in this case the supreme court had done its part, repeatedly attacking segregation in many spheres of national life. the executive branch, on the other hand, did not press the court's decisions as thoroughly as some had hoped, although eisenhower certainly did so forcibly and spectacularly with federal troops at little rock in . the dispatch of paratroopers to little rock,[ - ] a memorable example of federal intervention and one popularly associated with civil rights, had, in fact, little to do with civil rights, but was rather a vivid example of the exercise of executive powers in the face of a threat to federal judicial authority. where the _brown_ decision was concerned, eisenhower's view of judicial powers was narrow and his leadership antithetical to the court's call for "all deliberate speed." he even withheld his support in school desegregation cases. eisenhower was quite frank about the limitations he perceived in his power and, by inference, his duty to effect civil rights reforms. such reforms, he believed, were a matter of the heart and, as he explained to congressman powell in , could not be achieved by means of laws or directives or the action of any one person, "no matter with how much authority and forthrightness he acts."[ - ] [footnote - : for an authoritative account of little rock, see robert w. coakley's "operation arkansas," center of military history study m, . see also paul j. scheips, "enforcement of the federal judicial process by federal marshals," in _bayonets in the streets; the use of troops in civil disturbances_, ed. robin higham (lawrence: university press of kansas, ), pp. - .] [footnote - : ltr, eisenhower to powell, jun , g -a- , eisenhower library. for a later and more comprehensive expression of these sentiments, see "extemporaneous remarks by the president at the national conference on civil rights, june ," _public papers of the presidents: dwight d. eisenhower, _, pp. - .] despite the president's reluctance to lead in civil rights matters, major blame for the lack of substantial progress must be assigned to the third branch of government. the and civil rights laws, pallid harbingers of later powerful legislation in this field, demonstrated congress's lukewarm commitment to civil rights reform that severely limited federal action. the reluctance of congress to enact the reforms augured in the _brown_ decision convinced many negroes that they would have to take further measures to gain their full constitutional rights. they had seen presidents and federal judges embrace principles long argued by civil rights organizations, but to little avail. seven years after the _brown_ decision, negroes were still disfranchised in large areas of the south, still (p.  ) endured segregated public transportation and places of public accommodation, and still encountered discrimination in employment and housing throughout the nation. nor had favorable court decisions and federal attempts at enforcement reversed the ominous trend in black unemployment rates, which had been rising for a decade. above all, court decisions could not spare negroes the sense of humiliation that segregation produced. segregation implied racial inferiority, a "constant corroding experience," as clarence mitchell once called it. it was segregation's seeming imperviousness to governmental action in the 's that caused the new generation of civil rights leaders to develop new civil rights techniques. their new methods forced the older leaders, temporarily at least, into eclipse. no longer could they convince their juniors of the efficacy of legal action, and the 's ended with the younger generation taking to the streets in the first spontaneous battles of their civil rights revolution. under the direction of the southern christian leadership council and its charismatic founder, martin luther king, jr., the strategy of massive civil disobedience, broached in by a. philip randolph, became a reality. other organizations quickly joined the battle, including the student nonviolent coordinating committee (sncc), also organized by dr. king but soon destined to break away into more radical paths, and the congress of racial equality (core), an older organization, now expanded and under its new director, james farmer, rededicated to activism. rosa parks's refusal to move to the rear of the montgomery bus in and the ensuing successful black boycott that ended the city's segregated transportation pointed the way to a wave of nonviolent direct action that swept the country in the 's. thousands of young americans, most notably in the student-led sit-ins enveloping the south in [ - ] and the scores of freedom riders bringing chaos to the transportation system in , carried the civil rights struggle into all corners of the south. "we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer," dr. king warned the nation's majority, and suffer negroes did in the brutal resistance that met their demands. but it was not in vain, for police brutality, mob violence, and assassinations set off hundreds of demonstrations throughout the country and made civil rights a national political issue. [footnote - : for an account of the first major sit-in demonstrations, which occurred at greensboro, north carolina, and their influence on civil rights organizations, including the student nonviolent coordinating committee, see miles wolff, _lunch at the five and ten; the greensboro sit-in_ (new york: stein and day, ). see also clark, "the civil rights movement," pp. - .] the stage was set for a climatic scene, and onto that stage walked the familiar figure of a. philip randolph, calling for a massive march on washington to demand a redress of black grievances. this time, unlike the response to his appeal, the answer was a promise of support from both races. the churches joined in, many labor leaders, including walter reuther, enlisted in the demonstration, and even the president, at first opposed, gave his blessing to the national event. a quarter of a million people, about percent of them white, marched to lincoln memorial on august to hear king appeal to the (p.  ) the nation's conscience by reciting his dream of a just society. in the words of the kerner commission: it [the march] was more than a summation of the past years of struggle and aspiration. it symbolized certain new directions: a deeper concern for the economic problems of the masses, more involvement of white moderates and new demands from the most militant, who implied that only a revolutionary change in american institutions would permit negroes to achieve the dignity of citizens.[ - ] [footnote - : _report of the national advisory commission on civil disorders_, p. .] _limitations on executive order _ the decade of national civil rights activity that culminated symbolically at the lincoln memorial in was closely mirrored in the department of defense, where the services' definition of equal treatment and opportunity underwent a marked evolution. here, a decade that had begun with the department's placing severe limitations on its defense of black servicemen's civil rights ended with the department's joining the vanguard of the civil rights movement. in the early 's the services were constantly referring to the limitations of executive order . the air force could not intervene in local custom, assistant secretary zuckert told clarence mitchell in . social change in local communities must be evolutionary, he continued, either ignoring or contrasting the air force's own social experience.[ - ] defending the practice of maintaining large training camps in localities discriminating against black soldiers, the army chief of staff explained to senator homer ferguson of michigan that while its facilities were open to all soldiers regardless of race, the army had no control over nearby civilian communities. there was little its commanders could do beyond urging local civic organizations to cooperate.[ - ] the deputy chief of naval personnel was even more blunt. "the housing situation at key west is not within the control of the navy," he told the assistant secretary of defense in . housing was segregated, he admitted, but it was the federal housing authority, not the navy, that controlled the location of off-base housing for black sailors.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, lt col leon bell, asst exec, off, asst secaf, for col barnes, office, secaf, jan , secaf files.] [footnote - : ltr, cofsa to ferguson, may ; see also ltr, under sa earl d. johnson to sen. robert taft, jul ; both in cs . ( apr ).] [footnote - : memo, dep chief, navpers for asd (m&p), feb , sub: alleged race segregation at u.s. naval base, key west, florida, p ( )/nb key west, genrecs nav.] these excuses for not dealing with off-base discrimination continued throughout the decade. as late as , discussing a case of racial discrimination near an army base in germany, a defense department spokesman explained to congressman james roosevelt that "since the incident did not take place on one of our military bases, we are not in a position to offer direct relief in the situation...."[ - ] even james evans, the racial counselor, came to use this explanation. "community mores with respect to race vary," evans wrote in , and "such matters are largely beyond direct purview of the department (p.  ) of defense."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, asd (mp&r) charles c. finucane to james roosevelt, jun , asd (mp&r) files.] [footnote - : evans and lane, "integration in the armed services," p. .] understandably, in view of the difficulties they perceived, the services tried to avoid the whole problem. in , for example, a group of forty-eight black soldiers traveling on a bus in columbia, south carolina, were arrested and fined when they protested the attempted arrest of one of them for failing to comply with the state's segregated seating law. in the ensuing furor, secretary of defense charles e. wilson explained to president eisenhower that soldiers were subject to community law and his department contemplated no investigation or disciplinary action in the case. in view of the civil rights issues involved, wilson continued,[ - ] the judge advocate general of the army discussed the matter with the justice department and referred related correspondence to that department "for whatever disposition it considered appropriate." "this reply," an assistant noted on wilson's file copy of the memo for the president, "gets them off our neck, but i don't know about brownell's [the attorney general]."[ - ] [footnote - : wilson, former president of general motors corporation, became president eisenhower's first secretary of defense on january .] [footnote - : memo, cofs, g- , for asa, jan , sub: mass jailing and fining of negro soldiers in columbia, s.c.; memo, asa for asd (m&p), same date and sub; memo, secdef for president, jan . all in g- . ( dec ).] but the services never did get "them" off their neck, and to a large extent defense officials could only blame themselves for their troubles. their attitude toward extending their standards of equal treatment and opportunity to local communities implied a benign neutrality on their part in racial disputes involving servicemen. this attitude was belied by the fact that on numerous and sometimes celebrated occasions the services helped reinforce local segregation laws. in , for example, secretary of the air force harold e. talbott explained that military commanders were expected to foster good relations with local authorities and in many areas were obliged to "require" servicemen to conform to the dictates of local law "regardless of their own convictions or personal beliefs."[ - ] [footnote - : secaf statement, may , quoted in address by james p. goode, employment policy officer for the air force, at a meeting called by the president's committee on government employment policy, may , af file - , fair employment program.] this requirement could be rather brutal in practice and placed the services, the nation's leading equal opportunity employer, in questionable company. in a black pilot stationed at craig air force base, alabama, refused to move to the rear of a public bus until the military police ordered him to comply with the state law. the air force officially reprimanded and eventually discharged the pilot. the position of the air force was made clear in the reprimand: your actions in this instance are prejudicial to good order and military discipline and do not conform to the standards of conduct expected of a commissioned officer of the united states air force. as a member of the armed forces, you are obliged to abide by all municipal and state laws, regardless of your personal feelings or armed forces policy relative to the issue at hand. your open violation of the segregation policy established by this railroad company and the state of alabama is (p.  ) indicative of extremely poor judgment on your part and reflects unfavorably on your qualifications as a commissioned officer.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cg, th tactical training wing, keesler afb, miss., for (name withheld), jul , sub: administrative reprimand; naacp news release, nov ; copies of both in secaf files.] as the young pilot's commanding officer put it, the lieutenant had refused to accept the fact that military personnel must use tact and diplomacy to avoid discrediting the united states air force.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, cmdr, th pilot tng wing, craig afb, ala., for cmdr, flying dir, air tng cmd, waco, tex., aug , sub: disciplinary punishment, copy in secaf files.] tact and diplomacy were also the keynote when the services helped enforce the local segregation practices of the nation's allies. this became increasingly true even in europe in the 's, although never with as much publicity as the events connected with the carrier _midway's_ visit to capetown, south africa, in . its captain, on the advice of the u.s. consul, agreed to conform with a local law that segregated sailors when they were ashore. this agreement became public knowledge while the ship was en route, but despite a rash of protests and congressional demands that the visit be canceled, the _midway_ arrived at capetown. later a white house spokesman tried to put a good face on the incident: we believe that a far greater blow was struck for the cause of equal justice when , south africans came aboard the midway on a non-segregated basis--when the whole community saw american democracy in action--than could have been made if we had decided to by-pass capetown. certainly no friends for our cause would have been gained in that way![ - ] [footnote - : ltr, maxwell m. rabb, president's assistant for minority affairs, to dr. w. montague cobb, as reproduced in cobb, "the strait gate," _journal of the national medical association_ (september ): .] the black serviceman lacked the civilian's option to escape community discrimination. for example, one black soldier requested transfer because of discrimination he was forced to endure in the vicinity of camp hanford, washington. his request was denied, and in commenting on the case the army's g- gave a typical service excuse when he said that the army could not practically arrange for the mass reassignment of black soldiers or the restriction of their assignments to certain geographical areas to avoid discrimination.[ - ] the air force added a further twist. replying to a similar request, a spokesman wrote that limiting the number of bases to which black airmen could be assigned would be "contrary to the policy of equality of treatment."[ - ] there was, however, one exception to the refusal to alter assignments for racial reasons. both the air force and the army had an established and frequently reiterated policy of not assigning troops involved (p.  ) in interracial marriages to states where such unions were illegal.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, acofs, g- , for tig, nov , sub: complaint of cpl israel joshua, g- . ( nov ). for an earlier expression of the same sentiments, see acofs, g- , summary sheet for cofs, nov , sub: request for policy determination, g- . ( nov ). camp hanford was originally the hanford engineer works, which played a part in the manhattan project that produced the atom bomb.] [footnote - : memo, maj gen joe kelly, dir, legis liaison, usaf, for lt col william g. draper, af aide to president, sep , with attachments, sub: segregation in gulfport, mississippi; memo, col draper for maxwell rabb, oct ; both in gf -a- , eisenhower library.] [footnote - : career management div, tago, "policy paper," jul , agam . for other pronouncements of this policy, see ibid.; df, acs/g- to tag, jan , sub: assignment of personnel; and in g- . the following: memo, chief, classification and standards br, g- , for planning office, g- , feb , sub: assignment of personnel; df, g- to tag, mar , same sub.] at times the services' respect for local laws and ordinances forced them to retain some aspects of the segregation policies so recently abolished. answering a complaint made by congressman powell in , for example, the adjutant general of the army explained that off-duty entertainment did not fall within the scope of the truman order. since most dances were sponsored by outside groups, they had to take place "under conditions cited by them." to insist on integration in this instance, the adjutant general argued, would mean cancellation of these dances to the detriment of the soldiers' morale. for that reason, segregated dances would continue on post.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, tag to powell, aug , gf -a- , eisenhower library.] this response illustrates the services' approach to equal opportunity and treatment during the eisenhower administration. the president showed a strong reluctance to interfere with local laws and customs, a reluctance that seemed to flow out of a pronounced constitutional scruple against federal intervention in defiance of local racial laws. the practical consequence of this scruple was readily apparent in the armed forces throughout his administration. in , for example, a black veteran called the president's attention to the plight of black soldiers, part of an integrated group, who were denied service in an alabama airport and left unfed throughout their long journey. answering for the president, maxwell m. rabb, secretary to the cabinet, reaffirmed eisenhower's dedication to equal opportunity but added that it was not in the scope of the president's authority "to intervene in matters which are of local or state-wide concern and within the jurisdiction of local legislation and determination."[ - ] again to a black soldier complaining of being denied service near fort bragg, north carolina, a white house assistant, himself a negro, replied that "outside of an army post, there is little that the federal government can do, except to appeal to the decency of the citizens to treat men in uniform with courtesy and respect." he then suggested a course of action for black soldiers: the president's heart bleeds when any americans are victims of injustice, and he is doing everything he possibly can to rectify this situation in our country. you can hold up his hand by carrying on, despite the unpleasant things that are happening to you at this moment, realizing that, on this end, we will work all the harder to make your sacrifices worthwhile.[ - ] [footnote - : ltrs, c. b. nichols to president, mar , and rabb to nichols, apr ; both in g- - , eisenhower library.] [footnote - : ltr, e. frederic morrow to pfc john washington, apr , in reply to ltr, washington to president, mar ; both in g- -a- , eisenhower library.] but as the record suggests, this promise to rectify the situation was never meant to extend beyond the gates of the military reservation. thus, the countless incidents of blatant discrimination encountered by black gi's would continue largely unchallenged into the 's, masking the progress made by the eisenhower administration in ordering the sometimes reluctant services to adopt reforms. this presidential (p.  ) resolution was particularly obvious in the integration of civilian facilities at navy shipyards and installations and in schools for dependent children on military posts. _integration of navy shipyards_ the navy employed many thousands of civilians, including a large number of negroes, at some forty-three installations from virginia to texas. at the norfolk shipyard, for example, approximately percent of the , employees were black. to the extent dictated by local laws and customs, black employees were segregated and otherwise discriminated against. the degree of segregation depended upon location, and, according to a newspaper survey, ranged "from minor in most instances to substantial in a few cases."[ - ] [footnote - : upi news release, aug , copy in cmh files.] in january the chief of the office of industrial relations, rear adm. w. mcl. hague, all but absolved navy installations from the provisions of executive order .[ - ] he announced that segregation would continue if "the station is subject to local laws of the community in which located, and the laws of the community require segregated facilities," or if segregation were "the norm of the community and conversion to common facilities would, in the judgment of the commanding officer, result in definite impediment to productive effort." known officially as "oir notice cp ," hague's statement left little doubt that segregation would remain the norm in most instances. it specified that a change to integrated facilities would be allowed only after the commander had decided that it could be accomplished without "inordinate interference with the station's ability to carry out its mission." if other facilities stood nearby, the change would be allowed only after he had coordinated with the naval district commander.[ - ] shortly thereafter the acting secretary of the navy expressed his agreement with hague's statement,[ - ] thus elevating it to an official expression of navy policy. [footnote - : executive order , announcing regulations governing fair employment practices within the federal government, was signed by president truman on july , the same day and as a companion to his order on equal treatment and opportunity in the services.] [footnote - : oir notice cp , chief, office of industrial relations, to chiefs, bureaus, et al., jan , sub: segregation of facilities for civil service employees; navy department policy.] [footnote - : ltr, actg secnav francis whitehair to jerry o. gilliam, norfolk branch, naacp, mar , p ( ), secnav files, genrecsnav.] official protestations to the contrary, the navy was again segregating people by race. evans, in the department of defense, charged that this was in fact the "insidious intent" of hague's notice. he pointed out to assistant secretary of defense rosenberg that signs and notices of segregation were reappearing over drinking fountains and toilets at naval installations which had abandoned such practices, that men in uniform were now subjected to segregation at such facilities, and that the local press was making the unrefuted claim that local law was (p.  ) being reestablished on federal properties.[ - ] somewhat late to the battle, dennis d. nelson seemingly a permanent fixture in the pentagon, spoke out against his department's policy, but from a different angle. he warned the secretary of the navy through his aide that notice was embarrassing not only for the navy but for the white house as well.[ - ] [footnote - : draft memo, evans for rosenberg, secdef . . evans delivered the draft memo to mrs. rosenberg and discussed the situation with her at length "in the spring of ." see interv, author with evans, mar , cmh files. on mrs rosenberg's request for a survey of the situation, see memo, asd (m&p) for under secnav, dec . see also memo, co, norfolk naval shipyard, for chief, navpers, apr , p ( ), bupersrecs.] [footnote - : memo, nelson for aide to asst secnav, may , p ( ), genrecsnav.] [illustration: congressman powell.] nelson was right of course. the notice quickly won the attention of civil rights leaders. walter white condemned the policy, but his protest, along with the sharp complaints of the naacp's clarence mitchell and jerry gilliam and the arguments of the urban league's lester granger, failed to move secretary of the navy dan a. kimball.[ - ] the secretary insisted that integrating these installations might jeopardize the fulfillment of the navy's mission, dependent as it was on the "efficiency and whole-hearted cooperation" of the employees. "in a very realistic way," he told walter white, the navy must recognize and conform to local labor customs and usages.[ - ] answering rosenberg's inquiry on the subject, the navy gave its formula for change: this department cannot take the initiative in correcting this social ill but must content itself with being alert to take advantage of the gradual dissolution of these racial prejudices which can be effectively brought about only by a process of social education and understanding. this department is ever ready to dissolve segregation practices of long standing as soon as that can be done without decreasing the effectiveness of our activities.[ - ] [footnote - : kimball succeeded sullivan as secretary of the navy on july .] [footnote - : ltrs, white to secnav, may ; mitchell to same, feb ; jerry gilliam to same, feb ; granger to same, may and jun ; secnav to granger, jun ; same to white, jun ; chief, oir, to mitchell, feb ; under secnav to mitchell, mar . all in p ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, actg secnav for asd (m&p), jan ; memo, asd (m&p) for under secnav, dec ; both in p ( ), genrecsnav.] president eisenhower's newly appointed secretary of the navy, robert b. anderson, endorsed notice along the same lines, informing mitchell that the navy would "measure the pace of non-segregation by the limits of what is practical and reasonable in each area."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to mitchell (ca., apr ), oir , genrecsnav.] but what seemed practical and reasonable in the navy was not (p.  ) necessarily so in the white house, where the president had publicly pledged his administration to the abolition of segregation in the federal government. should eisenhower falter, there was always his campaign ally, congressman powell, to remind him of his "forthright stand on segregation when federal funds are expended."[ - ] in colorful prose that pulled no punches, powell reminded the president of his many black supporters and pressed him on the navy's continuing segregation. although he denied powell's charge of obstructionist tactics in the executive branch, the president had in fact been told by maxwell rabb, now serving as his minority affairs assistant, that "some government agencies were neglecting their duty."[ - ] the president responded to this news promptly enough by ordering rabb to supervise the executive agencies in their application of the presidential racial policy. rabb thereafter discussed the navy's policy with secretary anderson and his assistants on june . [footnote - : ltr, powell to eisenhower, apr , copy in secnav files, genrecsnav.] [footnote - : dwight d. eisenhower, _mandate for change - _ (new york: new american library, ), p. .] with his policy openly contradicting the president's, anderson was in an awkward position. he had been unaware of the implications of the problem, he later explained, and had accepted his predecessor's judgment. his mistake, he pled, was one of timing not intent.[ - ] yet anderson had conducted a wide correspondence on the subject, discussed the matter with lester granger, and as late as may was still defending notice , telling special white house assistant wilton b. persons that it represented a practical answer to a problem that could not be corrected by edict. nor could he introduce any changes, he maintained, adopting his predecessor's argument that the navy should "be alert to take advantage of its [segregation's] gradual dissolution through the process of social education and understanding."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, nichols with anderson, sep , and nichols upi release, sep ; both in nichols collection, cmh.] [footnote - : ltrs, secnav to w. persons, may ; secnav to granger, may and jul ; granger to anderson, apr and jul . see also memo, chief, navpers for secnav, may . all in secnav files, genrecsnav.] but neither the civil rights leaders nor the white house could be put off with gradualism. anderson's stand was roundly criticized. in an address to the naacp annual convention, walter white plainly referred to the secretary's position as a "defiance of president eisenhower's order."[ - ] if such barbed criticism left the secretary unmoved, rabb carried a stronger weapon, and in their june meeting the two men discussed the president's order to integrate federally owned or controlled properties, the possibility of a supreme court decision on the same subject, and, more to the point, powell's public statements concerning segregation at the norfolk and charleston naval shipyards.[ - ] [footnote - : white, address delivered at th naacp annual convention, jun , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for president, jun , sub: segregation in naval activities, attached to ltr, under secnav to sherman adams, jun , p ( ), genrecsnav.] [illustration: secretary anderson _talks to a member of the fleet_.] anderson then proceeded to reverse his position. he began by (p.  ) ordering a survey of a group of southern installations to estimate the effect of integration on their civilian programs. he learned segregation could be virtually eliminated at these shipyards and stations within six months, although under secretary charles s. thomas, who prepared the report, agreed with the local commanders that an integration directive would be certain to cause trouble. but the formula chosen by the commanders for eliminating segregation, in which thomas concurred, might well have given anderson pause. they wanted to remove racial signs from drinking fountains and toilets, certain that the races would continue using separate facilities, and leave the problem of segregated cafeterias till later. it was the unanimous opinion of those involved, thomas reported, that the situation should not be forced by "agitators," a category in which they all placed powell. on august anderson directed commanders of segregated facilities to proceed steadily toward complete elimination of racial barriers. furthermore, each commander was to submit a progress report on november and at sixty-day intervals thereafter.[ - ] although the secretary was concerned with the possible reaction of the civil rights groups were integration not achieved in the first sixty days, he was determined to give local commanders some leeway in carrying out his order.[ - ] but he made it clear to the press that he did not intend "to put up with inaction." [footnote - : all nav, aug ; ltr, chief, industrial relations, to commandant, th naval district, aug , oir , genrecsnav. for an example of how the new policy was transmitted to the field, see comfive instruction , sep , a. ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : interv, nichols with anderson; nichols news release, sep , in nichols collection, cmh.] he need not have worried. evans reported on october that integration of the charleston shipyard was almost complete and had occurred so far without incident. in fact, he told assistant secretary of defense john a. hannah, the reaction of the local press and community had been "surprisingly tolerant and occasionally favorable."[ - ] evans, however, apparently overlooked an attempt by some white employees to discourage the use of integrated facilities. although there was no disorder, the agitators were partly successful; the chief of industrial relations reported that white usage had (p.  ) dropped severely.[ - ] nevertheless by january this same officer could tell secretary anderson that all racial barriers for civilian employees had been eliminated without incident.[ - ] [footnote - : evans, weekly thursday report to asd (m&p), oct , sd . . begun by evans as a means of informing rosenberg of activities in his office, the weekly thursday report was adopted by the assistant secretary for use in all parts of the manpower office.] [footnote - : memo, chief, industrial relations, for secnav, nov , sub: segregation of facilities for civil service employees; see also ltr, secnav to president, nov ; both in p ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, chief, industrial relations, for secnav, nov , sub: segregation of facilities for civil service employees, p ( ), genrecsnav.] _dependent children and integrated schools_ the department of defense's effort to integrate schools attended by servicemen's children proved infinitely more complex than integrating naval shipyards. in a period when national attention was focused on the constitutional implications of segregated education, the eisenhower administration was thrust into a dispute over the intent of federal aid to education and eventually into a reappraisal of the federal role in public education. confusing to the department of defense, the president's personal attitude remained somewhat ambiguous throughout the controversy. he had publicly committed himself to ending segregation in federally financed institutions, yet he had declared scruples against federal interference with state laws and customs that would prevent him from acting to keep such a pledge when all its ramifications were revealed. in fact not one but four separate categories of educational institutions came under scrutiny. only the first category, schools run by the u.s. office of education for the department of defense overseas and on military reservations in the united states, operated exclusively with federal funds. the next two categories, schools operated by local school districts on military reservations and schools on federal land usually adjacent to a military reservation, were supported by local and state funds with federal subsidies. the fourth and by far the largest group contained the many community schools attended by significant numbers of military dependents. these schools received considerable federal support through the impact aid program. the federal support program for schools in "federally impacted" areas added yet another dimension to the administration's reappraisal. the impact aid legislation (public laws and ),[ - ] like similar programs during world war ii, was based on the premise that a school district derived no tax from land occupied by a federal installation but usually incurred an increase in school enrollment. in many cases the enrollment of military dependents was far greater than that of the communities in the school district. actually, these programs were not limited to the incursion of military families; the most extreme federal impact in terms of enrollment percentages was found in remote mountain districts where in some cases almost all students were children of u.s. forest service or national park service employees. [footnote - : pl , sep , u.s. ; pl , sep , u.s. .] in recognition of these inequities in the tax system, congress gave such school systems special "in-lieu of tax" support. public law provided for capital projects, land, buildings, and major equipment; public law gave operating support in the form of salaries, (p.  ) supplies, and the like. if, for example, a school district could prove at least percent of its enrollment federally connected, it was eligible to receive from the u.s. office of education a grant equal to the district's cost of instruction for federally connected students. if it could show federally connected enrollment necessitated additional classrooms, the school district was eligible for federally financed buildings. such schools were usually concentrated in military housing areas, but examples existed of federally financed schools, like federal dependents, scattered throughout the school district. students from the community at large attended the federally constructed schools and the school district continued to receive state support for all students. although public law was far more important in terms of general application and fiscal impact, its companion piece, public law , was more important to integration because it involved the construction of schools. from the beginning congress sought to prevent these laws from becoming a means by which federal authorities exercised control over the operation of school districts. it stipulated that "no department, officer or employee of the united states shall exercise any direction, supervision or control over the personnel, curriculum or program of instruction" of any local school or school system.[ - ] the firmness of this admonition, an indication of congressional opinion on this important issue, later played a decisive part in the integration story. [footnote - : sec. a, pl , u.s. .] attacks on segregation in schools attended by military dependents did not begin until the early fifties when the army, in answer to complaints concerning segregated schools in texas, oklahoma, and virginia, began using a stock answer to the effect that the schools were operated by state agencies as part of the state school system subject to state law.[ - ] trying to justify the situation to clarence mitchell, assistant secretary of the army fred korth cited public law , whose intent, he claimed, was that educating children residing on federal property was the responsibility of "the local educational agency."[ - ] [footnote - : da office of legislative liaison summary sheet for asa, sep , sub: alleged segregation practiced at fort bliss, texas, cs . negroes ( sep ); ltr, cg, the artillery school, to parents of school age children, sep , sub: school information, ag . akpsigp. for examples of complaints on segregated schools, see ltrs, sen. hubert h. humphrey to asd (m&p), jun , and dir, washington bureau, naacp, to secdef, oct ; both in oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : draft ltr, asa (m&p) to mitchell. although he never dispatched it, korth used this letter as a basis for a discussion of the matter with mitchell in an october meeting.] senator humphrey, for one, was not to be put off by such an interpretation. he reminded assistant secretary rosenberg that president truman had vetoed an education bill in because of provisions requiring segregation in schools on federal property. as a member of the subcommittee that guided public law through congress, humphrey could assure rosenberg that at no time did congress include language requiring segregation in post schools. thanks to the army's interpretation, he observed, local community segregation practices were being extended for the first time to federal property under the guise of compliance with federal law. he predicted further incursions by the segregationists if this move was left unchallenged.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, humphrey to asd (m&p), oct , oasd (m&p) . .] after conferring with both humphrey and mitchell, rosenberg took (p.  ) the matter of segregated schools on military posts to the u.s. commissioner of education, earl j. mcgrath. with secretary of defense lovett's approval she put the department on record as opposed to segregated schools on posts because they were "violative not only of the policy of the department" but also of "the policy set forth by the president."[ - ] evidently mcgrath saw public law in the same light, for on january he informed rosenberg that if the department of defense outlawed segregated dependent schooling and local educational agencies were unable to comply, his office would have to make "other arrangements" for the children.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, asd (m&p) to u.s. commissioner of educ, jan , secdef . .] [footnote - : ltr, u.s. commissioner of educ to asd (m&p), jan ; ltr, asd (m&p) to humphrey, jan ; both in oasd . .] commissioner mcgrath proposed that his office discuss the integration question further with defense department representatives but the change in administrations interrupted these negotiations and rosenberg's successor, john a. hannah, made it clear that there would be no speedy change in the racial composition of post schools. commenting at hannah's request on the points raised by mcgrath, the army's principal personnel officer concluded that integration should be considered a departmental goal, but one that should be approached by steps "consistent with favorable local conditions as determined by the installation commander concerned." in his opinion, committing the department to integration of all on-post schools, as the assistant secretary of defense had proposed earlier, would create teacher procurement problems and additional financial burdens.[ - ] this cautious endorsement of integrated schools was further qualified by the secretary of the army. it was a "desirable goal," he told hannah, but "positive steps to eliminate segregation ... should be preceded by a careful analysis of the impact on each installation concerned."[ - ] hannah then broke off negotiations with the office of education. [footnote - : g- summary sheet for cofs, feb , sub: segregation of school children on military installations, g- . ( jan ).] [footnote - : memo, exec off, sa, for asd (m&p), feb , sub: proposed reply to u.s. commissioner of education regarding segregation in dependent schools, copy in g- . ( jan ).] the matter was rescued from bureaucratic limbo when in answer to a question during his march press conference president eisenhower promised to investigate the school situation, adding: i will say this--i repeat it, i have said it again and again: whenever federal funds are expended for anything, i do not see how any american can justify--legally, or logically, or morally--a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds as among our citizens. all are taxed to provide these funds. if there is any benefit to be derived from them, i think they must all share, regardless of such inconsequential factors as race and religion.[ - ] [footnote - : president's news conference, mar , _public papers of the presidents: dwight d. eisenhower, _, p. .] the sweeping changes implied in this declaration soon became apparent. statistics compiled as a result of the white house investigation revealed that federal dependents attended thousands of schools, a complex mix of educational institutions having little more in common than their mutual dependence in whole or part on federal funds.[ - ] (p.  ) most were under local government control and the great majority, including the community public schools, were situated a long distance from any military base. the president was no doubt unaware of the ramifications of federal enrollment and impacted aid on the nation's schools when he made his declaration, and, given his philosophy of government and the status of civil rights at the time, it is not surprising that his promise to look into the subject came to nothing. from the beginning secretary of defense wilson limited the department's campaign against segregated schools to those on federal _property_ rather than those using federal _funds_. and even this limited effort to integrate schools on federal property encountered determined opposition from many local officials and only the halfhearted support of some of the federal officials involved. [footnote - : memo for rcd, human relations and research br, g- (ca. mar ), copy in cmh. see also memo, under secnav for asd (m&p), mar , sub: schools operated by the department of the navy pursuant to section and of public law , st congress, a , genrecsnav; "list of states and whether or not segregation is practiced in schools for dependents, as given by colonel brody, opns secn, ago, in charge of dependents schools, oct ," osa . negroes.] the department of defense experienced few problems at first as it integrated its own schools. its overseas schools, especially in germany and japan, had always been integrated, and its schools in the united states now quickly followed suit. eleven in number, they were paid for and operated by the u.s. commissioner of education because the states in which they were located prohibited the use of state funds for schools on federal property. with only minimal public attention, all but one of these schools was operating on an integrated basis by . the exception was the elementary school at fort benning, georgia, which at the request of the local school board remained a white-only school. on march the new secretary of the army, robert t. stevens, informed the white house that this school had been ordered to commence integrated operations in the fall.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, sa for james hagerty, white house press secretary, mar , sub: segregation in army schools, copy in cmh.] the integration of schools operated by local school authorities on military posts was not so simple, and before the controversy died down the department of defense found itself assuming responsibility for a number of formerly state-operated institutions. as of april , twenty-one of these sixty-three schools in the united states were operating on a segregated basis. (_table _) table --defense installations with segregated public schools state installation alabama (c)[ ] maxwell air force base craig air force base arkansas (s)[ ] pine bluff arsenal (army) florida (c) macdill air force base eglin air force base tyndall air force base naval air station, pensacola patrick air force base maryland (s) andrews air force base naval air station, patuxent naval powder factory, indianhead oklahoma (c) fort sill (army) texas (c) fort bliss (army) fort hood (army) fort sam houston (army) randolph air force base reese air force base shepherd air force base lackland air force base virginia (c) fort belvoir (army) langley air force base [tablenote : (c) indicates segregation required by state constitution.] [tablenote : (s) indicates segregation required by state statute.] the secretary of the army promised to investigate the possibility of integrating schools on army bases and to consider further action with the commissioner of education "as the situation is clarified." he warned the president that to "prod the commissioner" into setting up integrated federal schools when segregated state schools were available would invite charges in the press and congress of squandering money. moreover, newly assembled faculties would have state accreditation problems.[ - ] admitting that there were complicating factors, the president ignored the secretary's warnings and noted that if integrated schools could not be provided by (p.  ) state authorities "other arrangements will be considered."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid.] [footnote - : memo, eisenhower for secdef, mar , sub: segregation in schools on army posts; memo, bernard shanley (special counsel to president) for sa, mar ; both in a- eisenhower library.] others in the administration took these complications more seriously. oveta culp hobby, secretary of health, education, and welfare, was concerned with the attitude of congress and the press. she pleaded for more time to see what the supreme court would rule on the subject and to study the effect of the conversion to federally operated schools "so that we can feel confident of our ground in the event further action should be called for." going a step further than the secretary of the army, hobby suggested delaying action on the twenty-one segregated schools on posts "for the immediate present."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secy of hew, to secdef, apr , copy in cmh.] in marked contrast to hobby's recommendation, and incidentally buttressing popular belief in the existence of an interdepartmental dispute on the subject, secretary of defense wilson told the president that he wanted to end segregation in all schools on military installations "as swiftly as practicable." he admitted it would be difficult, as a comprehensive and partially covert survey of the school districts by the local commanders had made clear. the commanders found, for example, that the twenty-one school districts involved would not operate the schools as integrated institutions. (p.  ) wilson also stressed that operating the schools under federal authority would be very expensive, but his recommendation was explicit. there should be no exact timetable, but the schools should be integrated before the fall term.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secdef to president, may , copy in cmh. on the army's investigation of the schools, see also g- summary sheet for cofs, apr , sub: segregation in schools on army posts, cs . negroes ( mar ), and the following: ltrs, tag to cg's, continental armies et al., mar , and to cg, fourth army, apr , sub: segregation in schools on army posts, agao-r . ( apr ); memo, dir of pers policy, osd, for acs/g- and chief of navpers, may ; statement for sherman adams in reply to telg, powell to president, as attachment to memo, asd (m&p) for secnav, jun ; last two in oasd (m&p) . .] although both wilson and hobby later denied that the department of health, education, and welfare was opposed to integrating the schools, rumors and complaints persisted throughout the summer of that hobby opposed swift action and had carried her opposition "to the cabinet level."[ - ] lending credence to these rumors, president eisenhower later admitted that there was some foot-dragging in his official family. he had therefore ordered minority affairs assistant rabb, already overseeing the administration's fight against segregated shipyards, to "track down any inconsistencies of this sort in the rest of the departments and agencies of the government."[ - ] [footnote - : dod opi release, feb ; upi news release, jan ; telg, powell to president, ca. jun ; ltr, president to powell, jun ; press release, congressman powell, jun ; naacp press release, nov ; white, address delivered at th naacp annual convention, jun . copies of all in nichols collection, cmh. see also new york _times_, february , .] [footnote - : eisenhower, _mandate for change_, p. .] the interdepartmental dispute was quickly buried by wilson's dramatic order of january . effective as of that date, the secretary announced, "no new school shall be opened for operation on a segregated basis, and schools presently so conducted shall cease operating on a segregated basis, as soon as practicable, and under no circumstances later than september , ."[ - ] wilson promised to negotiate with local authorities, but if they were unable to comply the commissioner of education would be requested to provide integrated facilities through the provisions of public law . interestingly, the secretary's order predated the supreme court decision on segregated education by some four months. [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., jan , sub: schools on military installations for dependents of military and civilian personnel, secdef . .] the order prompted considerable public response. the anti-defamation league of b'nai b'rith telegraphed "hearty approval of your directive ... action is consonant with democratic ideals and in particular with the military establishment's successful program of integration in the armed forces."[ - ] walter white added the naacp's approval in a similar vein, and many individual citizens offered congratulations.[ - ] but not all the response was favorable. congressman arthur a. winstead of mississippi asked the secretary to outline for him "wherein you believe that procedure will add anything whatsoever to the defense of this country. certainly it appears to me that you have every reason anyone could desire to refuse to take action which is in total (p.  ) violation of certain state laws."[ - ] [footnote - : telg, anti-defamation league of b'nai b'rith to wilson, feb , secdef . .] [footnote - : telg, walter white to secdef, feb ; and as an example of a letter from an individual citizen, see ltr, mrs. louis shearer to secdef, feb ; both in secdef . .] [footnote - : ltr, winstead to secdef, feb , secdef . .] the three services quickly responded to the order. by february all had issued specific directives for enforcing it. the secretary of the navy, for example, declared that the "policy of non-segregation" would apply to the operation of existing schools and school facilities hereafter constructed on navy and marine corps installations within the united states, alaska, hawaii, puerto rico and the virgin islands, the area in which public law and ... ... are operative.... in the case of pl this area will be extended, effective july , to include wake island ... the same policy of non-segregation will apply in all navy-operated schools for dependent children of military and civilian personnel of the department of defense.[ - ] [footnote - : secnav instruction . , feb , which was renewed by secnav instruction . a, jul . for other services, see memo, chief, pers ser div, usaf, for all major zi commands and alaskan air command, feb , sub: elimination of segregation in on-base schools, afpmp- , af files; ltr, tag to cg's, continental armies, mdw, feb , sub: elimination of segregation in on-post public schools, agcp . ( feb ).] any local school official hoping for a reprieve from the deadlines expressed in these orders was likely to be disappointed. in response to queries on the subject, the services quoted their instructions, and if they excused continued segregation during the school year they were adamant about the september integration date.[ - ] the response of secretary of the air force talbott to one request for an extension revealed the services' determination to stick to the letter of the wilson order. talbott agreed with the superintendent of the montgomery county, alabama, school board that local school boards were best qualified to run the schools for dependent children of the military, but he refused to extend the deadline. "unilateral action in the case of individual air force base schools would be in violation of the directive," he explained, adding: "at such time as the alabama legislature acts to permit your local board of education to operate the school at maxwell afb on an integrated basis, the air force will return operational responsibility for the school to the local board at the earliest practicable date."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, secnav to clarence mitchell, apr ; ltr, jack cochrane, bupers realty legal section, to b. alden lillywhite, dept of hew, apr ; both in p - , genrecsnav. see also ltr, asd (m&p) to commissioner of educ, may ; ltr, asd (m&p) to dr. j. w. edgar, texas education agency, may ; both in oasd (m&p) . ( may ).] [footnote - : ltr, secaf to superintendent of montgomery public schools, jan , secaf files.] as a result of this unified determination on the part of departmental officials, the office of the assistant secretary of defense could announce in december that two of the schools, the one at craig air force base, alabama, and fort belvoir, virginia, were integrated; two others, the naval air station school at pensacola, florida, and reese air force base, texas, had been closed; the remaining seventeen would be fully integrated by the september deadline.[ - ] lee nichols, a prolific writer on integration, reported in november that schools segregated for generations suddenly had black and white children sitting side by side. this move by the armed forces, he (p.  ) pointed out, could have far-reaching effects. educators from segregated community schools would be watching the military experiment closely for lessons in how to comply with the supreme court's desegregation order.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, chief, morale and welfare br, asd (m&p), dec , sub: integration of certain schools located on military installations, oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : upi news release, incl to memo, dir, dod office of public information, for asd (m&p), nov , oasd (m&p) . .] strictly speaking there were more than twenty-one segregated schools operating on federal installations. a small group of institutions built and operated by local authorities stood on land leased from the services. at the time of secretary wilson's order this category of schools included three with -year leases, those at fort meade, maryland, and fort bliss and biggs air force base, texas, and one with a -year lease at pine bluff arsenal, arkansas.[ - ] the air force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light of the wilson order, but the possibility developed that some extensions might be granted to these schools because of the lease complication.[ - ] the secretary of the army went right to the point, asking the assistant secretary of defense, carter l. burgess, for an extension in the case of fort meade pending maryland's integration of its schools under the supreme court's decision.[ - ] in response burgess ordered, as of june , the exemption of four schools. "no attempt shall be made," he informed the services, "to break the lease or take over operation of the schools pending further instruction from the secretary of defense."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, col staunton brown, usa, district engineer, little rock district, to division engineer, southwestern div, jun , sub: meeting with representatives of white hall school district, pine bluff arsenal; memo, asst adjutant, second army, for cg, second army, jun , sub: lease for meade heights elementary school; copies of both in oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : memo, af general counsel for dir of mil pers, mar , sub: lease on property occupied by briggs air force base dependent's school; memo, asst secaf for asd (m&p), may , sub: biggs air force base dependent school; both in secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, asa for asd (m&p), may , sub: elimination of segregation in on-post public schools, oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : memo, asd (m&p) for sa et al., jun , sub: operation of dependent schools on military installations on an integrated basis; idem for secdef et al., aug , sub: status of racial integration in schools on military installations for dependents of military and civilian personnel; both in oasd (m&p) . ( aug ).] it was some time before the question of temporary extensions was resolved. two of the leased property schools, biggs and fort bliss, were integrated before the september deadline as a result of a change in state law in the wake of the supreme court's decision. then, on july , the assistant secretary of the army reported that the phased integration of fort meade's elementary school had started.[ - ] the pine bluff arsenal case was still unresolved in , but since at that time there were no black dependents at the installation it was not considered so pressing by burgess, who allowed the extension to continue beyond . besides, it turned out there were still other schools in this category that the navy had temporarily exempted from the september deadline. the school at the patuxent river naval air station, for example, which had no black dependents eligible for attendance, was allowed to continue to operate as usual while negotiations were under way for the transfer of the school and property to the st. mary's county, maryland, school (p.  ) board.[ - ] a lease for the temporary use of buildings by local authorities for segregated schools on the grounds of the new orleans naval air station was allowed to run on until because of technicalities in the lease, but not, however, without considerable public comment.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asa for asd (m&p), jul , sub: status of racial integration in schools at fort george g. meade, maryland, and pine bluff arsenal, arkansas, oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : memo, cmdr charles b. reinhardt, oasd (m&p), for brig gen john h. ives, mil policy div, oasd (m&p), oct , sub: school at patuxent river naval air stations, oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : see the following memos: asd (m&p) for secnav, nov , sub: integration in schools on military installations for department of military and civilian personnel; idem for asst secnav (p&rf), jan , sub: segregation in schools at the new orleans naval base, algiers, louisiana; asst secnav (p&rf) for asd (m&p), apr , same sub; asd (m&p) for asst secnav (fm), aug , sub: u.s. naval station, new orleans, louisiana: one year extension of outlease with orleans parish school board, new orleans, louisiana; ltrs, co, new orleans naval station, to rev. edward schlick, feb , and rear adm john m. will, oasd (m&p), to clarence mitchell, naacp, dec and apr . all in oasd (m&p) . . for public interest in the case, see the files of the chief of naval personnel (p - ) for the years - .] [illustration: reading class in the military dependents school, _yokohama, japan, _.] the department of defense could look with pride at its progress. in less than three years after president eisenhower had promised to look into segregated schools for military dependents, the department had integrated hundreds of classrooms, inducing local authorities to integrate a series of schools in areas that had never before seen blacks and whites educated together. it had even ordered the integration of classes conducted on post by local universities and (p.  ) voluntarily attended by servicemen in off-duty hours.[ - ] yet many dependent schools were untouched because wilson's order applied only to schools on federal property. it ignored the largest category of dependent schools, those in the local community that because of heavy enrollment of federal dependents were supported in whole or part by federal funds. in these institutions some , federal dependents were being educated in segregated classes. integration for them would have to await the long court battles that followed _brown_ v. _board of education_. [footnote - : ltr, sen. herbert lehman to secdef, oct ; ltr, secdef to lehman, oct , both in sd . .] this dreary prospect had not always seemed so inevitable. although wilson's order ignored local public schools, civil rights advocates did not, and the problem of off-base segregation, typified by the highly publicized school at the little rock air force base in , became an issue involving not only the department of defense but the whole administration. the decision to withhold federal aid to school districts that remained segregated in defiance of court orders was clearly beyond the power of the department of defense. in a memorandum circulated among pentagon officials in october , assistant secretary of health, education, and welfare elliot c. richardson discussed the legal background of federal aid to schools attended by military dependents, especially congressional intent and the definition of "suitable" facilities as expressed in public laws and . he also took up the question of whether to provide off-base integrated schooling, balancing the difficult problem of protecting the civil rights of federal employees against the educational advantages of a state-sponsored education system. richardson mentioned the great variation in school population--some bases having seven high school aged children one year, none the next--and the fact that the cost of educating the , dependents attending segregated schools in would amount to more than $ million for facilities and $ . million annually for operations. he was left with one possible conclusion, that "irrespective of our feelings about the unsuitability of segregated education as a matter of principle, we are constrained by the legislative history, the settled administrative construction, and the other circumstances surrounding the statutes in question to adhere to the existing interpretation of them."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asst secy of hew for secy of hew, oct , sub: payments of segregated schools under p.l. and p.l. , incl to ltr, asst secy of hew to asd (m&p), oct , oasd (m&p) . ( oct ).] richardson might be "constrained" to accept the _status quo_, but some black parents were not. in the fall of matters came to a head at the school near the little rock air base. here was a new facility, built by the local school board exclusively with federal funds, on state land, and intended primarily for the education of dependents living at a newly constructed military base. on the eve of the school's opening, the pulaski county school board informed the air force that the school would be for white students only. the decision was brought to the president's attention by a telegram from a black sergeant's wife whose child was denied admission.[ - ] the telegram was only the first in a series of protests from congressmen, civil (p.  ) rights organizations, and interested citizens. for all the defense department had a stock answer: there was nothing the air force could do. the service neither owned nor operated the school, and the impact aid laws forbade construction of federal school facilities if the local school districts could provide public school education for federal dependents.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dir of pers policy, osd, for stephen jackson, aug , sub: air force segregated school situation in pulaski county, arkansas (san francisco _chronicle_ article of aug , ); memo for rec, stephen jackson, oasd (m&p), oct , sub: integration of little rock air force base school, jacksonville, ark., attached to memo, asd (m&p) for sa et al., oct . all in oasd (m&p) . .] [footnote - : see, for example, ltrs, dir of pers policy, osd, to sen. richard l. neuberger, sep , and asd/m to congressman charles c. diggs, jr., oct . see also memo, dep dir of mil pers, usaf, for asst secaf (manpower, pers, and res forces), oct , sub: dependent schools. all in oasd (m&p) . .] the department would not get off the hook so easily; the president wanted something done about the little rock school, although he wanted his interest kept quiet.[ - ] yet any action would have unpleasant consequences. if the department transferred the father, it was open to a court suit on his behalf; if it tried to force integration on the local authorities, they would close the school. since neither course was acceptable, assistant secretary of defense charles c. finucane ordered his troubleshooter, stephen jackson, to little rock to investigate.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, lt col winston p. anderson, exec off, asst secaf (m&p), for asst secaf (m&p), nov , secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, asd (mp&r) for sa et al., oct , oasd (mp&r) . ; memo for rcd, spec asst to asst secaf, oct , sub: meeting with mr. finucane and mr. jackson re little rock air force base, secaf files.] before he went to little rock, jackson met with officials from the department of health, education, and welfare and decided, with the concurrence of the department of justice, that the solution lay in government purchase of the land. the school would then be on a military base and subject to integration. should local authorities refuse to operate the integrated on-base school, the air force would do so. in that event, jackson warned local officials on his arrival in arkansas, the school district would lose much of its federal enrollment and hence its very important federal subsidy. nor could the board be assured that the federal acquisition would be limited to one school. jackson later admitted the local black school had also been constructed with federal funds, and he could not guarantee that it would escape federal acquisition. board members queried jackson on this point, introducing the possibility that the federal government might try to acquire local high schools, also attended in large numbers by military dependents and also segregated. jackson assured the school board that the department "had no desire to change the community patterns where schools were already in existence merely because they received federal aid,"[ - ] a statement that amounted to a new federal policy. [footnote - : memo for rcd, dep asd (mr&p), oct , sub: integration of little rock air force base school, jacksonville, ark.; attached to memo, asd (mp&r) for sa et al., oct , oasd (mp&r) . .] jackson failed to convince the board, and in late october it rejected the government's offer to run an integrated school on land purchased from them.[ - ] jackson thereupon met with justice officials and together they decided that sometime before january the justice department would acquire title to the school land for one year by taking a leasehold through the right of eminent domain. they did not at that time, however, formulate any definite plan of (p.  ) action to accomplish the school take-over.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, dep asst secaf, nov , secaf files.] [footnote - : ibid.; memo, lt col winston p. anderson, exec off, asst secaf (m&p) for asst secaf (m&p), nov , secaf files.] it was just as well, for soon after this decision was reached the naacp brought up the subject of dependent schools near the air force bases at blytheville, arkansas, and stewart, tennessee.[ - ] air force deputy assistant secretary james p. goode was quick to point out that there were at least five other segregated schools constructed with federal funds, situated near air force bases, and attended almost exclusively by federal dependents. he also predicted that a careful survey would reveal perhaps another fifteen schools in segregated districts serving only air force dependents. in light of these facts, and with a frankly confessed aversion to the administration's acquisition of the properties by right of eminent domain, goode preferred to have the schools integrated in an orderly manner through the supervision of the federal courts.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asst secaf (m&p) for under secaf, nov , secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, dep asst secaf (mp&r) for asst secaf (mp&r), nov , sub: little rock air force base elementary school, secaf files.] this attitude was to prevail for some time in the department of defense. in april , for example, the assistant secretary for manpower informed a senate subcommittee that, while schools under departmental jurisdiction were integrated "without reservation and with successful results," many children of black servicemen stationed in georgia, alabama, mississippi, and elsewhere still attended segregated off-post schools. adjacent to military posts and attended "in whole or in part by federal dependents," these schools "conformed to state rather than federal laws."[ - ] and as late as may , a naval official admitted there was no way for the navy to require school officials in key west, florida, to conform to the department of defense's policy of equal opportunity.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for chmn, subcommittee on education, cmte on labor and pub welfare, of the u.s. senate, apr , oasd (m) . .] [footnote - : ltr, rear adm c. k. duncan, asst chief for plans, bupers, to mrs. rosetta mccullough, may , p , genrecsnav.] yet even as the principle of noninterference with racial patterns of the local community emerged intact from the lengthy controversy, exceptions to its practical application continued to multiply. in the fall of , less than a year after the administration suspended its campaign to integrate off-base schools in arkansas, black air force dependents quietly entered the little rock school. at the same time, schools catering predominantly to military dependents near bases in florida and tennessee integrated with little public attention.[ - ] under pressure from the courts, and after president eisenhower had discussed the case in a national press conference in terms of the proper use of impact aid in segregated districts, the city of norfolk, virginia, agreed to integrate its , students, roughly one-third of whom were military dependents.[ - ] [footnote - : morton puner, "what the armed forces taught us about integration," _coronet_ (june ), reprinted in the _congressional record_, vol. , pp. - .] [footnote - : press conference, jan , _public papers of the presidents: dwight d. eisenhower, _, p. ; see also washington _post_ january , .] the controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the (p.  ) limits of federal intervention in the local community on behalf of the civil rights of servicemen. before these limits could be breached a new administration would have to redefine the scope of the defense department's power. nevertheless, the armed forces had scored some dramatic successes in the field of race relations by . some five million servicemen, civilians, and their dependents were proving the practicality of integration on the job, in schools, and in everyday living. several writers even suggested that the services' experience had itself become a dynamic force for social change in the united states.[ - ] the new york _times's_ anthony lewis went so far as to say that the successful integration of military society led to the black crusade against discrimination in civilian society.[ - ] others took the services' influence for granted, as morton puner did when he observed in that "the armed services are more advanced in their race relations than the rest of the united states. perhaps it is uniquely fitting that this should be so, that in one of the greatest peacetime battles of our history, the armed forces should be leading the way to victory."[ - ] [footnote - : see fred richard bahr, "the expanding role of the department of defense as an instrument of social change" (ph.d. dissertation, george washington university, february ), ch. iii.] [footnote - : as quoted, ibid., p. .] [footnote - : morton puner, "integration in the army," _the new leader_ (january , ).] as such encomiums became more frequent, successful integration became a source of pride to the services. military commanders with experience in korea had, according to assistant secretary of defense hannah, universally accepted the new order as desirable, conceding that integration worked "very well" despite predictions to the contrary.[ - ] nor was this attitude limited to military commanders, for there had been considerable change in sentiment among senior defense officials. citing the major economies realized in the use of manpower and facilities, secretary wilson reported to president eisenhower in march that the results of integration were encouraging: combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities rather than racial designations determine assignments and promotions. economics in manpower and funds are achieved by the elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations. above all, our national security is improved by the more effective utilization of military personnel, regardless of race.[ - ] [footnote - : extracted from an interview given by hannah and published in _u.s. news and world report_ (october , ): . see also ltr, lt col l. hill, chief, public info div, cinfo, to joan rosen, wcbs eye on new york, apr , cmh misc . negroes.] [footnote - : _semiannual report of the secretary of defense, january -june , _ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. - .] in other reports he expatiated on this theme, explaining how integration cut down racial incidents in the services and improved "national solidarity and strength."[ - ] after years of claiming the contrary, defense officials were justifying integration in the name of military efficiency. [footnote - : office of the assistant secretary of defense, manpower, "advances in the utilization of negro manpower: extracts from official reports of the secretary of defense, - ." the quotation is from secretary wilson's report, dec .] certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically (p.  ) disappeared in the immediate post-integration period, and the number of complaints about on-base discrimination that reached the pentagon from individual black servicemen dropped dramatically. moreover, supporting secretary wilson's claim of national solidarity, major civil rights organizations began to cite the racial experiences of the armed forces to strengthen their case against segregated american society. civil rights leaders continued to press for action against discrimination outside the military reservation, but in the years after korea their sense of satisfaction with the department's progress was quite obvious. at its national conventions in and , for example, the naacp officially praised the services for their race policy. as one writer observed, integration not only increased black support for the armed forces and black commitment to national defense during the cold war, but it also boosted the department's prestige in the black and white community alike, creating indirect political support for those politicians who sponsored the racial reforms.[ - ] [footnote - : bahr, "the expanding role of the department of defense," pp. - .] but what about the black serviceman himself? a negro enlisting in the armed forces in , unlike his counterpart in , entered an integrated military community. he would quickly discover traces of discrimination, especially in the form of unequal treatment in assignments, promotions, and the application of military justice, but for a while at least these would seem minor irritants to a man who was more often than not for the first time close to being judged by ability rather than race.[ - ] it was a different story in the civilian community, where the black serviceman's uniform commanded little more respect than it did in . eventually this contrast would become so intolerable that he and his sympathizers would beleaguer the department of defense with demands for action against discrimination in off-base housing, schools, and places of public accommodation. [footnote - : ginzberg, _the negro potential_, p. .] chapter (p.  ) limited response to discrimination the good feelings brought on by the integration of the armed forces lasted less than a decade. by the early 's the department of defense and the civil rights advocates had begun once more to draw apart, the source of contention centering on their differing interpretations of the scope of the truman order. the defense department professed itself unable to interfere with community laws and customs even when those laws and customs discriminated against men in uniform. the civil rights leaders, however, rejected the federal government's acceptance of the _status quo_. reacting especially to the widespread and blatant discrimination encountered by servicemen both in communities adjacent to bases at home and abroad and in the reserve components of the services in many parts of the country, they stepped up demands for remedial action against a situation that they believed continued at the sufferance of the armed forces. nor were their demands limited to the problem of discrimination in the local community. civil rights spokesmen backed the complaints of those black servicemen who had begun to question their treatment in the military community itself. lacking what many of them considered an effective procedure for dealing with racial complaints, black servicemen usually passed on their grievances to congressmen and various civil rights organizations, and these, in turn, took the problems to the defense department. the number of complaints over inequalities in promotion, assignment, and racial representation never matched the volume of those on discrimination in the community, nor did their appearance attest to a new set of problems or any particular increase in discrimination. it seemed rather that the black serviceman, after the first flush of victory over segregation, was beginning to perceive from the vantage of his improved position that other and perhaps more subtle barriers stood in his way. whatever the reason, complaints of discrimination within the services themselves, rarely heard in the pentagon in the late 's, suddenly reappeared.[ - ] actually, the complaints about discrimination both in the local civilian community and on the military reservation called for a basic alteration in the way the services interpreted their policies of equal treatment and opportunity. in the end it would prove easier for the services to attack the gaudier but ultimately less complicated problems outside their gates. [footnote - : for discussion of charges of discrimination within the services, see ltrs, asd (m) to congressman charles c. diggs, jr., mar and sep ; and the following memos: under secnav for asd (m), mar , sub: discrimination in u.s. military services; dep secaf for manpower, personnel, and organization for asd (m), mar , sub: alleged racial discrimination with the air force; dep under sa (m) for asd (m), mar , sub: servicemen's complaints of discrimination in the u.s. military. all in asd (m) . .] it would be a mistake to equate the notice given the persistent (p.  ) but subtle problem of on-base discrimination with the sometimes brutal injustice visited on black servicemen off-base in the early 's. black servicemen often found the short bus ride from post to town a trip into the past, where once again they were forced to endure the old patterns of segregation. defense department officials were aware, for example, that decent housing open to black servicemen was scarce. with limited income, under military orders, and often forced by circumstances to reside in the civilian community, black servicemen were, in the words of robert s. mcnamara, president kennedy's secretary of defense, "singularly defenseless against this bigotry."[ - ] while the services had always denied responsibility for combating this particular form of discrimination, many in the black community were anxious to remind them of john f. kennedy's claim in the presidential campaign of that discrimination in housing could be alleviated with a stroke of the chief executive's pen. [footnote - : robert s. mcnamara, _the essence of security_ (new york: harper & row, ), p. .] but housing was only part of a larger pattern of segregation that included restrictions on black servicemen's use of many places of public accommodation such as restaurants, theaters, and saloons, some literally on the doorstep of military reservations. james evans listed some twenty-seven military installations in the united states where in segregation in transportation and places of public accommodation was established in adjacent communities by law or custom.[ - ] moreover, instances of blatant jim crow tactics were rapidly multiplying near bases in japan, germany, the philippines, and elsewhere as host communities began to adopt the prejudices of their visitors.[ - ] the united states commission on civil rights charged that black servicemen were often reluctant to complain to their superiors or the inspector general because of the repeated failure of local commands to show concern for the problem and suspicion that complainers would be subjected to reprisals.[ - ] [footnote - : james c. evans, oasd (m), "suggested list of military installations," jun , copy in cmh. evans's list was based on incomplete data. a great number of military installations were located in jim crow areas in . see also memo, dep asd (military personnel policy) for asd (m), oct , sub: forthcoming conference with representatives from core, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, lee nichols (upi reporter) for secdef, attn: adam yarmolinsky, may , sub: racial integration in the u.s. armed forces, copy in cmh. nichols had recently toured military bases under defense department sponsorship. see also puner, "integration in the army"; news articles in _overseas weekly_ (frankfurt), november and , , and _stars and stripes_, november , .] [footnote - : u.s. commission on civil rights, _civil rights_ ' (washington: government printing office, ), p. .] civil rights leaders were particularly distressed by this form of discrimination, which, considering the armed forces' persistent declaration of impotence in the matter, seemed destined to remain a permanent condition of service life. "these problems involve factors which are not directly under the control of the department of defense," assistant secretary for manpower carlisle p. runge noted in a typical response.[ - ] similar sentiments were often expressed by local commanders, although some tried to soften their refusal to act with the hope that the military example might change local community attitudes in the long run.[ - ] congressman charles c. diggs, (p.  ) jr., did not share this hope. citing numerous examples for the president of discrimination against black servicemen, he charged that, far from influencing local communities to change, commanders actually cooperated in discrimination by punishing or otherwise identifying protesting servicemen as troublemakers.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for asst legal counsel to president, nov , sub: racial discrimination in the armed services, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : see transcribed taped interviews conducted by nichols of the upi with military and civilian personnel in the charleston, s.c., area in march , copies in the james c. evans collection, amhrc.] [footnote - : ltr, diggs to president, jun , copy in gesell collection, john f. kennedy library.] [illustration: civil rights leaders at the white house. _attorney general robert f. kennedy poses with (from left) martin luther king, jr., roy wilkins, whitney m. young, jr., and a. philip randolph._] especially galling to civil rights leaders was the conviction that the armed forces had set up artificial and self-imposed barriers to a needed social reform. in the end this conviction seemed to spur them on. the american veterans committee, for example, demanded that when a community "mistreats american troops, such as in montgomery, alabama, or flaunts its ku klux klan membership, as does selma, alabama, the entire area should be placed 'off limits' to purchases by defense installations and by servicemen."[ - ] others were convinced that the federal government was in effect supporting segregation through its widespread economic assistance programs to state and local governments and to private institutions in the fields of employment, housing, education, health service, military affairs, and agriculture. in august a group of fifty civil rights leaders petitioned the (p.  ) president to end such federal support.[ - ] on a more modest scale, the congress of racial equality asked the army in august to declare segregated restaurants in aberdeen, maryland, off limits to all military personnel. the activist group justified its demand by stating that "the army declares dangerous or immoral establishments off limits to soldiers and what is more dangerous or immoral in a democracy than racial intolerance?"[ - ] in this they failed to distinguish between the commander's proper response to what was illegal, for example prostitution, and what was still legal, for example, segregated housing. [footnote - : american veterans committee, "audit of negro veterans and servicemen," , p. , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : leadership conference on civil rights, "proposals for executive action to end federally supported segregation and other forms of racial discrimination," august , copy in sd . . see also u.s. commission on civil rights, _freedom to the free: a century of emancipation_ (washington: government printing office, ), pp. ff.] [footnote - : baltimore _sun_, august , . on the particular problem in the aberdeen area see telg, president kennedy to john field, president's cmte on equal employment opportunity, sep , copy in cmh.] _the kennedy administration and civil rights_ the strong connection between black morale and military efficiency made it likely that the new secretary of defense would be intimately concerned with problems of discrimination. highly trained in modern managerial techniques, robert s. mcnamara came to the pentagon with the idea of instituting a series of fundamental changes in the management of the armed forces through manpower reorganization and what was becoming known as systems analysis. whatever his attitude toward racial justice, his initial interest in the defense department's black employees, military and civilian, was closely linked to his concern for military efficiency. less than a week on the job, he called for information on the status of negroes in the department. he had heard that some services were better integrated than others, and he wanted his assistant secretary for manpower to investigate. he wanted to know if there was a "fair" proportion of negroes in the higher civilian grades. if not, he asked, "what do you recommend be done about it?"[ - ] these questions, and indeed all action on civil rights matters originating in his office in the months to come, indicated that mcnamara, like his predecessors, would limit his reforms to discrimination within the services themselves. but as time passed, mcnamara, like president kennedy, would warm to the civil rights cause and eventually both would become firmly committed. [footnote - : memo, secdef for asd (mp&r) designate, jan , asd (m) . .] the kennedy administration has been closely identified with civil rights, yet the president's major biographers and several of his assistants agree that his commitment to civil rights reform did not emerge full-blown on inauguration day. it was only in the last months of his administration that kennedy, subjected to civil rights demands and sharing the interests and experiences of his brother robert, the attorney general, threw himself wholeheartedly into the civil (p.  ) rights fray.[ - ] as senator and later as president, kennedy was sympathetic to the aspirations of the black minority, appreciated its support in his campaign, but regarded civil rights as one, and not the most pressing, problem facing the chief executive. even his administrations's use of federal marshals during the freedom rides in and its use of both marshals and troops at oxford, mississippi, in and troops again in alabama in were justified in the name of enforcement of federal judicial processes. well into he studiously downplayed the civil rights issues involved. [footnote - : this discussion of kennedy's civil rights position is based on arthur m. schlesinger, _a thousand days_ (boston: houghton mifflin, ); theodore c. sorensen, _kennedy_ (new york: harper and row, ); and the following oral history interviews in the j. f. kennedy library: berl bernhard with harris wofford, nov , roy wilkins, aug , and thurgood marshall, apr ; joseph o'connor with theodore hesburgh, mar . also consulted were sorensen's _the kennedy legacy_ (new york: new american library, ); victor s. navasky, _kennedy justice_ (new york: atheneum, ); william g. carlton, "kennedy in history," in _perspectives on th century america: readings and commentary_, ed. otis l. graham, jr. (new york: dodd, mead, ); edwin guthman, _we band of brothers: a memoir of robert f. kennedy_ (new york: harper and row, ); burke marshall, _federation and civil rights_ (new york: columbia university press, ).] kennedy was convinced that the only answer to the injustices suffered by negroes was a series of strong laws, but he was also certain that such legislation was impossible to achieve in . to urge it on an unwilling congress would only jeopardize his legislative program, increase the black minority's feeling of frustration, and divide the nation in a period of national crisis. discussing the civil rights commission's "non-negotiable" demands concerning the organized reserves, for example, commission member father theodore hesburgh remembered the president saying: look, i have a serious problem in west berlin, and i do not think this is the proper time to start monkeying around with the army.... i have no problem with the principle of this, and we'll certainly be doing it, but at this precise moment i have to keep uppermost in mind that i may need these units ... and i can't have them in the midst of a social revolution while i'm trying to do this.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted from o'connor's oral history interview with hesburgh, mar .] kennedy temporized. he would promptly and positively endorse the principle of equal rights and enforce the civil rights decisions of the supreme court through negotiation, moral suasion, executive order, and, when necessary, through the use of federal marshals.[ - ] the justice department meanwhile would pursue a vigorous course of litigation to insure the franchise for negroes from which, he believed, all civil blessings flowed. [footnote - : for a critical interpretation of the kennedy approach to enforcing the court's decisions, see navasky's _kennedy justice_, pp. - , and howard zinn, _postwar america_, - (indianapolis: bobbs-merrill, ), ch. iv.] civil rights was not mentioned in kennedy's first state of the union message. with the exception of a measure to outlaw literacy and poll tax requirements for voting, no civil rights bills were sent to the eighty-seventh congress. yet at one of his first press conferences, the president told newsmen that a plan to withhold federal funds in certain segregation cases would be included in a general study "of where the federal government might usefully place its power and influence to expand civil rights."[ - ] on march he signed executive order , which combined the committees on government (p.  ) contracts and employment policy into a single committee on equal employment opportunity chaired by the vice president.[ - ] his order, he believed, specified sanctions "sweeping enough to ensure compliance."[ - ] finally, in november , after numerous and increasingly pointed reminders from civil rights advocates, the president issued executive order , directing executive agencies to take action against discrimination in the sale or lease of federal housing or any housing bought with loans from or insured by the federal government.[ - ] [footnote - : press conference, mar , _public papers of the presidents: john f. kennedy, _, p. .] [footnote - : _federal register_ .] [footnote - : presidential statement, mar , _public papers of the presidents: kennedy, _, p. . see also "president's remarks on meeting of committee on equal employment opportunity," new york _times_, april , ; memo, president for heads of all executive departments and agencies, apr , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : executive order , nov , _federal register_ .] besides executive orders, the white house had other ways, less formal but perhaps more efficient, of getting the federal bureaucracy to move on civil rights. upon the recommendation of special assistant frederick g. dutton, the president created the civil rights subcabinet group in march to coordinate the administration's civil rights actions. under dutton's chairmanship, this group included the assistant secretaries responsible for racial matters in their respective agencies, with white house special civil rights assistant harris wofford serving as executive secretary.[ - ] the group regularly scrutinized the racial programs of the various departments, demanding reports and investigations of racial matters and insuring that the interests and criticisms of the administration were quickly disseminated at the operations level of the federal agencies affected.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, frederick g. dutton, spec asst to president, for secy of state et al., mar , and memo, asd (m) for dutton (ca. apr ), both in asd (m) . ; memo, nicholas d. katzenbach for vice president elect, nov , burke marshall papers, and interv, bernhard with wofford, both in j. f. kennedy library. according to wofford there was some discussion over just who would represent the department of defense in the group. the department's initial choice seems to have been evans, but wofford rejected this selection on the grounds that evans's position did not place him in the department's power structure. he preferred to have yarmolinsky or assistant secretary carlisle p. runge. yarmolinsky insisted that runge be included so that it would not appear that racial reform in the department of defense was a duty only for the administration's men.] [footnote - : see memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., nov , sub: minority representation in officer procurement and training, asd (m) . . see also memos, wofford for civil rights subcabinet group, sep, oct, and nov , copies in cmh.] there is evidence that the subcabinet group was responsible for considerable cross-fertilization of civil rights programs among the departments. for example, it appears to have used the experience of black servicemen in interstate travel to move the department of justice and, with the assistance of attorney general kennedy, the interstate commerce commission toward eliminating such discrimination.[ - ] and it was through the subcabinet group that the attorney general's interest in minority voting rights was translated into a voting registration campaign among servicemen.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, james c. evans, jul , sub: meeting, subcabinet group on civil rights, friday, july , (judge jackson represented mr. runge); ltr, secdef to atty gen, jun ; both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : civil rights subcabinet group, notes on meeting of jun ; ltr, spec asst to postmaster gen to james c. evans, jan ; memo, evans for spec asst to asd (m), james w. platt, mar ; memo, harris wofford for subcabinet group, jan . copies of all in cmh.] the existence of this group, with its surveys, questions, and (p.  ) investigations, put constant pressure on the armed services. they were not singled out for special treatment, but they obviously attracted the attention of both the white house and the civil rights organizations because their commitment to equal treatment and opportunity affected so many people and their past successes and remaining problems were having a decided impact on american society. in the words of presidential assistant wofford, the defense department was "a world within itself," a world which by its magnitude could make a "significant contribution by its example" to the solution of the nation's racial problems.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, james c. evans, jul , sub: meeting, subcabinet group on civil rights, friday, july , (judge jackson represented mr. runge), asd (m&p) . .] the size of the department's racial program alluded to by wofford also invited the attention of a federal agency outside white house control. the united states commission on civil rights was continually investigating the services, probing allegations of discrimination against black servicemen and evaluating the role of the department in community race relations.[ - ] of particular interest to an understanding of racial policy in the 's is the commission's comprehensive survey, titled "the services and their relations with the community," which concluded that the continued existence of community discrimination against servicemen and their dependents had a detrimental effect on the morale and efficiency of significant numbers of them. the commission cataloged the traditional alibis of military commanders: "it is not the mission of the services to concern themselves with the practices of the local community"; the commander's responsibility "stops at the gate"; harmonious relations with the community must be maintained; and, finally, in order to achieve harmony, servicemen must comply with local laws and customs. yet when it came to other areas of community relations, particularly where the general health, welfare, and morale of the servicemen were involved, the commission found that commanders did not hesitate to ally themselves with servicemen, local community controversy and opposition notwithstanding. the commission wanted the services to take a similar stand against racial discrimination in the community. although its specific recommendations differed little from those of civil rights leaders, its position as an independent federal agency and its access to the news media added a constant and special pressure on the services.[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, ltr, chmn, commission on civil rights, to secdef, mar ; memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., may , sub: survey, united states commission on civil rights; memo, under secnav for asd (m), may , sub: united states commission on civil rights survey of the department of defense; ltr, yarmolinsky to berl i. bernhard, staff dir, u.s. comm on civil rights, nov ; memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., may ; ltr, bernhard to runge, jul ; ltr runge to bernhard, jul . copies of all in cmh.] [footnote - : u.s. commission on civil rights, "the services and their relations with the community," jun .] another pressure on the armed forces in the early sixties was exerted by the civil rights bureaucracy in the white house itself. various presidential assistants subjected the services' reports on progress in the equal opportunity field to unprecedented scrutiny, asking questions that forced the defense department to explain or justify its racial policies and practices.[ - ] in march , civil rights assistants on the president's staff inquired about the number of (p.  ) negroes on the defense department's military and civilian screening boards.[ - ] later, special assistant frank d. reeves inquired about the employees working in the executive area of the department and suggested that the front offices do something about hiring more black office workers.[ - ] and again as a result of a number of questions raised about the navy's race policy, presidential assistant wofford sponsored a white house meeting on september for several civil rights representatives and adam yarmolinsky, special assistant to the secretary of defense, with the chief of naval personnel, vice adm. william r. smedberg. beginning with yarmolinsky's probing questions concerning the perennial problem of racial composition of the steward's branch, the meeting evolved into a general review of the navy's recent problems and achievements in race relations.[ - ] [footnote - : for examples of dod reports submitted to the white house on this subject, see memo, asd (m) for harris wofford, nov , and idem for frank d. reeves, spec asst to president, jun . for examples of white house interest in these reports, see james c. evans, oasd (m), notes on civil rights subcabinet group meeting, feb and mar . all in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, yarmolinsky for runge, may ; memo, asd (m) for sa et al., mar , sub: personnel screening boards; both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, frank d. reeves, spec asst to president, for secdef, attn: adam yarmolinsky, apr , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, harris wofford to asd (m), sep ; memo for rcd, james c. evans, sep , sub: negro naval personnel; informal memo, evans for runge, sep , same sub. all in asd (m) . .] at times this white house scrutiny could be aggressively critical. there was, for example, small comfort for defense department officials in dutton's review of department comments on the recommendations of the civil rights leadership conference submitted to the white house in august .[ - ] dutton wanted to know more about the department's inquiry into possible racial discrimination in the sentences meted out by military courts. he was concerned with the allegation, categorically denied by the defense department, that black servicemen with school-aged dependents were being moved off bases to avoid integrating base schools. he wanted a prompt investigation. dutton was impatient with the navy's explanation for the continuing predominance of negroes in the steward's branch, and he was especially critical of the racial situation in the national guard. he wanted a progress report on these points. finally, he was unhappy with the lack of negroes in officer training, an executive area, he claimed, in which civilian agencies were forging ahead. he wanted something done about that also.[ - ] [footnote - : composed of representatives of some fifty civil rights groups under the chairmanship of roy wilkins of the naacp, the leadership conference on civil rights presented to president kennedy a list of proposals for executive action to end federally supported segregation. see u.s. commission on civil rights, _freedom to the free_, p. .] [footnote - : memo, dutton for yarmolinsky, oct , copy in asd (m) . ( may ).] the disquietude white house staff members produced among defense department officials was nothing compared to the trauma induced by the president's personal attention. john kennedy rarely intervened but he did so on occasion quickly and decisively and in a way illustrative of his administration's civil rights style. he acted promptly, for example, when he noticed an all-white unit from the coast guard academy marching in his inaugural parade. his call to the secretary of the treasury douglas dillon on inauguration night led to the admission of the first black students to the coast guard academy. he elaborated on the incident during his first cabinet meeting, asking each (p.  ) department head to analyze the minority employment situation in his own department. he was also upset to see "few, if any" black honor guardsmen in the units that greeted visiting ghanian president kwame nkrumah on march, an observation not lost on secretary mcnamara. "would it be possible," the new defense chief asked his manpower assistant, "to introduce into these units a reasonable number of negro personnel?"[ - ] an immediate survey revealed that negroes accounted for percent of the air force honor unit, percent of the army's, and . percent of the marines corps'. the -man naval unit had no black members.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secdef for asd (m), mar , asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for secdef, mac , sub: ceremonial units and honor guard details, asd (m) . .] [illustration: president kennedy and president allessandri of chile _review an all-white honor guard unit, white house, _.] these were minor incidents, yet kennedy's interest was bound to make a difference. as evans wryly put it in regard to the survey of blacks in the honor guard: "pending any further instructions it is submitted that the alert which has been given in person and by telephone in connection with the securing of the above data may be adequate for accomplishing the objectives contemplated in the [mcnamara] (p.  ) memorandum."[ - ] if not conducive to substantive change in the lot of the black serviceman, the president's intervention signaled in a way clearly understood by washington bureaucrats that a new style in executive politics was at hand and a new awareness of the racial implications of their actions was expected of them.[ - ] [footnote - : informal memo, evans for judge jackson, mar , sub: ceremonial units and honor guard details. remark repeated by asd (m) in his memo for secdef, mar , same sub. both in asd (m) files.] [footnote - : the coast guard incident in particular seems to have impressed washington. it was cited by mitchell, wilkins, and hesburgh during their oral history interviews at the j. f. kennedy library, and it continued to be discussed for some time after the inauguration in official channels. see, for example, memos, frederick dutton for secy of treas, mar , sub: coast guard academy, and theodore eliot (spec asst to secy of treas) for richard n. goodwin (asst spec counsel to president), jun , sub: negro in the coast guard, with attached note, dick [goodwin] to president; ltr, asst secy of treas to tim reardon, jan . all in white house gen files, j. f. kennedy library. the coast guard, it should be recalled, was not part of the department of defense in .] _the department of defense, - _ the white house approach to civil rights matters was faithfully adopted in mcnamara's department. despite a reputation for foot-dragging in some quarters--deputy secretary roswell l. gilpatric admitted that neither he nor mcnamara was especially interested in personnel matters and that some of their early appointments in the personnel field were inappropriate--[ - ]the secretary and his assistants issued a spate of directives and policy memorandums and inaugurated a whole series of surveys and investigations. yarmolinsky was later able to recall eleven major papers produced by the secretary's office during the first thirty months of mcnamara's incumbency. evans's more comprehensive list of actions taken by the office of the secretary's manpower assistant with regard to equal opportunity contained some forty items.[ - ] these totals did not include , racial complaints the defense department investigated and adjudicated before september nor the scores of contract compliance reviews conducted under the equal opportunity clauses in defense contracts.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, dennis o'brien with roswell l. gilpatric, may , in j. f. kennedy library; see also interv, bernhard with wofford.] [footnote - : memo, spec asst to secdef for paul southwick, white house, oct ; james c. evans, "equality of opportunity in the armed forces, a summary report on actions and contributions of the asd (m), january -july "; copies of both in cmh.] [footnote - : although it did not directly affect black servicemen, the contract compliance program deserves mention as a field in which the department of defense pioneered for the federal government. during the kennedy administration the department hired hundreds of contract compliance officers to scrutinize its vast purchasing program, insuring compliance with executive order . see ltr, adam yarmolinsky to author, nov , cmh files.] the number of department of defense rulings that pertained directly to black servicemen was matched by the comprehensiveness of their subject matter. many concerned the recruitment of negroes and the increase in their proportion of the military establishment. others pertained to off-base matters, ranging from prohibitions against the use of segregated facilities during field exercises to the use of military units in ceremonies and shows involving segregated audiences. continued segregation in the reserves, the racial policies of the united services organization, and even the racial rule of (p.  ) morticians who dealt with the services came in for attention. yet if these investigations and directives bespoke a quickened tempo in the fight for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces, they did not herald a substantive reinterpretation of policy. the defense department continued to limit its actions to matters obviously and directly within its purview. the same self-imposed restriction that kept mcnamara's immediate predecessors from dealing with the most pressing demands for reforms by black servicemen and the civil rights leaders continued to be observed. this fact was especially clear in the case of the defense department's four major policy pronouncements involving the complex problem of discrimination visited upon servicemen and their dependents outside the gates of the military reservation. _discrimination off the military reservation_ in the first of these directives, which was derived from president kennedy's executive order on equal employment opportunity,[ - ] secretary mcnamara laid down that no departmental facility could be used by employee recreational organizations that practiced racial or religious discrimination. included were facilities financed from nonappropriated funds as well as all organizations to which civilian as well as military personnel belonged.[ - ] a straightforward enough commitment to a necessary racial reform, the secretary's order could by logical extension also be viewed as carrying the department's fight against racial discrimination into the civilian community. yet precisely because of these implications, the directive was subjected to later clarification. official interpretation revealed that secretarial rhetoric aside, the department of defense was not yet ready to involve civilians in its equality crusade. [footnote - : the office of the secretary of defense also issued several other statements implementing sections of executive order ; see dod dir . , jan , and osd admin instr no. , july , both in sd files.] [footnote - : memo, secdef for secys of military departments et al., apr , sub: military and civilian employee recreational organizations, copy in asd (m) . .] the problem emerged when the commander of maxwell air force base, in keeping with his reading of the mcnamara order, prohibited the use of maxwell's dining halls for a segregated luncheon of the american legion's boys' state and its playing fields for the segregated maxwell little league teams. assistant secretary runge quickly reassured senator lister hill of alabama that the april order was limited to employee organizations and so informed the under secretary of the air force.[ - ] but a further clarification and, in effect, a further restriction of the department's policy in discrimination cases was issued when the civil rights commission became interested in the case. "if these activities are not covered by the april directive," the commission's staff director-designate wanted to know, "what is the position of the department of defense on them?"[ - ] runge's (p.  ) response, cleared through special assistant yarmolinsky, was hardly reassuring to the commission. the department did not inquire into the racial rules of private organizations that used departmental facilities, runge explained, nor did it object when its departmentally sponsored teams and groups played or performed with segregated private recreational groups.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, runge to hill, jun ; memo, runge for under secaf, jan , sub: military and civilian employee recreational organizations both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : ltr, bernhard to runge, jul , asd (m) . .] [footnote - : ltr, runge to bernhard, jul , with attached handwritten note, signed ssj [stephen jackson], jul , asd (m) . .] with the effect of a stone dropped into water, the implications of the anti-discrimination memorandum continued to ripple outward. the commander of brookley air force base, alabama, canceled the sale of subsidized tickets to the mobile bears baseball games by the base's civilian welfare council on the grounds that the ball park's segregated seating of air force personnel violated the secretary's order. inquiries from capitol hill set off another round of clarifications.[ - ] while the secretary's manpower advisers were inclined to support the base commander's action, some of the department's legal advisers had reservations. canceling the sale of tickets, a lawyer in the general counsel's office noted, was consistent with one construction of the secretary's memorandum but was not the "inevitable interpretation" since it was the ball club and not the air force recreational organization that discriminated.[ - ] another departmental lawyer warned that if the commander's interpretation was sustained the department would next have to prohibit welfare groups from selling unsubsidized tickets to events where the seating or even perhaps the performers themselves were segregated.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, hill to runge, jul ; memo, asd (m) for secaf, sep , sub: purchase and sale of baseball tickets at brookley afb; both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, r.c. gilliat for bartimo, jul , attached to draft ltr, runge to hill, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, rta [robert t. andrews] for fab [frank a. bartimo], aug , asd (m) . .] yarmolinsky ignored such speculations, and on august informed special presidential assistant dutton that the secretary's office approved the base commander's action. although the sale of tickets did not technically violate executive order , the department's sponsorship and subsidy of segregated events, he said, "is, in our opinion, not consonant with the clear intent of the president's memorandum."[ - ] yarmolinsky suggested the white house might want to consider proposing to the ball club that the air base would resume the sale of tickets if it could sell a block of unsegregated seats. the white house reply was postponed until after the passage of the foreign aid bill, but the air force eventually received notice to proceed along these lines.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, yarmolinsky for dutton, aug , sub: president's memorandum of april , asd (m) . ( may ).] [footnote - : note, signed, "mb," aug , sub: call from virginia mcguire, attached to draft ltr, asd (m) to sen. hill; memo, asd (m) for secaf, sep , sub: purchase and sale of baseball tickets at brookley afb; both in asd (m) . ( may ).] on june deputy secretary gilpatric issued a second major policy statement. this one ostensibly dealt with the availability of integrated community facilities for servicemen, but was in fact far wider in scope, and brought the department nearer the uncharted (p.  ) shoals of community race relations. a testament to the extraordinary political sensitivity of the subject was the long time the document spent in the drafting stage. its wording incorporated the suggestions of representatives of the three service secretaries and was carefully reviewed by the president's civil rights advisers, who wanted the draft shown to the president "because of his particular interest in civil rights matters."[ - ] with their request in mind, and because of what he considered "the tense situation now existent in the south," runge urged the secretary to send the president the memorandum. before doing so mcnamara asked his general counsel, cyrus r. vance, to discuss the draft with the under secretaries of the services and assistant attorney general nicholas b. katzenbach and burke marshall. at the suggestion of the justice officials, the draft was slightly revised; then it was sent once again to the services for review. finally on june , and only after yarmolinsky had rejected certain minor alterations suggested by the services, was the memorandum issued under gilpatric's signature and its provisions passed down to the local commanders by the service secretaries.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for secdef, may , sub: availability of facilities to military personnel, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dep secdef for service secys, jun , sub: availability of facilities to military personnel, sd . . for various comments on the draft memo, see the following memos: vance and runge for secdef, jun ; asd (m) for dep secdef, jun , sub: availability of facilities to military personnel; dep secdef for service secys, jun , same sub; secaf for dep secdef, jun , same sub. all in asd (m) . ( may ).] the policy that emerged from all this careful labor committed the services to very little change. in the first place the title, the availability of facilities to military personnel, was vague, a legacy of the department's fear of congressional retaliation for any substantive move in the politically sensitive area of race relations. actually the secretary's office was primarily concerned with discrimination in places of public accommodation such as swimming pools, recreational facilities, meeting halls, and the like while the explosive subject of off-base housing was ignored. although the order's ambiguity did not preclude initiatives in the housing field by some zealous commanders, neither did it oblige any commander to take any specific action, thus providing a convenient excuse for no action at all.[ - ] commanders, for example, were ordered to provide integrated facilities off post for servicemen "to the extent possible," a significant qualification in areas where such facilities were not available in the community. commanders were also "expected to make every effort" to obtain integrated facilities off base through the good offices of their command-community relations committees. in effect the department was asking its commanders to achieve through tact what the courts and the justice department were failing to achieve through legal process. [footnote - : interv, author with james c. evans, nov , cmh files.] where the order was specific, it carefully limited the extent of reforms. it barred the use of military police in the enforcement of local segregation laws, a positive step but a limited reform since only in very rare instances had military police ever been so employed. the order also provided "as circumstances warranted" for legal assistance to servicemen to insure that they were afforded due process of law in cases growing out of the enforcement of local (p.  ) segregation ordinances. again what seemed a broad commitment and extensive interference with local matters was in practice very carefully circumscribed, as demonstrated by the air force policy statement issued in the wake of the secretary's order. the air force announced that in the case of discrimination in the community, the local air force commander and his staff judge advocate would interview the aggrieved serviceman to ascertain the facts and advise him of his legal recourses, "but will neither encourage nor discourage the filing of a criminal complaint." the purpose of the policy, the air force chief of staff explained, was to assist servicemen and at the same time avoid disrupting good community relations. the commander should remain interested, but he should leave the work to his judge advocate so that the commander would not personally be "caught in the middle" to the detriment of his community relations program. if local authorities refused to cooperate, the matter should be referred to higher authority who might pursue it with local government officials. such procedures might keep the commander from becoming embroiled in locally sensitive issues.[ - ] in short, discrimination was to be fought through voluntary action at the local command level, but nothing was to be done that might compromise the commander's standing with the local authorities. [footnote - : memo, maj gen albert m. kuhfeld, usafjag (for cofsaf), for almajcom (sja), feb , sub: air force policy statement concerning violations of anti-discrimination law, and attached memo, dep cofs, pers, for almajcom, jan , same sub, secaf files.] mcnamara's office displayed the same good intentions and crippling inhibitions when it considered policy on the participation of servicemen in civil rights demonstrations. the secretary had inherited a policy from his predecessor who, in the wake of a series of sit-in demonstrations involving black airmen in the spring of , had approved a plan devised by the judge advocate generals of the services and other defense department officials. declaring such activity "inappropriate" in light of the services' mission, these officials banned the participation of servicemen in civil rights demonstrations and gave local commanders broad discretionary powers to prevent such participation, including the right to declare the place of demonstration off limits or to restrict servicemen to the base. although all the services adopted the new policy, only the air force published detailed instructions.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, asd (p), mar ; memo, dep chief, navpers, for asst secnav (pers and reserve forces), mar , sub: considerations relative to department of defense policy concerning disputes over local laws or customs; copies of both in asd (m) . . for the air force instructions, see memo, af dep cofs (p) for all major cmdrs, mar , sub: air force policy statement concerning involvement of air force personnel in local civil disturbances, secaf files.] this prohibition did not deter all black servicemen, and some commanders, in their zeal to enforce departmental policy, went beyond the methods mcnamara's predecessor had recommended. such was the case during a series of sit-ins at killeen, texas, near the army's fort hood, where, as reported in the national press and subsequently investigated by the united states commission on civil rights, the commander used military police to break up two demonstrations.[ - ] the secretary's office reacted quickly to the incidents. a (p.  ) prohibition against the use of military police to quell civil rights demonstrations was quickly included in the secretary's policy statement, the availability of facilities to military personnel, then being formulated. "this memorandum," assistant secretary runge assured mcnamara, "should preclude any further such incidents."[ - ] in specific reference to the situation in the fort hood area, the deputy under secretary of the army reported that as a result of a new policy and the emphasis placed on personal contact by commanders with local community representatives, "a cordial relationship now exists between fort hood and the surrounding communities."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for secdef, jul , sub: use of military police to halt sit-ins as reported by drew pearson's column of july in the washington post; ltr, u.s. commission on civil rights staff dir designate to asd (m), jul ; both in asd (m) . . the president's office received considerable mail on the subject; see white house cen files, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for secdef, jul , sub: use of military police..., asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dep under sa for counselor, oasd (m), jan , sub: off-base racial discrimination in the fort hood area, asd (m) . .] but to ban the use of military police and to urge commanders to deal with local business leaders to end segregation actually begged the question. significantly, the much-heralded memorandum on the availability of integrated facilities failed to review the rules governing participation in demonstrations, a subject of pressing interest to an increasing number of negroes as the civil rights struggle moved into a more active phase. bothered by this failure, air force representatives on the policy drafting team had wanted to provide local commanders with guidance before civil rights incidents occurred. the justice officials who reviewed the memorandum at mcnamara's invitation, however, were reluctant to see specific reference to such incidents incorporated, and the matter was ignored.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, vance and runge for secdef, jun , asd (m) . .] in fact, justice officials were not the only ones reluctant to see the issue raised. it was a common belief in the defense department that military service placed some limitations on a man's basic liberties. because servicemen were assigned to their duty station, subject to immediate transfers and on duty twenty-four hours a day, they were allowed no opportunity for participating in demonstrations.[ - ] the department's general counsel was even more specific, saying that a prohibition against picketing would not conflict with the department's anti-discrimination policies and could be lawfully imposed by the services. "indeed," he believed, "the role of the military establishment in our society required the imposition of such a limitation on the off-duty activities of service personnel."[ - ] blessed by such authority, the prohibition against participation in civil rights demonstrations remained in effect for more than three years.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, asd (m) to john de j. pemberton, jr., exec dir, american civil liberties union, jul ; memos for rcd, osd counselor, apr and jul . all in asd (m) . ( jul ).] [footnote - : memo, general counsel for asd (m), jun , sub: picketing by members of the armed forces, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : see memo, james p. goode, office of secaf, for stephen jackson and carlisle runge, attached to memo, af dep cofs (p) for all major cmdrs, mar , sub: air force policy statement concerning involvement of air force personnel in local civil disturbances, secaf files; ltr, under secnav to jesse h. turner, oct , copy in cmh. see also ltr, adam yarmolinsky to adam c. powell, oct , sd . ( jul ).] such restrictions could not last much longer. given the civil (p.  ) rights temper of the times-- witnessed the mammoth march on washington, the introduction of president kennedy's civil rights bill, and the landmark directive of the secretary of defense on equal opportunity in the armed forces--a total prohibition on servicemen's participation in demonstrations appeared more and more incongruous. finally, on july , mcnamara relaxed the department's policy. still declaring such participation inappropriate and unnecessary for servicemen in view of their "special obligations of citizenship," he nevertheless lifted the ban on military participation in demonstrations, provided that the uniform was not worn; such activity took place during off-duty hours, off the military reservation, and did not constitute a breach of law and order; and no violence was reasonably likely to result.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, secdef for secys of mil depts et al., jul , sd files; see also new york _times_, july , , , , , and , .] [illustration: secretary of defense mcnamara.] again an apparent liberalization of departmental racial policy actually promised very little change. first, the continuing prohibitions on participation in demonstrations were so broad and so vague that they could be interpreted to cover almost any civil rights activity. then, too, the secretary left the interpretation of his order to the judgment of local commanders, a dubious blessing in the eyes of the civil libertarians and concerned servicemen in light of the narrow constructions commanders had given recent defense department memorandums. finally, the relaxation of the ban was applicable only to the continental united states. in response to a request for guidance from the european commander, the joint chiefs of staff informed all overseas commanders that as guests of allied nations, u.s. servicemen had no right to picket, demonstrate, or otherwise participate in any act designed to "alter the policies, practices, or activities of the local inhabitants who are operating within the framework of their own laws."[ - ] [footnote - : msg, uscinceur to jcs, z aug ; msg, jcs to cinsco et al. (info copies to service chiefs of staff, cincal, asd [m], and asd [pa]), z aug .] the fourth major memorandum on racial matters outlined the department's application of executive order on housing. racial discrimination in off-base housing had become perhaps the chief complaint of black servicemen who were further incensed by many (p.  ) local commanders who maintained lists of segregated houses in their base housing offices. in some cases commanders referred their black servicemen to the urban league or similar organizations for help in finding suitable housing.[ - ] demands that the services do something about the situation were rebuffed. as the assistant secretary of defense explained to a white house official, the department of defense had "virtually no direct involvement" in off-base housing, the segregation of which was "not readily susceptible to change by actions that are within the control of the military departments."[ - ] [footnote - : omaha _world herald_, august , ; see also memo, adam [yarmolinsky] for l. white, sep , lee white collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for asst legal counsel to president, nov , sub: racial discrimination in the armed services, asd (m) . .] several of mcnamara's assistants disagreed. they drafted a housing order for the secretary but not without opposition at first from some of their colleagues. an army representative, for example, suggested a counterproposal that commanders be ordered to work through the federal agencies established in various geographical areas of the country by executive order . an air force spokesman recommended the creation of special regional and local community committees, chaired by representatives of the housing and home finance agency and including members from all major federal agencies. for his part, stephen s. jackson, a special assistant in the manpower office, thought these service proposals had merit, and he wanted to postpone action until they had been discussed with other interested federal agencies.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, jackson for dep asd, family housing-oasd (i&l), feb , sub: implementation of ex , equal opportunity in housing, copy in cmh.] mcnamara, however, "readily agreed" with his housing experts that a letter on nondiscrimination in family housing was necessary. on march he informed the service secretaries that effective immediately all military leases for family housing, that is, contracts for private housing rented by the services for servicemen, would contain a nondiscrimination clause in accordance with the president's executive order. he also ordered military bases to maintain listings only on nonsegregated private housing.[ - ] again an attempt to bring about a needed change was severely limited in effectiveness by the department's concern for the scope of the commander's authority in the local community. the application of the president's order would end segregation in leased housing, but only a small percentage of black servicemen lived in such housing. the majority of service families lived off base in private housing, which the new order, except for banning the listing of segregated properties by base housing offices, ignored. barring the use of segregated private housing to all servicemen, a more direct method of changing the racial pattern surrounding military installations, would have to wait for a substantive change in departmental thinking. [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., mar , sub: non-discrimination in family housing; memo, asd (i&l) for dep asd (family housing), mar ; copies of both in asd (m) . . the quote is from the latter document.] _reserves and regulars: a comparison_ while the interest of both civil rights advocates and defense officials was focused on off-base concerns during the early 's, discrimination continued to linger in the armed forces. a (p.  ) particularly sensitive issue to the services, which in the public mind had complete jurisdiction over all men in uniform, was the position of the negro in the reserve components. to generalize on the racial policies of the fifty-four national guard organizations is difficult, but whereas some state guards had been a progressive force in the integration of the services in the early postwar period, others had become symbols of racism by . some fourteen years after the truman order, ten states with large black populations and understaffed guard units still had no negroes in the guard. the kennedy administration was not the first to wrestle with the problem of applying a single racial policy to both the regulars and the guard. it was aware that too much tampering with the politically influential and volatile guard could produce an explosion. at the same time any appearance of timidity courted antagonism from another quarter. from the beginning the new administration found itself criticized by civil rights organizations, including the u.s. commission on civil rights, for not moving quickly against segregated national guard units.[ - ] a delegation from the naacp's convention visited assistant secretary runge in july and criticized--to the exclusion of all other subjects--discrimination in the national guard. this group wanted the federal government to withhold funds from states that continued to bar black participation. repeating the old claim that special federal-state relationships precluded direct action by the secretary of defense, runge nevertheless promised the delegates a renewed effort to provide equal opportunity. he also made a somewhat irrelevant reference to the recent experience of a black citizen in oklahoma who had secured admission to the state guard by a direct appeal to the governor.[ - ] how futile such appeals would be in some states was demonstrated a week later when the adjutant general of florida declared that since the guard was a volunteer organization and his state had always drawn its members from among white citizens, florida was under no obligation to enlist black men.[ - ] [footnote - : see petitions signed by thousands of negroes to the president demanding redress of grievances against the discriminatory practices of the national guard, in white house cen files, , j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : memo for rcd, james c. evans, oasd (m), jul , sub: mr. runge receives naacp delegation, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : washington _post_, july , .] that the new administration had quietly adopted different policies toward the guard and the regular forces was confirmed when runge responded to a report prepared by the american veterans committee on the lack of racial progress in the guard. the veterans group called on the administration to use the threat of withdrawal of federal recognition to alter guard practices.[ - ] the administration refused. a policy of force might be acceptable for the active armed forces, but voluntary persuasion seemed more appropriate for the national guard. enunciating what would become the defense department's position on the national guard through , runge declared that the federal government had no legal authority to force integration on the guard when it was not serving in a federal status. furthermore, (p.  ) withdrawal of federal recognition or withholding federal funds as a means of bringing about integration, though legally sound, would cause some states to reject federal support and inactivate their units, thereby stripping the country of a portion of its military reserve and damaging national security. citing the progress being made by persuasion, runge predicted that some recalcitrant states might in time voluntarily move toward integration.[ - ] noting instances of recent progress and citing legal restrictions against forcing state compliance, mcnamara endorsed the policy of encouraging voluntary compliance.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, murray gross, chmn of the avc, to secdef, jun , sd . . the report on the integration of the national guard was inclosed.] [footnote - : ltrs, runge to murray gross, jul and nov , asd (m) . , and n.d. (ca. nov ), copy in wofford collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : ltr, secdef to rep. carl vinson of georgia, chmn, house armed services cmte, aug , reprinted in appendix to _congressional record_, th cong., st sess., vol. , p. a .] although unauthorized, similar patterns of discrimination persisted in parts of the organized reserves. reserve units had links with both the regular forces and the guard. like the regulars, the reserve was legally a creature of the federal government and subject to policies established by the secretary of defense. moreover, the reserve drew much of its manpower from the pool of soldiers separating from active duty with a reserve obligation still to fulfill, and within some limits the defense department could assign such men to units in a manner that could influence the reserve's racial composition. but like the guard, the reserve also had a distinct local flavor, serving almost as a social club in some parts of the country. this characteristic was often an important factor in maintaining a unit at satisfactory strength. since segregation sometimes went hand in hand with the clublike atmosphere, the services feared that a strong stand on integration might cause a severe decline in the strength of some units.[ - ] when the army staff reviewed the situation in , therefore, it had not pressed for integration of all units, settling instead for merely "encouraging" commanders to open their units to negroes.[ - ] [footnote - : acofs (reserve components) summary sheet, feb , sub: race issue in armory debate, copy in dcsper . .] [footnote - : dcsper summary sheet, apr , sub: policy for reserve training assignments of obligated non-caucasian personnel of the ready reserve who reside in segregated areas, dcsper . .] the move toward complete integration of the reserves was slow. in , for example, more than percent of the army's reserve units in southern states were still segregated. the other services followed a similar pattern; in more than percent of all reserve units in the country were white; the army retained six all-black reserve units as well. racial exclusion persisted in the reserve officers' training corps also, although here the fault was probably not so much a matter of reserve policy as the lingering segregation pattern in some state school systems. at the same time, the reserves had more blacks in nondrill status than in drill status. in other words, more blacks were in reserve pools where, unassigned to specific units, they did not participate in active duty training. in , some percent of the black reservists in the army and air force, percent in the navy, and percent in the marine corps were assigned to such pools. for many reservists, paid drill status was desirable; apart from the money received for such active duty, they had the opportunity to gain (p.  ) credit toward retirement and pensions. deputy secretary of defense gilpatric reminded the services in april that the truman order applied to the reserves and called on the under secretaries to integrate the all-black and all-white units "as rapidly as is consistent with military effectiveness."[ - ] he also wanted a review of black assignments for the purpose of removing the disproportionate number of negroes in pools "consistent with the military requirements and the skills of the personnel involved." [footnote - : memo, dep secdef for under secys, apr , sub: compliance with e.o. in the army, navy, air force, and marine corps reserves, in sd files. the secretary's memo was distributed to the commands; see, for example, memo, tag for cincarpac et al., may (tag . / may ).] a defense manpower team surveyed the reserves in november . it tried to soften the obvious implication of its racial statistics by pointing out that the all-black units were limited to two army areas, and action had already been taken by the third army and fourth army commanders to integrate the six units as soon as possible. the team also announced initiation of a series of administrative safeguards against discrimination in the enlistment and assignment of men to drilling units. as for the all-white units, the reviewers cautioned that discrimination was not necessarily involved since negroes constituted a relatively small proportion of the strength of the reserves-- . percent of the army, . percent of the air force, and an estimated . percent of the navy. furthermore, the data neither proved nor disproved allegations of discrimination since the degree to which individuals volunteered, the skills and aptitudes they possessed, and the needs of the services were all factors in the assignment and use of the men involved.[ - ] [footnote - : office of the asd (m), review of compliance with e.o. in the army, navy, air force, and marine corps reserves, nov , copy in cmh.] pleas of an absence of legal authority in regard to the national guard and generalized promises of racial reform in the reserves were not going to still the complaints of the civil rights organizations nor discourage the interest of their allies in the administration. clearly, the department of defense would be hearing more about race in the reserve components in the months to come. the sudden reemergence in the early 's of complaints of discrimination in the regular forces centered around a familiar litany: the number of negroes in some of the services still fell significantly short of the black percentage of the national population; and separate standards, favorable to whites, prevailed in the promotion and assignment systems of all the services. there had to be some discrimination involved, congressman diggs pointed out to the secretary of the air force in july . with extensive help from the services, diggs had been investigating servicemen's complaints for some time. while his major concern remained the discrimination suffered by black servicemen off base, he nevertheless concluded that the service regulations developed in consultation with the fahy committee more than a decade earlier had not been fully implemented and discriminatory practices existed "in varying degrees" at (p.  ) military installations around the world. diggs admitted that a black serviceman might well charge discrimination to mask his failure to compete successfully for a job or grade, but to accept such failures as a universal explanation for the disproportionate number of negroes in the lower ranks and undesirable occupations was to accept as true the canard that negroes as a group were deficient. diggs's conclusion, which he pressed upon the department with some notice in the press, was that some black servicemen were being subtly but deliberately and arbitrarily restricted to inferior positions because their military superiors exercised judgments based on racial considerations. these judgments, he charged, were inconsistent with the spirit of the truman order.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, diggs to secaf, jul ; see also memo, dir, af legis liaison, for spec asst for manpower, personnel, and reserve forces, usaf, jul , with attached summary of findings and highlights of the diggs report concerning alleged discriminatory practices in the armed forces; both in secaf files.] at first glance the study of racial discrimination by the u.s. commission on civil rights seemed to contradict diggs's charges. the commission concluded that taken as a whole the status of black servicemen had improved considerably since the truman order. it noted that black representation had remained relatively constant since the early days of integration, . percent of the total, . percent of the enlisted strength, and approached national population averages. the percentage of black officers, . percent of all officers, while admittedly low, had been rising steadily and compared favorably with the number of black executives in the civilian economy. the occupational status of the black enlisted man had also undergone steady improvement since the early days of integration, especially when one compared the number and variety of military occupation specialties held by black servicemen with opportunities in the rest of the civil service and the business community. finally, and perhaps most important, the commission found that in their daily operations, military installations were "generally free from the taint of racial discrimination."[ - ] it confirmed the general assessments of the anti-defamation league of b'nai b'rith and the american veterans committee among others, pointing out that black and white servicemen not only worked side by side, but also mingled in off-duty hours.[ - ] in sum, the study demonstrated general satisfaction with the racial situation on military bases. its major concern, and indeed the major concern of diggs and most black servicemen, remained the widespread discrimination prevailing against black servicemen in the local community. [footnote - : u.s. commission on _civil rights_, civil rights ' , pp. - . the quotation is from page .] [footnote - : see, for example, morton puner, "the armed forces: an integration success story," _anti-defamation league bulletin_, nov , pp. , ; and american veterans committee, "audit of negro veterans and servicemen," .] these important generalizations aside, the commission nevertheless offered impressive statistical support for some of diggs's charges when it investigated the diverse and conflicting enlistment and assignment patterns of the different services. the navy and marine corps came in for special criticism. even when the complexities of mental aptitude requirements and use of draftees versus enlistees (p.  ) were discounted, the commission found that these two services consistently employed a significantly smaller percentage of negroes than the army and air force. a similar disparity existed in assignment procedures. the commission found that both services failed to match the record of the civilian economy in the use of negroes in technical, mechanical, administrative, clerical, and craft fields. it suspected that the services' recruiting and testing methods intensified these differences and wondered whether they might not operate to exclude negroes in some instances. despite general approval of conditions on the bases, the commission found what it called "vestiges of discrimination on some bases." it reported some segregated noncommissioned officer clubs, some segregated transportation of servicemen to the local community, and some discriminatory employment patterns in the hiring of civilians for post jobs. partly the legacy of the old segregated services, this discrimination, the commission concluded, was to a greater extent the result of the intrusion of local civilian attitudes. the commission's attention to outside influences on attitudes at the base suggested that it found the villain of the diggs investigation, the prejudiced military official, far too simplistic an explanation for what was in reality institutional racism, a complex mixture of sociological forces and military traditions acting on the services. the department of defense's manpower experts dwelt on these forces and traditions when they analyzed recruitment, promotion, and assignment trends for mcnamara in .[ - ] [footnote - : memo, depasd (special studies and requirements) for asd (m), jul , with attachment, utilization of negroes in the armed forces, july , copy in cmh. all the tables accompanying this discussion are from the preceding source, with the exception of table , which is from the u.s. department of labor, office of policy planning and research, _the negro family: the case for national action_, mar , p. , where it is reproduced from dod sources.] they found a general increase in black strength ratios between and (_table _). they blamed the "selective" recruiting practices in vogue before the truman order for the low enlistment ratios in , just as they attributed the modest increases since that time to the effects of the services' equal treatment and opportunity programs. in the judgment of these analysts, racial differences in representation since the truman order, and indeed most of the other discrepancies between black and white servicemen, could usually be explained by the sometimes sharp difference in aptitude test results (_table _). a heritage of the negro's limited, often segregated and inferior education and his economic and related (p.  ) environmental handicaps, low aptitude scores certainly explained the contrast in disqualification rates (_tables and _). by fully half of all negroes--as compared to percent of all whites--failed to qualify for service under minimum mental test standards. in some southern states, the draftee rejection rate for negroes exceeded percent. table --black strength in the armed forces for selected years (in percentage) army navy marine corps air force enlisted enlisted enlisted enlisted year men officers men officers men officers men officers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . table --estimated percentage distribution of draft-age males in u.s. population by afqt groups (based on preinduction examination, - ) group white nonwhite i . . ii . . iii . . iv . . v . . table --rate of men disqualified for service in (in percentage) cause white nonwhite medical and other . . mental test failure . . total . . table --rejection rates for failure to pass armed forces mental test, failed mental test number area examined number percent grand total, continental united states , , . total, white , , . total, black , , . first army: connecticut, maine, massachusetts, new hampshire, new jersey, new york, rhode island, vermont white , , . black , , . second army: delaware, washington, d.c., kentucky, maryland, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia, west virginia white , , . black , , . third army: alabama, florida, georgia, mississippi, north carolina, south carolina, tennessee white , , . black , , . fourth army: arkansas, louisiana, new mexico, oklahoma, texas white , , . black , , . fifth army: colorado, illinois, iowa, michigan, minnesota, missouri, nebraska, north dakota, south dakota, wisconsin, wyoming white , , . black , , . sixth army: arizona, california, idaho, montana, nevada, oregon, utah, washington white , , . black , . this problem became critical for black enlistments in the mid- 's when the services, with less need for new servicemen, raised the mental standards for enlistees, denying group iv men the right to enlist. (an exception to this pattern was the navy's decision to accept group iv enlistments in and to replace post-korean enlistment losses.) in terms of total black representation, however, the new mental standards made a lesser difference (_table _). denying group iv men enlistment during the 's only increased their number in the draft pool, and when the army stepped up draft inductions in the early 's the number of group iv men in uniform, including negroes, rapidly increased. table --nonwhite inductions and first enlistments, fiscal years - [ ] fiscal | total | percent nonwhite year |accessions| dod| army |navy|marine| air | ( )[ ] | |inductees[ ]|enlistees| |corps |force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . total , . . . . . . . [tablenote : includes inductions and male "non-prior service" enlistments into the regular components.] [tablenote : the army was the only service drafting men during this decade.] while the army's dependence on the draft, and thus group iv men, explained part of the continuing high percentage of negroes in that service, the defense department manpower group was at a loss to explain the notable variation in black enlistments among the services. all employed similar enlistment standards, yet during the period -- , for example, black enlistment in the army and air force averaged percent, the marine corps percent, and the navy . percent. nor could the analysts isolate the factors contributing to the low officer ratios in all four services. almost all military officers during the period under analysis were college graduates, negroes comprised about percent of all male college graduates, yet only the army maintained a black officer ratio approaching that figure. (_see table ._) the inability of many black servicemen to score highly in the tests might also explain why training in some technical occupations continued more restricted for them (_tables and _). in (p.  ) contrast to ground combat and service occupations, which required little formal school training, some occupation groups--electronics, for example--had high selection standards. the defense department group admitted that occupations for blacks in the armed forces had also been influenced by historical patterns of segregated assignments to food service and other support occupations. among men with twenty or more years in uniform, percent of the blacks and percent (p.  ) of the whites were assigned to service occupations. but this pattern was changing, the analysts pointed out. the reduction in the differential between whites and blacks in service occupations among more recent recruits clearly reflected the impact of policies designed to equalize opportunities (_table _). these policies had brought (p.  ) about an increasing proportion of negroes in white collar skills as well as in ground combat skills. table --distribution of enlisted personnel in each major occupation, percentage distribution by afqt groups occupation i&ii iii iv electronics . . . other technical . . . admin. & clerical . . . mechanics & repairmen . . . crafts . . . services . . . ground combat . . . table --occupational group distribution by race. all dod, total percent occupational group percentage distribution of negroes in negroes white each group ground combat . . . electronics . . . other technical . . . admin. & clerical . . . mechanics & repairmen . . . crafts . . . services . . . total . . . table --occupational group distribution of enlisted personnel by length of service and race - over occupational - years - years - years years years group white black white black white black white black white black ground combat . . . . . . . . . . electronics . . . . . . . . . . other technical . . . . . . . . . . admin. & clerical . . . . . . . . . . mechanics . . . . . . . . . . crafts . . . . . . . . . . services . . . . . . . . . . this change was dramatically highlighted by the occupational distribution of naval personnel in (_table _). among general qualification test groups i and ii, the percentage of negroes assigned to service occupations, mainly stewards, commissarymen, and the (p.  ) like, declined from percent of those with more than twelve years' service to percent of those with less than twelve years' service, with sharp increases in the "other technical" group, mainly medical and dental specialists, and smaller increases in other technical skills. a similar trend also appeared in the lower mental categories. one persisting occupational difference was the tendency to assign a relatively large percentage of negroes with high aptitudes to "other technical" skills and those of low aptitude to service occupations. the group admitted that these differences required further analysis. table --percentage distribution of navy enlisted personnel by race, afqt groups and occupational areas, and length of service, afqt group and - years years & over occupational area[ ] white negro white negro groups i and ii electronics . . . . other technical . . . . admin. & clerical . . . . mechanics & repairmen . . . . crafts . . . . services . . . . total . . . . group iii electronics . . . . other technical . . . . admin. & clerical . . . . mechanics & repairmen . . . . crafts . . . . services . . . . total . . . . group iv electronics . . . . other technical . . . . admin. & clerical . . . . mechanics & repairmen . . . . crafts . . . . services . . . . total . . . . [tablenote : excludes personnel not classified by occupation, such as recruits and general duty seamen.] reporting on promotions, the defense department group found that the relatively limited advancement of black officers was caused chiefly by their disadvantage in point of time in service and grade, branch of service, and educational background (_table _). although the difference in grade distribution among black and white enlisted men was much smaller, it too seemed related to disadvantages in education and service occupation. again, for negroes entering the services since , the grade distribution had become similar to that of whites. the navy's experience illustrated this point. in the case of those entering the navy since the korean war, the grade distribution of whites and nonwhites within the first three mental categories was nearly identical (_table _). the divergences were much wider among the more senior men in the service groups, but this was probably due at least in part to the concentration of senior black servicemen in relatively overmanned specialties, such as food service, where promotional opportunities were limited. with this exception little evidence exists that whites enjoyed an advantage over blacks in the matter of promotions in the enlisted ranks. table --percentage distribution of blacks and whites by pay grade, all dod, grade black white officers o- to o- . . o- . . o- . . o- . . o- to o- . . total . . enlisted men e- to e- . . e- . . e- . . e- . . e- to e- . . total . . table --percentage distribution of navy enlisted personnel by race, afqt groups, pay grade, and length of service, - years over years pay grade white negro white negro afqt groups i & ii e- to e- . . . . e- . . . . e- . . . . e- . . . . e- to e- . . . . total . . . . afqt group iii e- to e- . . . . e- . . . . e- . . . . e- . . . . e- to e- . . . . total . . . . afqt group iv e- to e- . . . . e- . . . . e- . . . . e- . . . . e- to e- . [a] . . total . . . . [tablenote a: less than . percent.] all these figures could be conjured up when the services had to answer complaints of discrimination, but more often than not the services contented themselves with a vague defense of the _status quo_[ - ] such answers were clearly unacceptable to civil rights leaders (p.  ) and their allies in the administration, and it is not surprising that the complaints persisted. to the argument that higher enlistment standards were a matter of military economy during a period of partial mobilizations, those concerned about civil rights responded that, since marginal manpower was a necessary ingredient of full mobilization, the services should learn to deal in peacetime with what would be a wartime problem.[ - ] to pleas of helplessness against off-base discrimination, the activists argued that these practices had demonstrably adverse effects on the morale of more than percent of the armed forces and were, therefore, a clear threat to the accomplishment of the services' military mission.[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, the following memos: dep under sa (manpower) for asd (m), mar , sub: servicemen's complaints of discrimination in the u.s. military; af dep for manpower, pers, and organization for asd (m), mar , sub: alleged racial discrimination within the air force; under secnav for asd (m), mar , sub: discrimination in the u.s. military services. all in asd (m) . ( feb ).] [footnote - : ginzberg, _the negro potential_, p. .] [footnote - : u.s. commission on civil rights, _civil rights ' _, pp. - .] integration of black servicemen and general political and economic gains of the black population had combined in the last decade to create a ground swell for reform that resulted in ever more frequent and pressing attacks on the community policies of the department (p.  ) of defense. some members of the administration rode with the reform movement. although he was speaking particularly of increased black enrollment at the military academies, special white house assistant wofford betrayed the reformer's attitude toward the whole problem of equal opportunity when he told james evans "i am sure that much work has been done, but there is, of course, still a long way to go."[ - ] but by the services had just about exhausted the traditional reform methods available to them. to go further, as wofford and the civil rights advocates demanded, meant a fundamental change in the department's commitment to equal treatment and opportunity. the decision to make such a change was clearly up to secretary mcnamara and the kennedy administration. [footnote - : memo, wofford for evans, feb , wofford collection, j. f. kennedy library.] chapter (p.  ) equal treatment and opportunity redefined by the civil rights leaders and their allies in the kennedy administration were pressing the secretary of defense to end segregation in the reserve components and in housing, schools, and public accommodations in communities adjacent to military installations. such an extension of policy, certainly the most important to be contemplated since president truman's executive order in , would involve the department of defense in the fight for servicemen's civil rights, thrusting it into the forefront of the civil rights movement. given the forces at work in the department, it was by no means certain in that the fight against discrimination would be extended beyond those vestiges that continued to exist in the military community itself. in robert mcnamara the department had an energetic secretary, committed to the principle of equal treatment and opportunity, and, since his days with the ford motor company in michigan, a member of the naacp. but, as his directives indicated, mcnamara had much to learn in the field of race relations. as he later recalled: "adam [yarmolinsky] was more sensitive to the subject [race relations] in those days than i was. i was concerned. i recognized what harry truman had done, his leadership in the field, and i wanted to continue his work. but i didn't know enough."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with mcnamara, telecon of may , cmh files.] _the secretary makes a decision_ some of mcnamara's closest advisers and some civil rights advocates in the kennedy administration, increasingly critical of current practices, were anxious to instruct the secretary in the need for a new racial outlook. but their efforts were counterbalanced by the influence of defenders of the _status quo_, primarily the manpower bureaucrats in the secretary's office and their colleagues in the services. these men opposed substantive change not because they objected to the reformers' goals but because they doubted the wisdom and propriety of interfering in what they regarded as essentially a domestic political issue. superficially, the department's racial policy appears to have been shaped by a conflict between traditionalists and progressives, but it would be a mistake to apply these labels mechanically to the men involved. there were among them several shades of opinion, and (p.  ) they were affected as well by complex political and social pressures. many of those involved in the debate shared a similar goal. a continuum existed, one defense official later suggested, that ranged from a few people who wanted for a number of reasons to do nothing--who even wanted to tolerate the continued segregation of national guard units called to active duty in --to men of considerable impatience who thought the off-limits sanction was a neglected and obvious weapon which ought to be invoked at once.[ - ] nevertheless, these various views tended to coalesce into a series of mutually exclusive arguments that can be analyzed.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, alfred b. fitt to author, may , cmh files.] [footnote - : the following summary of opinions is based upon ( ) intervs: author with mcnamara, may , gerhard a. gesell, may , robert e. jordan iii, jun , james c. evans, and mar ; o'brien with gilpatric, may ; usaf with zuckert, apr ; ( ) ltrs: fitt and yarmolinsky to author, may and may , respectively; rudolph winnacker, osd historian, to james c. evans, jul ; evans to dasd (cr), jul ; asd (m) to congressman charles c. diggs, jr., mar ; idem to john roemer, vice chmn, baltimore core, aug ; ( ) memos: usaf dep for manpower, pers, and organization for secaf, nov , sub: meeting of president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces; asd (m) for asst legal counsel to president, nov , sub: racial discrimination in the armed services; evans to yarmolinsky, mar . copies of all in cmh. see also adam yarmolinsky, _the military establishment: its impacts in american society_ (new york: harper & row, ), p. .] one group, from whom adam yarmolinsky, mcnamara's special assistant, might be singled out as the most prominent member, developed arguments for a new racial policy that would encourage the services to modify local laws and customs in ways more favorable to black servicemen. unlike earlier reformers in the department who acted primarily out of an interest in military efficiency, these men were basically civil libertarians, or "social movers," as secretary of the air force zuckert called them. they were allied with like-minded new frontiersmen, including the president's special counsel on minority affairs and attorney general kennedy, who were convinced that congress would enact no new civil rights legislation in . the services, this group argued, had through their recent integration found themselves in the vanguard of the national campaign for equal treatment and opportunity for negroes, and to some it seemed only logical that they be used to retain that lead for the administration. these men had ample proof, they believed, for the proposition that the services' policies had already influenced reforms elsewhere. they saw a strong connection, for example, between the new interstate commerce commission's order outlawing segregation in interstate travel and the services' efforts to secure equal treatment for troops in transit. in effect, in the name of an administration handicapped by an unwilling legislature, they were asking the services to fly the flag of civil rights. if their motives differed from those of their predecessors, their rhetoric did not. yarmolinsky and his colleagues argued that racial discrimination, particularly discrimination in housing and public accommodations, created a serious morale problem among black gis, a contention strongly supported by the recent civil rights commission findings. while the services had always denied responsibility for combating discrimination outside the military reservation, these (p.  ) officials were confident that the connection between this discrimination and military efficiency could be demonstrated. they were also convinced that segregated housing and the related segregation of places of public accommodation were particularly susceptible to economic pressure from military authorities. [illustration: adam yarmolinsky.] this last argument was certainly not new. for some time civil rights spokesmen had been urging the services to use economic pressure to ease discrimination. specifically, congressman powell, and later a number of civil rights groups, had called on the armed forces to impose off-limits sanctions for all servicemen against businesses that discriminated against black servicemen. clear historical precedent seemed to exist for the action demanded by the controversial harlem legislator because from earliest time the services had been declaring establishments and whole geographical areas off limits to their officers and men in order to protect their health and welfare. in view of the services' contention that equal treatment and opportunity were important to the welfare of servicemen, was it not reasonable, the spokesmen could ask, for the armed forces to use this powerful economic weapon against those who discriminated? those defense officials calling for further changes also argued that even the limited reforms already introduced by the administration faced slow going in the department of defense. this point was of particular concern to robert kennedy and his assistants in the justice department who agreed that senior defense officials lacked neither the zeal nor the determination to advance the civil rights of black servicemen but that the uniformed services were not, as deputy secretary gilpatric expressed it, "putting their hearts and souls into really carrying out all of these directives and policies." reflecting on it later, gilpatric decided that the problem in the armed forces was one of pace. the services, he believed, were willing enough to carry out the policies, but in their own way and at their own speed, to avoid the appearance of acting as the agent of another federal department. all these arguments failed to convince assistant secretary for manpower runge, some officials in the general counsel's office, and principal black adviser on racial affairs james evans, among others. this group and their allies in the services could point to a political fact of life: to interfere with local segregation laws and customs, specifically to impose off-limits sanctions against southern businessmen, would pit the administration against powerful congressmen, calling (p.  ) down on it the wrath of the armed services and appropriation committees. to the charge that this threat of congressional retaliation was simply an excuse for inaction, the services could explain that unlike the recent integration of military units, which was largely an executive function with which congress, or at least some individual congressmen, reluctantly went along, sanctions against local communities would be considered a direct threat by scores of legislators. "even one obscure congressman thus threatened could light a fire over military sanctions," evans later remarked, "and there were plenty of folks around who were eager to fan the flames." [illustration: james evans.] even more important, the department's equal opportunity bureaucracy argued, was the need to protect the physical well-being of the individual black soldier. in a decade when civil rights beatings and murders were a common occurrence, these men knew that evans was right when he said "by the time washington could enter the case the young man could be injured or dead." operating under the principle that the safety and welfare of the individual transcended the civil rights of the group, these officials wanted to forbid the men, both the black and the increasing number of white activists, to disobey local segregation laws and customs. the opponents of intervention pointed out that the services would be ill-advised to push for changes outside the military reservation until the reforms begun under truman were completely realized inside the reservation. ignoring the argument that discrimination in the local community had a profound effect on morale, they wanted the services to concentrate instead on the necessary but minor reforms within their jurisdiction. to give the local commander the added responsibility for correcting discrimination in the community, they contended, might very well dilute his efforts to correct conditions within the services. and to use servicemen to spearhead civil rights reform was a misuse of executive power. with support from the department's lawyers, they questioned the legality of using off-limits sanctions in civil rights cases. they constantly repeated the same refrain: social reform was not a military function. as one manpower spokesman put it to the renowned black civil rights lawyer, thurgood marshall, "let the army tend its own backyard, and let other government agencies work on civil rights."[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with evans, mar .] runge and the rest were professional manpower managers who had a (p.  ) healthy respect for the chance of command error and its effect on race relations nationally. in this they found an ally in secretary of the air force eugene m. zuckert, one of the architects of air force integration in . american commanders lacked training in the delicate art of community relations, zuckert later explained, and should even a few of them blunder they could bring on a race crisis of major proportions. he sympathized with the activists' goals and was convinced that the president as commander in chief could and should use the armed forces for social ends; but these social objectives had to be balanced against the need to preserve the military forces for their primary mission. again on the practical level, deputy secretary of defense gilpatric was concerned with the problems of devising general instructions that could be applied in all the diverse situations that might arise at the hundreds of bases and local communities involved.[ - ] [footnote - : usaf oral hist interv with zuckert, apr ; interv, o'brien with gilpatric, may .] many of the manpower officials carefully differentiated between equal treatment, which had always been at the heart of the defense department's reforms, and civil rights, which they were convinced were a constitutional matter and belonged in the hands of the courts and the justice department. the principle of equal treatment and opportunity was beyond criticism. its application, a lengthy and arduous task that had occupied and still concerned the services' racial advisers, had brought the department of defense to unparalleled heights of racial harmony. convinced that the current civil rights campaign was not the business of the defense department, they questioned the motives of those who were willing to make black gi's the stalking horse for their latest and perhaps transient enthusiasm, in the process inviting congressional criticism of the department's vital racial programs. in short, assistant secretary runge and his colleagues argued that the administration's civil rights campaign should be led by the justice department and by the department of health, education, and welfare, not the defense department, which had other missions to perform. such were the rationalizations that had kept the department of defense out of the field of community race relations for over a decade, and the opponents of change in a strong position. their opposition was reasonable, their allies in the services were legion, they were backed by years of tradition, and, most important, they held the jobs where the day-to-day decisions on racial matters were made. to change the _status quo_, to move the department beyond the notion that the guarantee of equal rights stopped at the boundaries of military installations, might seem "desirable and indeed necessary" to yarmolinsky and his confreres,[ - ] but it would take something more than their eloquent words to bring about change. [footnote - : ltr, yarmolinsky to author, may , cmh files.] yarmolinsky was convinced that the initiative for such a change had to come from outside the department. certain that any outside investigation would quickly reveal the connection between racial discrimination in the community and military efficiency, he wanted the secretary of defense to appoint a committee of independent (p.  ) citizens to investigate and report on the situation.[ - ] the idea of a citizens' committee was not new. the fahy committee provided a recent precedent, and in august congressman diggs had asked the secretary of defense to consider the appointment of such a group, a suggestion rejected at the time by assistant secretary runge.[ - ] but yarmolinsky enjoyed opportunities unavailable to the michigan congressman; he had the attention and the support of robert mcnamara. in the latter's words: "adam suggested another broad review of the place of the negro in the department. the committee was necessary because the other sources--the dod manpower reports and so forth--were inadequate. they didn't provide the exact information i needed. this is what adam and i decided."[ - ] this decision launched the department of defense into one of the most important civil rights battles of the 's. [footnote - : not everyone supporting the idea of an investigatory committee was necessarily an advocate of yarmolinsky's theories. roy k. davenport, soon to be appointed a deputy under secretary of the army for personnel management, decided that an assessment of the status of black servicemen was timely after a decade of integration. his professional curiosity, like that of some of the other manpower experts in the services, was piqued more by a concern for the fate of current regulations than an interest in the development of new ones. see interv, author with davenport, oct .] [footnote - : ltr, diggs to mcnamara, aug ; ltr, asd (m) to diggs, sep ; memo, asd (m) for asst legal counsel to president, nov , sub: racial discrimination in the armed services. all in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : interv, author with mcnamara, may .] _the gesell committee_ on june john f. kennedy announced the formation of the president's committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces, popularly designated the gesell committee after its chairman, gerhard a. gesell.[ - ] it was inevitable that the gesell committee should be compared to the fahy committee, given the similarity of interests, but in fact the two groups had little in common and served different purposes. the fahy committee had been created to carry out president truman's equal treatment and opportunity policy. the gesell committee, on the other hand, was less concerned with carrying out existing policy than with developing a new policy for the department of defense. the fahy committee operated under an executive order and sought an acceptable integration program from each service. the gesell committee enjoyed no such advantage, although the truman order was technically still in effect and could have been used to support it. (the kennedy administration ignored this possibility, and yarmolinsky warned one presidential aide that the truman order should be quietly revoked lest someone question why the gesell committee had not been afforded similar stature.)[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, kennedy to gesell, jun , as reproduced in white house press release, jun , copy in cmh. for an example of the attention the new committee received in the press, see washington _post_, june , .] [footnote - : memo, yarmolinsky for lee c. white, jul , sub: revocation of executive order , sd . .] again unlike the fahy committee, which forced its attention upon a generally reluctant defense department at the behest of the president, the gesell committee was created by the secretary of defense; the presidential appointment of its members bestowed an aura of special authority on a group that lacked the power of its predecessor to (p.  ) make and review policy. mcnamara later put it quite bluntly: "the committee was the creature of the secretary of defense. calling it a president's committee was just windowdressing. the civil rights people didn't have a damn thing to do with it. we wanted information, and that's just what the gesell people gave us."[ - ] in fact, yarmolinsky conceived the project, named it, nominated its members, and drew up its directives. only when it was well along was the project passed to the white house for review of the committee's makeup and guidelines.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with mcnamara, may ; see also ltr, yarmolinsky to author, may . yarmolinsky called the presidential appointment an example of the defense department's borrowing the prestige of the white house.] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for asst legal counsel to president, nov , sub: racial discrimination in the armed services, asd (m) . .] this special connection between the department of defense and the gesell committee influenced the course of the investigation. true to his concept of the committee as a fact-finding team, mcnamara personally remained aloof from its proceedings, never trying to influence its investigation or findings. ironically, gesell would later complain about this remoteness, regretting the secretary's failure to intervene in the case of the recalcitrant national guard.[ - ] he could harbor no complaint, however, against the secretary's special assistant, yarmolinsky, who carefully guided the committee's investigation to the explosive subject of off-base discrimination. even while expressing the committee's independence, gesell recognized yarmolinsky's influence. "it was perfectly clear," gesell later noted, "that yarmolinsky was interested in the off-base housing and discrimination situation, but he had no solution to suggest. he wanted the committee to come up with one."[ - ] yarmolinsky formally spelled out this interest when he devised the group's presidential directive. the committee, he informed vice president lyndon b. johnson during march , would devote itself to those measures that should be taken to improve the effectiveness of current policies and procedures in the services and to the methods whereby the department of defense could improve equality of opportunity for members of the armed forces and their dependents in the civilian community.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov , cmh files. the secretary of defense met with the committee but once for an informal chat.] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] [footnote - : memo, yarmolinsky for vice president, mar , sd . .] the citizens chosen for this delicate task, "integrationists all,"[ - ] were men with backgrounds in the law and the civil rights movement, their nearest common denominators being yale university and acquaintance with yarmolinsky, a graduate of yale law school.[ - ] chairman gesell was a washington lawyer, educated at yale, an acquaintance of yarmolinsky's with whom he shared a close mutual (p.  ) friend, burke marshall, also from yale and the head of the department of justice's civil rights division. gesell always assumed that this friendship with marshall explained his selection by the kennedy administration for such a sensitive task.[ - ] black committeemen were nathaniel s. colley, a california lawyer, civil rights advocate associated with the naacp, and former law school classmate of yarmolinsky's; john h. sengstacke, publisher of the chicago _defender_ and a member of the fahy committee; and whitney m. young, jr., of the national urban league. the other members were abe fortas, a prominent washington attorney and former yale professor; benjamin muse, a leader of the southern regional council and a noted student of the civil rights movement; and louis hector, also a yale-educated lawyer, who was called in to replace ailing dean joseph o'meara of the notre dame law school. gesell arranged for the appointment of laurence i. hewes iii, of yale college and law school, as the committee's counsel. [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for lee c. white, asst spec counsel to president, jun , sub: establishment of committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : in discussing the yale connection in the gesell committee, it is interesting to note that at least three other officials intimately connected with the question of equal treatment and opportunity, alfred b. fitt, the first deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights), cyrus r. vance, secretary of the army, and deputy secretary of defense gilpatric, were yale men. of course, secretary mcnamara was not a yale graduate; his undergraduate degree is from the university of california at berkeley, his graduate degree from harvard.] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] some of the members had definite ideas on how the committee should operate. warning of a new mood in the black community where "impatience and expectations" were far different from what they were at the time of the fahy committee, whitney young wanted the committee to prepare a frank and honest report free of the "taint of whitewash." to that end he wanted the group's directive interpreted in its broadest sense as leading to a wide-ranging examination of off-base housing, recreation, and educational opportunity, among other subjects. he wanted an investigation at the grass roots level, and he offered specific suggestions about the size and duties of the staff to achieve this. young also recommended commissioning "additional citizen teams" to assist in some of the numerous and necessary field trips and wanted the committee to use congressman diggs and his files.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, young to gesell, aug , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] benjamin muse, on the other hand, considered direct, personal investigation of specific grievances too time-consuming. he wanted the group to concentrate instead on the command level, holding formal conferences with key staff officials. the best way to impress upon the services that the white house was serious, he told gesell, was to learn the opinions of these officials and to elicit, "subject to our private analysis and discount," a great deal of helpful information.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, muse to gesell, jan , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] chairman gesell compromised. he wanted the group to develop some broad recommendations on the basis of a limited examination of specific complaints. president kennedy agreed. he told gesell: "don't go overboard and try to visit every base, but unless you see at least some bases you will never understand the situation."[ - ] white house assistant lee c. white suggested that while the committee had no deadline it should be advised that a report would be needed in june if any legislative proposals were to be submitted to congress. at the (p.  ) same time he wanted the white house to make clear that the members, "and particularly the negro members," would be left free to act as they chose.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted by gesell during interview with author, may .] [footnote - : memo, white for dep atty gen, jan , copy in lee c. white collection, j. f. kennedy library. (deputy attorney general katzenbach was a member of the white house's civil rights subcabinet.) according to yarmolinsky, the white suggestion might have originated with secretary mcnamara.] in the end the committee's operations owed something to all these suggestions. the group worked out of a small office near the white house and pointedly distant from the pentagon. its formal meetings were rare--only seven in all--and were used primarily to hear the presentations of service officials and consider the committee's findings. at a meeting in november , for instance, gesell arranged for five air force base commanders to discuss the application of the equal opportunity policy in their commands and in neighboring communities and describe their own duties as they saw them.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, gesell to secaf, oct , secaf files.] the chairman explained that the infrequent meetings were used mostly for "needling people and asking for statistics." some black members at first opposed asking the services for statistical data on the grounds that such requests would reinforce the tendency to identify servicemen by race, thus encouraging racial assignments and, ultimately, racial quotas. the majority, however, was convinced of the need for statistical material, and in the end the requests for such information enjoyed the committee's unanimous support.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov .] most of the committee's work was done in a "shirt sleeve" atmosphere, as its chairman described it, with a staff of four people.[ - ] members, alone and in groups, studied the mountains of racial statistics, some prepared by the staff of the civil rights commission, and the lengthy answers to committee questionnaires prepared by the services. the services also arranged for on-site inspections by committee members.[ - ] the field trips proved to be of paramount importance, not only in ascertaining the conditions of black servicemen and their dependents but also in fixing the extent of the local commander's responsibility for race relations. operating usually in two-man biracial teams, the committee members would separate to interview the commander, local businessmen, and the men themselves. the firsthand information thus gathered had a profound influence on the committee's thinking, an influence readily discernible in its recommendations to the president. [footnote - : memo, gesell for cmte members, nov , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : the committee's considerable probings were reflected in the defense department's files. see for example, memo, secdef for secys of mil depts et al., sep , sub: president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, sd . ( feb ); memo, asd (m) for sa et al., dec , same sub, asd (m) . ; ltr, secnav to gesell, apr ; memo, under secnav for secnav, apr , sub: meeting with the president's cmte on equal opportunity in the armed forces; ltrs, under secnav to chmn gesell, apr and may ; last four in secnav file , genrecsnav, also marine corps bulletin , jan , hist div. hqmc. see also ltrs, chmn, president's cmte, to secaf, oct , usaf, report for president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, dec , and james p. goode, af dep for manpower, personnel, & organization, to chmn gesell, apr , both in - , secaf files; "visit of mr. nathaniel colley and mr. john sengstacke to d marine division," copy in cmh. additionally, see also ltr, berl i. bernhard, u.s. commission on civil rights, to gesell, jun , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] the committee concluded from its investigations that serious discrimination against black servicemen and their families existed at home and abroad within the services and in the civilian community, (p.  ) and that this discrimination affected black morale and military efficiency. regarding evidence of discrimination within the services, the committee isolated a series of problems existing "both service-wide and at particular bases."[ - ] specifically, the group was not convinced by official reasons for the disproportionately small number of negroes in some services, especially among the noncommissioned officers and in the officer corps. chairman gesell called the dearth of black officers a "shocking condition."[ - ] his group was particularly concerned with the absence of black officers on promotion boards and the possibility of unfairness in the promotion process where photos and racial and religious information were included in the selection files made available to these boards. it also noted the failure of the services to increase the number of black rotc graduates. the committee considered and rejected the idea of providing preferential treatment for negroes to achieve better representation in the services and in the higher grades.[ - ] [footnote - : the president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, "initial report: equality of treatment and opportunity for negro military personnel stationed within the united states, june , " (hereafter cited as "initial rpt"), p. . the following discussion of the committee cannot carry the eloquence or force of the group's report, which was reproduced in the _congressional record_, th cong., st sess., vol. , pp. - .] [footnote - : ltr, gesell to under secnav, feb , secnav file ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : intervs, author with gesell, may and nov .] overrepresentation of black enlisted men in certain supply and food services was obvious.[ - ] here the committee was particularly critical of the navy and the marine corps. on another score, the chief of naval personnel noted that the committee "considers the navy and marines far behind the army and air force, particularly in the area of community relations," a criticism, he admitted, "to some extent" justified.[ - ] so apparent was the justification that, at the suggestion of the secretary of the navy, gesell discussed with under secretary paul b. fay, jr., ways to better the navy's record in its "areas of least progress."[ - ] gesell later concluded that the close social contact necessary aboard ship had been a factor in the navy's slower progress.[ - ] whatever the reason, the navy and marine corps fell statistically short of the other services in every category measured by the gesell group. [footnote - : memo, dep for manpower, personnel, & organization, usaf, for secaf, jan , sub: meeting with president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secaf files.] [footnote - : ltr, chief of navpers to conus district cmdrs et al., apr , attached to memo, chief of navpers for distribution list, apr , sub: president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, genrecsnav .] [footnote - : ltr, under secnav to gesell, feb , secnav file ( ), genrecsnav. for examples of this exchange between the committee and the navy, see ltrs, gesell to fay, feb , and fay to gesell, may and jun , all in secnav file , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov .] the "sex thing," as gesell referred to the interracial problems arising from off-duty social activities, also proved to be important, especially for noncommissioned officer and service clubs and base-sponsored activities in the community. the committee itself had persuaded the national united services organization to integrate its facilities, and it wanted local commanders to follow up by inviting black civilians to participate in uso dances and entertainments.[ - ] (p.  ) the committee also discussed discrimination in military police assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and the commander's attitude toward interracial associations both on and off the military reservation. [footnote - : for an example of how an individual service was handling the uso and other on-base social problems, see memo, maj gen john k. hester, asst vcofs, usaf, for secaf, feb , sub: antidiscrimination policies, secaf files. see also "initial rpt," pp. - .] despite its criticism of the imperfect application of service race policies--some service-wide, others confined to certain bases--the committee reported to the president that the services had made "an intelligent and far-reaching advance toward complete integration, and, with some variations from service to service, substantial progress toward equality of treatment and opportunity."[ - ] gesell called the services the nation's "pace setter," and he was convinced that they had not received sufficient credit for their racial achievements, which were "way ahead of general motors and the other great corporations."[ - ] that the services were more advanced than other segments of american society in terms of equal treatment and opportunity was beyond dispute; nevertheless, serious problems connected with racial prejudice and the armed forces' failure to understand the fundamental needs of black servicemen remained. the committee's investigation, with its emphasis on off-base realities and its dependence on statistics and other empirical data, did not lend itself to more than a superficial treatment of these subtle and stubborn, if unmeasurable, on-base problems. [footnote - : "initial rpt," p. .] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov .] the committee believed that some of what appeared discriminatory was in reality the working of such factors as the black serviceman's lack of seniority, deficiencies in education, and lack of interest in specific fields and assignments. looking beyond these, the fruits of institutional racism, the committee concluded that much of the substantiated discrimination disclosed in its investigations had proved to be limited in scope. but whether limited or widespread, discrimination had to be eliminated. prompt attention to even minor incidents of discrimination would contribute substantially to morale and serve to keep before all servicemen the standard of conduct decreed by executive policy.[ - ] [footnote - : "initial rpt," pp. - , , .] the committee was considerably less sanguine over conditions encountered by black servicemen off military bases. in eloquent paragraphs it outlined for the president the injustices suffered by these men and their families in some american communities, the effect of these practices on morale, and the consequent danger to the mission of the armed forces. it reviewed the services' efforts to eliminate segregated housing, schooling, and public accommodations around the military reservations and found them wanting. local commanders, the committee charged, were often naive about the existence of social problems and generally did not keep abreast of departmental policy specifying their obligations; they were especially ill-informed on the mcnamara-gilpatric directives and memorandums on equal treatment. often quizzed on the subject, the commanders told the committee that they enjoyed very fine community relationships. to this whitney (p.  ) young would answer that fine community relationships and racial injustice were not necessarily exclusive.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, usaf dep for manpower, personnel, & organization, nov , sub: meeting of the president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secaf file - .] [illustration: the gesell committee meets with the president. _left to right_: _laurence i. hewes iii_, _executive secretary_; _nathaniel s. colley_; _benjamin muse_; _gerhard a. gesell_; _president kennedy_; _whitney m. young, jr._; _john h. sengstacke_; and _abe fortas_.] this community-based discrimination, the committee found, had become a greater trial for black servicemen and their families because of its often startling contrast to their life in the services. there was even evidence that some of the off-base segregation, especially overseas, had been introduced through the efforts of white servicemen. particularly irritating to the committee were restrictions placed on black participation in civil rights demonstrations protesting such off-base conditions. the committee wanted the restrictions removed.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dep for manpower, personnel, & organization, usaf, for secaf, jan , sub: meeting with president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secaf files. see also memo for rcd, marine corps aide to secnav, jan , sub: meeting with navy-marine corps representatives on equal opportunity, secnav file ( ), genrecsnav.] in the end the committee's reputation would rest not so much on its carefully developed catalog of racial discrimination. after all, others, most notably the civil rights commission, had recently documented the problems encountered by black servicemen, although not in the detail offered by the gesell group, and had convincingly tied this discrimination to black morale and military efficiency. the (p.  ) committee's major contribution lay rather in its establishment of a new concept in command responsibility that directly attacked the traditional parochialism of the services' social concerns: it should be the policy of the department of defense and part of the mission of the chain of command from the secretaries of the services to the local base commander not only to remove discrimination within the armed forces, but also to make every effort to eliminate discriminatory practices as they affect members of the armed forces and their dependents within the neighboring civilian communities.[ - ] [footnote - : "initial rpt," p. .] in effect the committee proposed a new racial policy for the department of defense, one that would translate the services' promise of equality of treatment and opportunity into a declaration of civil liberties. to that end it recommended the adoption of a set of techniques radically new to the thinking of the military commanders, one that grew out of the committee's own experiences in the field. chairman gesell later recollected how this recommendation developed: i remember in particular our experiences at the bases at augusta and pensacola. this made a strong impression on me. i saw discrimination on bases right under the noses of the commanders who were often not even aware of it. and i saw much discrimination in communities around the bases. sometimes unbelievable. at pensacola, for example, i found that the station had never used negroes for guard duty at the main gate where they would be seen by the public, black and white. we told this to the commander and reminded him of the effect that it had on black morale. he changed it immediately. on base the housing for blacks was segregated off to one side in poor run-down shacks below the railroad tracks. we told the commander who admitted that he had some substandard housing units but was unaware of any segregation in housing. the commander promised to report to us about this in two weeks. he did later report: "the whole housing area has been bulldozed and all housing on base integrated." it was examples like this that convinced me that there was much the commanders could do.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] this sense of racial progress made a vivid impression on committee member muse who later recalled that "it was amazing how much activity our presence stirred up. it showed that a lot could be done by commanders."[ - ] gesell and muse were particularly impressed by how local commanders, acting firmly but informally, could achieve swift breakthroughs. but actually, as the gesell-young trip to pensacola demonstrated, often more than the base commander was involved in these dramatic reforms. a week after their trip to florida, gesell and young had a casual chat with under secretary fay about conditions at pensacola, particularly housing conditions, that, they claimed, had contributed to a "literally disgraceful" state of black morale, leading black sailors "almost to the point of rebellion." although the base commander seemed concerned, he had deferred to his military superior who lacked the "philosophical outlook oriented toward the successful implementation of equal opportunity policies." fay was quick to see the point. he pledged the navy to a "constructive effort" to eliminate the problem at pensacola "prior to the committee's reporting date [to the president] of june."[ - ] in a matter (p.  ) of hours fay was arranging to send the inspector general to pensacola, but the matter did not end there. in late may committee counsel hewes asked the assistant secretary of defense concerned with military installations about housing at pensacola, thus setting off yet another investigation of the base.[ - ] [footnote - : idem with benjamin muse, mar , cmh files.] [footnote - : memo, under secnav for secnav, apr , sub: meeting with the president's cmte on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secnav file , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (family housing) to chmn gesell, jun , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] gesell saw the reforms at pensacola as a direct result of his own suggestion to a commander. he seemed unaware that his remarks to fay had set in motion a chain of action behind the scenes. in the weeks following, black servicemen were moved from the substandard segregated housing to integrated navy-controlled housing both on and off base. the local commander also arranged for the desegregation of some off-base social facilities in a effort to improve black morale.[ - ] if the changes at pensacola appear more closely related to the committee's political clout in washington than to the commander's interest in reform, they also demonstrate the power for reform that the commander could exercise. this was the committee's main point, that equal opportunity was a command responsibility.[ - ] but it would be hard to sell in the department of defense where, as gesell himself later admitted, resistance to what was perceived as a political matter was common to most american military officers.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, under secnav to chmn gesell, jun , copy in gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library; see also memo, under secnav for secnav, sep , sub: nas pensacola, secnav file ( ), genrecsnav.] [footnote - : "initial rpt," p. .] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov .] the most controversial recommendation, however, was that the armed forces should, when necessary, exercise economic sanctions against recalcitrant businesses. in the name of troop morale and military efficiency, the committee wanted commanders to put public accommodations off limits for all servicemen, and it wanted the secretary of defense, as a last resort, to close the military installations in communities that persisted in denying black servicemen their civil rights.[ - ] again, gesell elaborated on the power of base commanders and recommended tactics. there was also much that they could do in the community to improve the lot of their blacks. if only they were sensitive to the situation.... for example, we visited the local community leaders. i would put it to the local banker who held the mortgage on the local bowling alley: "what would you do if you were a commander and some of your men were barred from the local bowling alley?" he got the point and the alley outside the base was desegregated overnight. to another i said, "you know, i'm just a lawyer down here on a temporary job, and i can only talk with you about these things. but you can't tell about those guys in washington. they will have to be closing some bases soon. now put yourself in their shoes. which would you shut, those bases that don't have race problems or those that do?" again, they got the point. in other words, an implied economic threat by the commander would work well. hell, the commanders were always getting good citizenship awards and ignoring the major citizenship problem of the era. commanders were local heroes, and they had plenty of influence. they use it. the trouble was most commanders were ignorant of the ferment among their own men on this subject. in all my trips i hinted at sanctions and base (p.  ) closings. the dutch uncle approach. i wanted the commanders to do the same. i talked economics to the community leaders. it opened their eyes. the commanders could do the same.[ - ] [footnote - : "initial rpt," pp. - .] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] the committee further refined its concepts of economic sanctions during the course of its hearings. commanders were frequently quizzed on the probable effects of the imposition of off-limits sanctions or base closings.[ - ] despite the reluctance of most commanders to invoke sanctions, committee members, assuming that no community would long persist in a social order detrimental to its economic welfare, came to the belief that ultimately only a firm and uncompromising policy of economic sanctions would eliminate off-base discrimination. the committee was obviously aware of the controversial aspects of its recommendation, and it stressed that the department's objective should always be "the preservation of morale, not the punishment of local communities which have a tradition of segregation."[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, dep for manpower, personnel, & organization, usaf, nov , sub: meeting of president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secaf files. deputy goode's assumptions about the committee's thinking were later confirmed in its "initial rpt," pages - , and in author's interview with gesell on may .] [footnote - : "initial rpt," p. .] mindful of the wish expressed by the white house staff that a report be submitted by mid- , the committee, acting unanimously, completed on june an initial report on discrimination in the services and the local community, postponing the results of its time-consuming and less-pressing investigation of the national guard and overseas posts until a later date.[ - ] complete accord among the members had not been automatic. the chairman later recalled that the group's black members had remained somewhat aloof during the months of investigation, perhaps because at first they felt the report might be a whitewash of executive policy, but that they became "enthusiastic" when they read his draft and quickly joined in the preparation of the final version.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, gesell to president kennedy, jun , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] the reason for this enthusiasm was a report that faithfully reflected the realities of discrimination suffered by black servicemen and proposed solutions based on conclusions drawn by the members from their months of discussion and investigation. the committee's conclusions and recommendations were the natural reaction of a group of humane and sensible men to the overwhelming evidence of continued discrimination against black servicemen. national policy, the committee told the president, required that this discrimination be eliminated, for equal opportunity for the negro will exist only when it is possible for him to enter upon a career of military service with assurance that his acceptance and his progress will be in no way impeded by reason of his color. clearly, distinctions based on race prevent full utilization of negro military personnel and are inconsistent with the objectives of our democratic society.[ - ] [footnote - : "initial rpt," p. .] the committee wanted responsibility for eliminating these color (p.  ) distinctions in the services shifted to the local commander. commanders, it believed, needed to improve their communication with black servicemen and should be "held accountable to discover and remedy discrimination" in their commands. the committee, in short, wanted racial sensitivity made a function of command. command responsibility for equal opportunity, the committee emphasized, was particularly important "in the area of most pressing concern, off-base discrimination." it wanted local commanders to attack discrimination in the community by seeking the voluntary compliance of local businessmen and by establishing biracial community committees. the committee asserted that despite the services' claims to the contrary the department of defense had made no serious effort to achieve off-base compliance with its anti-discrimination measures through voluntary action. commanders had been given little guidance thus far, and a carefully planned program of voluntary action should be given a chance. if it failed, commanders should be able to employ sanctions against the offending businesses; if sanctions failed, the services should consider closing installations in offending areas. the committee again stressed the need to fix responsibility for the program on local commanders. a commander's performance should be monitored and rated, and offices should be established in the department of defense and in the individual services to devise programs, monitor their progress, and bring base commanders into close working relationship with other interested and responsible federal agencies. although their recommendations were later excoriated by critics as a radical usurpation of state sovereignty and a threat to civil liberties, the committee had meant only to provide a graduated solution to a national defense problem. let reform begin with the local commander's improving conditions on his base and pressing for voluntary changes in the local community. only when this tactic failed--and the committee predicted that failure would be a rare occurrence--should the services employ economic sanctions. a firm philosophical assumption underlay all these recommendations. the committee believed that the armed forces, a worldwide symbol of american society, had to be the leader in the quest for racial justice. social reform, therefore, both within the services and where it affected servicemen in the community beyond, was a legitimate military function. to the extent that these reforms were successful, the armed forces would not only be protecting the civil rights of black servicemen but also providing a standard against which civilian society could measure its conduct and other nations could judge the country's adherence to its basic principles.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., pp. - .] _reaction to a new commitment_ the gesell committee's conclusion that discrimination in the community was tied to military efficiency meshed well with the civil rights philosophy of the new frontier. responding to the committee's (p.  ) report, president kennedy cited "the interests of national defense, national policy and basic considerations of human decency" to justify his administration's interest in opening public accommodations and housing to black servicemen. he considered it proper to ask the "military community to take a leadership role" in the matter and asked secretary mcnamara to review the committee's recommendations.[ - ] the secretary, in turn, personally asked the service secretaries to comment on the recommendations and assigned the deputy under secretary of the army (manpower), alfred b. fitt, to act as coordinator and draw up the defense department's reply.[ - ] the comments thus solicited revealed that some of mcnamara's senior subordinates had not been won over by the committee's arguments that the services should take an active role in community race relations.[ - ] the sticking point at all levels involved two important recommendations: the rating of commanders on their handling of racial matters and the use of economic sanctions. in regard to the proposal to close bases in communities that persisted in racial discrimination, the secretary of the navy said bluntly: "do not concur. base siting is based upon military requirements."[ - ] these officials promised that commanders would press for voluntary compliance, but for more aggressive measures they preferred to wait for the passage of federal legislation--they had in mind the administration's civil rights bill then being considered by congress--which would place the primary responsibility for the protection of a serviceman's civil rights in another federal department. the secretary of the air force suggested that the services continue to plan, but defer action on the committee's recommendations until congress acted on the civil rights bill.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, president to secdef, jun , copy in cmh. the president also sent the committee's report to the vice president for comment. indicative of the pentagon's continuing influence in the committee's work, the kennedy letter had been drafted by gesell and yarmolinsky; see memo, yarmolinsky for white, jun , white collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., jun , sub: report of the president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces; see also memo, asd (m) for secdef, jun ; both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dep under sa (m) for secdef (ca. jul ), with service comments attached, copy in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, secnav for asd (m), jul , sub; report of the president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secnav file , genrecsnav.] [footnote - : memo, secaf for asd (m), jul , sub: air force response to the gesell committee report, secaf files.] despite the opposition to these recommendations, fitt saw room for compromise between the committee and the services. noting, for example, that the services wanted to do their own monitoring of their commander's performance, fitt agreed this would be acceptable so long as the secretary of defense could monitor the monitors. adding that officers, like other human beings, tended to concentrate on the tasks that would be reviewed by superiors, he wanted to see a judgment of a commander's ability to handle discrimination matters included in (p.  ) the narrative portion of his efficiency report. on the question of sanctions, fitt pointed out to mcnamara that the services now understood that their equal opportunity responsibilities extended beyond the limits of the military reservation but that several of their objections to the use of sanctions were sound. he suggested the secretary approve the use of sanctions in discrimination cases but place severe restraints on their imposition, restricting the decision to the secretary's office. [illustration: alfred fitt.] this suggestion no doubt pleased mcnamara. although the committee's recommendations might be the logical outcome of its investigations, in the absence of a strong federal civil rights law even a sympathetic secretary of defense could not accept such radical changes in the services' community relations programs without reservations. nor, as gesell later admitted, could a secretary of defense chance the serious compromise to the administration's effort to win passage of such a law that could be caused by some "too gung-ho" commander left to impose sanctions on his own.[ - ] the secretary agreed with the committee that much could be done by individual commanders in a voluntary way to change the customs of the local community, and he wanted the emphasis to be kept there. [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] unlike gesell, who doubted the effectiveness of directives and executive edicts ("trouble-making" he called them), mcnamara considered equal opportunity matters "an executive job that should be handled by the departments, using directives."[ - ] armed with the committee's call for action and the services' agreement in principle, mcnamara turned to the preparation of a directive, the main outline of which he transmitted to the president on july after review by burke marshall in the department of justice. as mcnamara explained to marshall, "i would like to be able to tell him [the president] that you have read same and offer no objection."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., and with mcnamara, may .] [footnote - : memo, mcnamara for burke marshall (ca. jul ), marshall papers, j. f. kennedy library.] the secretary of defense promised the president to "eliminate the exceptions and guard the continuing reality" of racial equality in the services. in the light of the committee's conclusion that off-base discrimination reduced military effectiveness, he pledged that "the military departments will take a leadership role in combating discrimination wherever it affects the military effectiveness" of servicemen. mcnamara admitted having reservations about some of (p.  ) the committee's recommendations, especially the closing of bases near communities that constantly practiced discrimination; such closings, he declared, were not feasible "at this time." nevertheless he agreed with the committee that off-limits sanctions should be available to the services, for "certainly the damage to military effectiveness from off-base discrimination is not less than that caused by off-base vice, as to which the off-limits sanction is quite customary."[ - ] he failed to add that even though sanctions against vice were regularly applied by the local commander, sanctions against discrimination would be reserved to higher authority. [footnote - : idem for president, jul , copy in cmh.] the directive, in reality an outline of the department of defense's civil rights responsibilities and the prototype of subsequent secretarial orders dealing with race, was published on july , the fifteenth anniversary of harry truman's executive order. it read in part: _ii. responsibilities._ a. office of the secretary of defense: . pursuant to the authority vested in the secretary of defense and the provisions of the national security act of , as amended, the assistant secretary of defense (manpower) is hereby assigned responsibility and authority for promoting equal opportunity for members of the armed forces. in the performance of this function he shall (a) be the representative of the secretary of defense in civil rights matters, (b) give direction to programs that promote equal opportunity for military personnel, (c) provide policy guidance and review policies, regulations and manuals of the military departments, and (d) monitor their performance through periodic reports and visits to field installations. . in carrying out the functions enumerated above, the assistant secretary of defense (manpower) is authorized to establish the office of deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights). b. the military departments: . the military departments shall, with the approval of the assistant secretary of defense (manpower), issue appropriate instructions, manuals and regulations in connection with the leadership responsibility for equal opportunity, on and off base, and containing guidance for its discharge. . the military departments shall institute in each service a system for regularly reporting, monitoring and measuring progress in achieving equal opportunity on and off base. c. military commanders: every military commander has the responsibility to oppose discriminatory practices affecting his men and their dependents and to foster equal opportunity for them, not only in areas under his immediate control, but also in nearby communities where they may live or gather in off-duty hours. in discharging that responsibility a commander shall not, except with the prior approval of the secretary of his military department, use the off-limits sanction in discrimination cases arising within the united states.[ - ] [footnote - : dod dir . , jul .] after some thirty months in office, robert mcnamara had made a (p.  ) most decisive move in race relations. in the name of fulfilling harry truman's pledge of equal treatment and opportunity he announced an aggressive new policy. not only would the department work to eliminate discrimination in the armed forces, but when servicemen were affected it would work in the community as well. even more ominous to the secretary's critics was the fact that the new policy revealed mcnamara's willingness, under certain circumstances, to use the department's economic powers to force these changes. this directive marked the beginning of mcnamara's most active period of participation in the civil rights revolution of the 's. but the secretary's move did not escape strong criticism. the directive was denounced as infamous and shocking, as biased, impractical, undemocratic, brutally authoritarian, and un-american. if followed, critics warned, it would set the military establishment at war with society, inject the military into civilian political controversies in defiance of all traditions to the contrary, and burden military commanders with sociological tasks beyond their powers and to the detriment of their military mission.[ - ] [footnote - : alfred b. fitt thus characterized the opposition in his remarks before civilian aides conference of the secretary of army, mar , dasd (cr) files.] "it is hard to realize that your office would become so rotten and degraded," one critic wrote mcnamara. "in my opinion you are using the tactics of a dictator.... it is a tragic event when the federal government is again trying to bring reconstruction days into the south. again the military is being used to bring this about." did businesses not have the right to choose their customers? did local authorities not have the right to enforce the law in their communities? and surely the white soldier deserved the freedom to choose his associates.[ - ] another correspondent reproached mcnamara: "you have, without conscience and with total disregard for the honorable history of the military of our great nation, signed our freedom away." and still another saw her white supremacy menaced: "we have a bunch of mad dogs in washington and if you and others like you are not stopped, our children will curse us. we don't want black grandchildren and we won't have them. if you want to dance with them--you have two legs, start dancing." [footnote - : ltr to secdef, jul . this letter and the two following are typical of hundreds received by the secretary and filed in the records of asd (m).] not all the correspondents were racist or hysterical. some thoughtful citizens were concerned with what they considered extramilitary and illegal activities on the part of the services and took little comfort from the often repeated official statement that the secretary of defense had no present plans for the use of sanctions and hoped that they would never have to be used.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (cr) to james wilson, director, national security commission, american legion, sep , written when the legion had the adoption of a resolution against the directive under consideration. see also ltrs, dasd (cr) to sen. frank moss, aug , and asd (m) to congressman george huddleston, aug ; asd (m), "straightening out the record," aug ; memo, dasd (cr) for general counsel, sep , sub: use of the off-limits power. all in dasd (cr) files.] some defenders of the directive saw the whole controversy over (p.  ) sanctions as a red herring dragged across the path of a genuine equal treatment and opportunity program.[ - ] during congressional debate on the directive, the use of off-limits sanctions quickly became the respectable issue behind which those opposed to any reform could rally. the senate debated the subject on july; the house on august. during lengthy sessions on those days, opponents cast the controversy in the familiar context of states' rights, arguing that constitutional and legal points were involved. as congressman durward g. hall of missouri put it: "the recommendations made in the report and in the directive indicate a narrowness of vision which, in seeing only the civil rights issue, has blinded itself to the question of whether it is proper to use the armed forces to enforce a moral or social, rather than a legal, issue in the civilian sector."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, fitt to author, may .] [footnote - : _congressional record_, th cong., st sess., vol. , p. .] opponents argued generally that the directive represented government by fiat, an unprecedented extension of executive power that imposed the armed forces on civilian society in a new and illegal way. if the administration was already empowered to protect the civil rights of some citizens, why, they asked, was it pushing so hard for a civil rights bill? the fact was, several legislators argued, the department of defense was interfering with the civil rights of businessmen and practicing a crude form of economic blackmail.[ - ] [footnote - : ibid., pp. - , - .] critics also discussed the directive in terms of military efficiency. the secretary had given the commanders a new mission, senator john stennis of mississippi noted, that "can only be detrimental to military tradition, discipline, and morale." elaborating on this idea, congressman l. mendel rivers of south carolina predicted that the new policy would destroy the merit promotion system. henceforth, rivers forecast, advancement would depend on acceptance of integration; henceforth, racial quotas would "take the place of competence for purposes of promotion." others were alarmed at the prospect of civil rights advisers on duty at each base and outside the regular chain of command. this outrage, congressman h. r. gross of iowa charged, "would create the biggest army of snoopers and informers that the military has ever heard of." some legislators saw sinister things afoot in the pentagon. senator herman e. talmadge of georgia thought he recognized a return to the military districting of reconstruction days, and congressman f. edward hebert of louisiana warned that "everybody should be prepared for the midnight knock on the door." congressman otto e. passman of louisiana thought it most likely that attorney general kennedy was behind the whole thing; "a tragic state of affairs," he said, if the justice department was directing "the missions of the military establishment." congressman hebert found yet another villain in the piece. adam yarmolinsky, whom he incorrectly identified as the author of the mcnamara directive, had, hebert accused, "one objective in mind--with an almost sataniclike zeal--the forced integration of every facet of the american way of life, using the full power of the department of defense to bring about this change."[ - ] in line with these (p.  ) suspicions, some legislators reported that the secretary's new civil rights deputy, alfred b. fitt, was circulating among southern segregationist businessmen with, in senator barry m. goldwater's words, "a dossier gleaned from internal revenue reports." senator stennis suspected that the secretary of defense had come under the influence of "obscure men," and he warned against their revolutionary strategy: "it had been apparent for some time that the more extreme exponents of revolutionary civil rights action have wanted to use the military in a posture of leadership to bring about desegregation outside the boundaries of military bases."[ - ] [footnote - : quotes are from ibid., pp. , , - , , , .] [footnote - : ibid., senate, jul , pp. , .] the congressional critics had a strategy of their own. they would try to persuade mcnamara to rescind or modify his directive, and, failing that, they would try to change the new defense policy by law. senators goldwater, j. william fulbright of arkansas, and robert c. byrd of west virginia, along with some of their constituents, debated with mcnamara while no less than the chairman of the house armed services committee, carl vinson of georgia, introduced a bill aimed at outlawing all integration activity by military officers.[ - ] their campaign came to naught because the new policy had its own supporters in congress,[ - ] and the great public outcry against the directive, so ardently courted by its congressional opponents, failed to materialize. judging by the press, the public showed little interest in the gesell committee's report and comment on the secretary's directive was regional, with much of it coming from the southern press. certainly the effect of the directive could not compare with the furor set off by the truman order in . [footnote - : congressional letters critical of the directive can be found in dasd (cr) and sd files, . see, for example, ltrs, fulbright to secdef, aug , r. c. byrd to secdef, aug , goldwater to secnav, jul , rivers to asd (m), oct , gillis long to secdef, aug , bob sikes to secdef, jul . intense discussion of the constitutionality of the directive and of vinson's bill took place among department officials during september and october . see the following memos: dasd (cr) for asd (m), oct , sub: vinson bill comment with inclosures; asd (m) for under sa et al., sep , sub: h.r. ; asst gen counsel (manpower) for asd (m), sep . all in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : letters in support of the dod directive can be found in asd (cr) ( a ) files, .] the attitude of the press merely underscored a fact already obvious to many politicians on capitol hill in --equal opportunity in the armed forces had dwindled to the status of a minor issue in the greater civil rights struggle engulfing the nation. the media reaction also suggested that prolonged attacks against the committee and the directive were for hometown consumption and not a serious effort to reverse policy. in effect a last hurrah for the congressional opponents of integration in the armed forces, the attacks failed to budge the secretary of defense and marked the end of serious congressional attempts to influence armed forces racial policy.[ - ] the threat of congressional opposition, at times real and sometimes imagined, had discouraged progressive racial policies in the department of defense for over a quarter of a century. its abrupt and public demise robbed the traditionalists in the department of (p.  ) defense of a cherished excuse for inaction. [footnote - : a late victim of the anticivil rights forces in congress was adam yarmolinsky. his appointment as deputy director of the office of economic opportunity was withdrawn as a result of criticism in the house. one cause of this criticism was his connection with the gesell committee. see mary mcgrory, "a southern hatchet fell," washington _star_, august , .] _the gesell committee: final report_ while the argument over the mcnamara directive raged, the gesell committee worked quietly if intermittently on the final segment of its investigation, the status of blacks stationed overseas and in the national guard. president kennedy's death in november introduced an element of uncertainty in a group serving at the pleasure of the chief executive. special presidential counsel lee c. white arranged for gesell to meet with president lyndon b. johnson, and gesell offered to disband the committee if johnson wished. the president left it in being. as gesell later observed: "the committee felt that johnson understood us and our work in a way better than kennedy who had no clear idea on how to go with the race issue. we had no trouble with johnson who could have stopped us if he wanted."[ - ] [footnote - : the quote is from author's interview with gesell on may . see also ltr, white to gesell, jan , and memo, gesell for members of the committee, feb , both in gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] the committee's operations became even more informal in this final stage. its investigations completed, its staff dissolved, and its members (now one man short with the resignation of nathaniel colley) scattered, the committee operated out of gesell's law office. he was almost exclusively responsible for its final report.[ - ] this informality masked the protracted negotiations that the committee conducted with the national guard bureau over the persistent exclusion of negroes. it also masked the solid investigation by individual committee members and the voluminous evidence gathered by the staff in support of the group's final report. [footnote - : memo, gesell for members of the committee, feb .] these investigations and the documentary evidence again confirmed the findings of the civil rights commission, although the gesell committee's emphasis was different. it dismissed the problem of assignment of negroes to overseas stations. the percentage of negroes, both officers and men, sent overseas approximated their percentage in the continental united states, and with rare and "understandable" exceptions--it cited south africa--overseas assignments in the armed forces were made routinely without regard for race.[ - ] the committee also quickly dismissed the problem of discrimination on overseas bases, which it considered "minimal," and as in the united states chiefly the result of poor communication between commanders and men. the group concentrated instead on discrimination off base, especially in germany. back from a firsthand look in april , benjamin muse reported that local american commanders seemed unwilling to take the matter seriously, but he considered it delicate and complex, principally because prejudice had been most often introduced by american servicemen. he suggested that off-limits sanctions should also be imposed in germany but "only after consultation and on a (p.  ) basis of mutual understanding with german municipal authorities."[ - ] [footnote - : the president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, "final report: military personnel stationed overseas and membership and participation in the national guard, november " (hereafter cited as "final report"), copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, muse to gesell, apr , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] the committee wanted the recommendations on off-base discrimination contained in its initial report also applied overseas. ignoring the oft made distinction about the guest status of overseas service, it wanted the department of state enlisted in a campaign against discrimination in public accommodations, including the use of off-limits sanctions when necessary. the committee also called for a continuing review to insure equal opportunity in assignments to attache and mission positions. the committee devoted the largest portion of its final report to the national guard, "the only branch of the armed forces," it told president johnson, "which has not been fully integrated."[ - ] chairman gesell later reported that when the segregated state guards were pressured they "resisted like hell."[ - ] this resistance had a political dimension, but when attorney general kennedy chided that "you are killing us with the guard," gesell replied that the committee took orders from the president and would ignore the political problems involved. nevertheless, before the committee issued its report gesell sent the portions on the national guard to the justice department for comment, as one justice official noted, "apparently ... in the hope that its recommendation will not prove embarrassing to the administration."[ - ] [footnote - : "final report," p. .] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov .] [footnote - : the kennedy quote is from the author's interview with gesell on may . the justice department quote is from memo, gordon a. martin (dept of justice) for burke marshall, jul , sub: proposed gesell cmte rpt on the national guard, marshall papers, j. f. kennedy library.] the committee admitted that its investigation of the national guard was incomplete because of the variation in state systems and the absence of statistical data on recruitment, assignment, and promotion in some state guards. it had no doubt, however, of the central premise that discrimination existed. for example, until ten states with large black populations had no black guardsmen at all. membership in the guard, the committee concluded, was a distinct advantage for some individuals, providing the chance to perform their military obligation without a lengthy time away from home or work. because of the peculiar relationship between the reserve and regular systems, national guard service had important advantages in retirement benefits for others. these advantages and benefits should, in simple fairness, be open to all, but beyond the basic constitutional rights involved there were practical reasons for federal insistence on integration. the committee accepted the national guard bureau's conclusion that, since guard units were subject to integration when federalized, their morale and combat efficiency would be improved if their members were accustomed to service with negroes in all ranks during training.[ - ] [footnote - : "final report," pp. - .] the committee stressed executive initiatives. it wanted the president to declare the integration of the national guard in the national interest. it wanted the department of defense to demand pertinent (p.  ) racial statistics from the states. for psychological advantages, it wanted the recent liberalization of guard policies toward negroes widely publicized. again suggesting voluntary methods as a first step, the committee called for the use of economic sanctions if voluntary methods failed. the president should lose no time in applying the provisions of the new civil rights act of , which forbade the use of federal funds in discriminatory activities, to offending states. as it had been in the case of discrimination in local communities, the committee was optimistic about the success of voluntary compliance. citing its own efforts and those of the national guard bureau,[ - ] the committee reported that the last ten states to hold out had now begun to integrate their guard units at least on a token basis. in fact, the committee's report had to be revised at the last minute because alabama and mississippi enrolled negroes in their enlisted ranks. [footnote - : the national guard bureau is a joint agency of the departments of the army and air force which acts as adviser to the service staffs on national guard matters and as the channel of communication between the two departments and the state guards. the chief of the bureau is always a national guard officer.] chairman gesell circulated a draft report containing these findings and recommendations among committee members in september .[ - ] his colleagues suggested only minor revisions, although whitney young thought that some of the space spent on complimenting the services could be better used to emphasize the committee's recommendations for further reform. he did not press the point but noted wryly: "if we were as sensitive about the feelings of the victims of discrimination as we are of the perpetuators, we wouldn't have most of these problems to begin with."[ - ] maj. gen. winston p. wilson, the chief of the national guard bureau, also reviewed the draft and found it "entirely fair, temperate and well-founded."[ - ] the committee's final report was sent to the president on november . a month later johnson sent it along to mcnamara with the request that he be kept informed on progress of the negotiations between the secretary and the governors on integration of the national guard.[ - ] [footnote - : the draft was also sent for comment to the national guard bureau; see ltr, chief, ngb, to gesell, nov , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : memo, gesell for members of the president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, nov . the quotation is from ltr, young to gesell, sep . for the reaction of other members see, for example, ltrs, sengstacke to gesell, oct , muse to gesell, sep , fortas to gesell, sep . all in gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : ltr, gen wilson, ngb, to gesell, nov , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : ltr, president to secdef, dec , copy in cmh.] the radical change in the civil rights orientation of the department of defense demanded by the administration's civil rights supporters was obviously a task too controversial for the department to assume in on its own initiative. it was, as a member of the gesell committee later remarked, a task that only a group of independent citizens reporting to the president could effectively suggest.[ - ] in the end the committee did all that its sponsors could have wanted. it confirmed the persistence of discrimination against black servicemen both on and off the military base and effectively tied that discrimination to troop morale and military efficiency. the (p.  ) committee's conclusions, logically derived from the connection between morale and efficiency, introduced a radically expanded concept of racial responsibility for the armed forces. [footnote - : interv, author with muse, mar .] although many people strongly associate the gesell committee with the use of economic coercion against race discrimination in the community, the committee's emphasis was always on the local commander's role in achieving voluntary compliance with the department's equal opportunity policies. economic sanction was conceived of as a last resort. the directive of the secretary of defense that endorsed these recommendations was also denounced for embracing sanctions, although here the charges were even less appropriate because the use of sanctions was severely circumscribed. it remained to be seen how far command initiative and voluntary compliance could be translated by the services into concrete gains. chapter (p.  ) equal opportunity in the military community when secretary mcnamara issued his equal opportunity directive in , all segregated public accommodations, schools, and even housing near military reservations became potential targets of the department of defense's integration drive. this change in policy was substantive, but the traditionalists who feared the sudden intrusion of the services into local community affairs and the reformers who later charged mcnamara with procrastination missed the point. more than a declaration of racial principles, the directive was a guideline for the progressive application of a series of administrative pressures. endorsing the gesell committee's concept of command responsibility, mcnamara enjoined the local commander to oppose discrimination and foster equal opportunity both on and off the military base. he also endorsed the committee's recommendation for the use of economic sanctions in cases where voluntary compliance could not be obtained. by demanding the approval of the service secretaries for the use of sanctions, mcnamara served notice that this serious application of the commander's authority would be limited and infrequent. he avoided altogether the committee's call for closing military bases. the secretary's critics overlooked the fact that no exact timetable was set for the reforms outlined in the directive, and actually several factors were operating against precipitate action on discrimination outside the military reservation. strong sentiment existed among service officials for leaving off-base discrimination problems to the department of justice, and, as early reactions to the committee report revealed, the committee's findings did little to alter these feelings. more important, the inclination to postpone the more controversial aspects of the equal opportunity directive received support from the white house itself. political wisdom dictated that the department of defense refrain from any dramatic move in the civil rights field while congress debated the civil rights bill, a primary legislative goal of both the kennedy and johnson administrations. "avoid civil rights spectaculars" was the white house's word to the executive departments while the civil rights act hung fire.[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in ltr, fitt to author, may ; see also interv, author with jordan, jun .] the lack of pressure by black servicemen and civil rights advocates lent itself to official procrastination. civil rights organizations, preoccupied with racial unrest throughout the nation and anxious for the passage of new civil rights legislation, seemed to lose some (p.  ) of their intense interest in service problems. they paid scant attention to the directive beyond probing for the outer limits of the new policy. in the months following the directive, officials of the naacp and other organizations shot off a spate of requests for the imposition of off-limits sanctions against certain businesses and schools and in some cases even whole towns and cities.[ - ] when defense department officials made clear that sanctions were to be a last, not first, resort and offered the cooperation of local commanders for a joint effort against local discrimination through voluntary compliance, the demands of the civil rights organizations petered out.[ - ] [footnote - : see ltr, j. francis pohlhous, counsel, washington bureau, naacp, to secdef, aug , asd (m) . ; telg, naacp commanders to secdef, da in , asd (m) equal opportunity in armed forces ( jul ); ltr, juanita mitchell, president, baltimore branch, naacp, to secdef, may , copy in cmh. sec also new york _times_, july , .] [footnote - : see ltrs, dasd (cr) to j. francis pohlhous, aug and sep ; albert fritz, utah branch, naacp, aug ; and juanita mitchell, mar . see also ltr, dasd (civ pers, industrial relations, and civil rights) to moses newsom, _afro-american newspapers_, feb . copies of all in cmh.] according to a survey of black servicemen and veterans, this group enjoyed military life more than whites and were more favorably disposed toward the equal opportunity efforts of the department of defense.[ - ] they continued to complain, but the volume of their complaints was considerably reduced. one unsettling note: although fewer in number, the complaints were often addressed to the white house, the justice department, the civil rights organizations, or the secretary of defense, thus confirming the gesell committee's finding that black servicemen continued to distrust the services' interest in or ability to administer justice.[ - ] [footnote - : charles moskos, "findings on american military establishment" (northeastern university, ), quoted in yarmolinsky, _the military establishment_, p. .] [footnote - : for many examples of these racial complaints and their disposition, see dasd (cr) files, - , especially access nos. -a- and -a- .] the secretary of defense's manpower staff processed all these complaints. it dismissed those considered unrelated to race but forwarded many to the individual services with requests for immediate remedial action. significantly, those involving the violation of a serviceman's civil rights off base continued to be sent to the justice department for disposition. defense department officials themselves adjudicated the hundreds of discrimination cases involving civilian employees.[ - ] [footnote - : the assistant secretary of defense (manpower) prepared a monthly compilation of all discrimination cases in the department of defense involving civilian employees. originally requested by then vice president lyndon johnson in his capacity as chairman of the president's committee on equal opportunity in employment in june , the reports were continued after the gesell committee disbanded. the report for november , for example, listed cases of "contractor complaints" investigated and adjudicated and cases of "in-house complaints" being processed in the department of defense. see memo, asd (m) for sa et al., dec , asd (m) . .] in the weeks and months following publication of the equal opportunity directive, official replies to the demands and complaints of black servicemen and their allies in the civil rights organizations continued to be carefully circumscribed. whatever skepticism such restricted application of the gesell recommendations may have produced among the civil rights leaders, the department found itself surprisingly free from outside pressure. it was able to set the pace of its own reform and to avoid meanwhile a clash with either (p.  ) reformers or segregationists over major civil rights issues of the day. _creating a civil rights apparatus_ the defense department could do little about discrimination either on or off the military reservation until it was better organized for the task. the secretary needed new bureaucratic tools with which to develop new civil rights procedures, unite the disparate service programs, and document whatever failures might occur. he created a civil rights secretariat, assigning to his manpower assistant, norman s. paul,[ - ] the responsibility for promoting equal opportunity in the armed forces. although racial affairs had always been considered among the manpower secretary's general duties, with precedents reaching back through the personnel policy board to world war ii when assistant secretary of war john j. mccloy supervised the employment of black troops, mcnamara now significantly increased these responsibilities. the assistant secretary would represent him "in civil rights matters," would direct the department's equal opportunity programs, and would provide policy guidance for the military departments, reviewing their policies, regulations, instructions, and manuals and monitoring their performance.[ - ] to carry out these functions, the secretary of defense authorized his assistant to create a deputy assistant secretary for civil rights.[ - ] again a precedent existed for the secretary's move. in january paul had assigned an assistant to coordinate the department's racial activities.[ - ] the reorganization transferred the person and duties of the secretary's civilian aide, james c. evans, to the office of the deputy assistant secretary for civil rights. the new organization was thus provided with a pedigree traceable to world war i and the work of emmett j. scott,[ - ] although evans' move to the deputy's staff was the only connection between scott and that office. the civilian aides, limited by the traditionally indifferent attitudes of the services toward equal opportunity programs, had been used to advise civilian officials on complaints from the black community, especially black servicemen, and to rationalize service policies for civil rights organizations. the new civil rights office, reflecting mcnamara's positive intentions, was organized to monitor and instruct military departments. [footnote - : norman s. paul succeeded carlisle runge as assistant secretary of defense (manpower) on august .] [footnote - : dod dir . , jul . for an extended discussion of the functions of the assistant secretary of defense (manpower) and his civil rights deputy, see memo, dasd (cr) for mr. paul, sep , sub: policy formulation, planning and action in the office of the deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights), july - september , asd (m) . . this significant document, a progress report on civil rights in the first two years of mcnamara's new program, is an important source for much of the following discussion and will be referred to hereafter as paul memo.] [footnote - : dod news release - , jul .] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for dasd (education) et al., jan , sub: coordination of all matters related to racial problems, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : evans' predecessors included emmett j. scott, special assistant to the secretary of war, - ; william h. hastie, civilian aide to the secretary of war, - ; truman k. gibson, - ; and marcus h. ray, - . evans left army employ to join the staff of the secretary of defense in . see memo for rcd, counselor to asd (m), mar , asd (m) . .] the civil rights deputy was a relatively powerless bureaucrat. (p.  ) he might investigate discrimination and isolate its causes, but he enjoyed no independent power to reform service practices. his substantive dealings with the services had to be staffed through his superior, the assistant secretary for manpower, a man to whom equal opportunity was but one of many problems and who might well question new or aggressive civil rights tactics. such an attitude was understandable in an official with little or no experience in civil rights matters and no day-to-day contact with civil rights operations. norman paul, whose experience was in legislative liaison, might also be especially sensitive to the possibility of congressional or public criticism.[ - ] indicative of the assistant secretary's attitude toward his civil rights deputy was the fact that the position was reorganized and retitled, with some significant corresponding changes in function each time, a bewildering five times in ten years.[ - ] to add to the problems of the civil rights office, nine different men were to occupy the deputy's position, three of them in the capacity of acting deputy, in that same decade.[ - ] [footnote - : before assuming the manpower position, norman paul was the chief of legislative liaison for the department of defense. for a critique of the work of the asd (m) incumbents in the racial field, see o'brien's interview with gilpatric, may , j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : for a discussion of the effect of the proliferation of assistants in the manpower office, see usaf oral history interview with evans, apr .] [footnote - : the incumbents were alfred b. fitt, stephen n. shulman, jack moskowitz, l. howard bennett (acting), frank w. render ii, donald l. miller, curtis r. smothers (acting), stuart broad (acting), and h. minton francis.] the organization of the equal opportunity program of the secretary of defense was not without its critics. some wanted to enhance the prestige of the equal opportunity program by creating a separate assistant secretary for civil rights.[ - ] such an official, accountable to the secretary of defense alone, would be free to direct the services' racial activities and, they agreed, would also serve as a highly visible symbol to servicemen and civil rights advocates alike of the department's determination to execute its new policy. others, however, defended the existing organization, arguing that racial discrimination was a manpower problem, and the number of assistant secretaries was fixed by law and the chance of congressional approval for yet another manpower position was remote.[ - ] [footnote - : this solution was still being recommended a decade later; see department of defense, "report of the task force on the administration of military justice in the armed forces," nov , vol. i, pp. , . see also interv, author with l. howard bennett (former dasd [cr]), dec , cmh files.] [footnote - : interv, author with col george r. h. johnson, deputy, plans and policy, dasd (equal opportunity), aug , cmh files.] these organizational problems had yet to appear in july when at yarmolinsky's suggestion secretary mcnamara appointed alfred b. fitt the first civil rights deputy. since the army's deputy under secretary for manpower, fitt had recently been on loan to the office of the secretary of defense to coordinate the department's responses to the gesell committee. he was the author of the equal opportunity directive signed by mcnamara, and his personal views on the subject, while consistent with those of yarmolinsky and mcnamara, were often expressed in more advanced terms. going beyond the usual arguments for equal treatment based on morale and military efficiency, fitt (p.  ) referred to the black servicemen's struggle as a moral issue. he was glad, he later confessed, to be on the right side of such an issue, and he felt indebted to the positive racial policies of kennedy and johnson and their secretary of defense.[ - ] he quickly gathered around him a staff of like-minded experts who proceeded to their first task, a review of the services' outline plans called for in the secretary's directive.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (cr) to gesell, jul , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : interv, author with jordan, jun .] [illustration: arriving in vietnam. _ st airborne division troops aboard the usns general le roy eltinge._] although merely outlines of proposed service programs, the three plans submitted in july and august nevertheless reflected the emphasis on off-base discrimination preached by the gesell committee and endorsed by the secretary of defense.[ - ] the plans also revealed the services' essential satisfaction with their current on-base programs, although each outlined further reforms within the military community. the navy, for example, announced reforms in recruitment methods, and the army planned the development of more racially equitable training programs and job assignments. all three services discussed new (p.  ) provisions for monitoring their equal opportunity programs, with the army including explicit provisions for the processing of servicemen's racial complaints. and to insure the coordination of equal opportunity matters in future staff decisions, each service also announced (the navy in a separate staff action) the formation of an equal opportunity organization in its military staff: an equal rights branch in the office of the army's deputy chief of staff for personnel, an equal opportunity group in the air force's directorate of personnel planning to work in conjunction with its secretary's committee on equal opportunity, and an ad hoc committee in the navy's bureau of personnel. [footnote - : memos: dep to secaf for manpower, personnel, and organization for asd (m), aug , sub: implementation of dod directive . ; sa for asd (m), aug , sub: equal opportunity in the armed forces; under secnav for asd (m), aug , sub: outline plan for implementing department of defense directive . , "equal opportunity in the armed forces," dated jul . all in asd (m) . .] the outline plans revealed that the services entertained differing interpretations of the mcnamara call for command responsibility in equal opportunity matters. the gesell committee had considered this responsibility of fundamental importance and wanted the local commander held accountable and his activities in this area made part of his performance rating. there was some disagreement among manpower experts on this point. how, one critic asked, could the services set up standards against which a commander's performance might be fairly judged? how could they insure that an overzealous commander might not, in the interest of a higher efficiency report, upset anti-discrimination programs that called for subtle negotiation?[ - ] but to chairman gesell the equal opportunity situation demanded action, and how could this demand be better impressed on the commander than by the knowledge that his performance was being measured?[ - ] the point of this argument, which the committee accepted, was that unless personal responsibility was fixed, policies and directives on equal opportunity were just so much rhetoric. [footnote - : interv, author with davenport, aug , cmh files.] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, may .] only the army's outline plan explicitly adopted the committee's controversial recommendation that "the effective performance of commanders in this area will be considered along with other responsibilities in determining his overall manner of duty performance." the navy equivocated. commanders would "monitor continually racial matters with a goal toward improvement." the inspectors general of the navy and marine corps were "instructed to appraise" all command procedures. the air force expected base base commanders to concern themselves with the welfare nondiscriminatory treatment of its servicemen when they were away from the base, but it left them considerable freedom in the matter. "the military mission is predominant," the air force announced, and the local commander must be given wide latitude in dealing with discrimination cases since "each community presented a different situation for which local solutions must be developed." the decision by the navy and air force to exempt commanders from explicit responsibility in equal opportunity matters came after some six months of soul-searching. under secretary of the navy fay agreed with his superior that the navy's equal opportunity "image" suffered in comparison to the other services and the percentage of negroes in the navy and marine corps left much to be desired. but when (p.  ) ordered by secretary fred korth to develop a realistic approach to equal opportunity in consultation with the gesell committee, fay's response tended to ignore service shortcomings and, most significantly, failed to fix responsibility for equal opportunity matters. he proposed to revise navy instructions to provide for increased liaison between local commanders and community leaders and monitor civil rights cases involving naval personnel, but his response neither discussed new ways to increase job opportunities for negroes nor mentioned making equal opportunity performance a part of the military efficiency rating system.[ - ] his elaborate provisions for monitoring and reporting notwithstanding, his efforts appeared primarily cosmetic. [footnote - : memo, under secnav for secnav, feb , sub: equal opportunity in the navy and marine corps, secnav file , genrecsnav.] [illustration: digging in. _men of m company, th marines, construct a defense bunker during "operation desoto," vietnam._] undoubtedly, the navy's image in the black community needed some refurbishing. despite substantial changes in the racial composition of the steward's branch in recent years, negroes continued to avoid naval service, as a special navy investigation later found, because "they have little desire to become stewards or cooks."[ - ] fay believed that the shortage of negroes was part of a general problem shared by all the services. his public relations proposals were designed (p.  ) to overcome the difficulty of attracting volunteers. his recommendations were approved by secretary korth in february and disseminated throughout the navy and marine corps for execution.[ - ] with only minor modification they were also later submitted to the secretary of defense as the navy's outline plan. [footnote - : memo, david m. clinard, spec asst, for secnav, oct , sub: interviews with negro personnel at andrews air force base, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : secnav instruction . a, mar ; personal ltr, secnav to all flag and general officers et al., mar , copy in cmh; secnav notice , apr ; alnav , sep . see also cmdt, usmc, report of progress--equal opportunity in the united states marine corps (ca. jun ), hist div hqmc; memo, chief, navpers, for under secnav, may , sub: interim progress report on navy measures..., secnav file , genrecsnav.] even as fay settled on these modest changes, signs pointed to the possibility that the department's military leaders would be amenable to more substantial reform. the chief of naval personnel admitted that the gesell committee's charges against the service were "to some extent" justified and warned naval commanders that if they failed to take a more positive approach to equal opportunity they would be ordered to take actions difficult for both the navy and the community. better "palatable evolutionary progress," he counseled, than "bitter revolutionary change."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, chief, navpers, to conus district cmdrs et al., apr , attached to memo, chief, navpers, for distribution list, apr , sub: president's committee on equal opportunity in the armed forces, secnav file , genrecsnav.] air force officials had also considered the problem of command responsibility in the months before submitting their outline plan. as early as december , under secretary joseph v. charyk admitted the possibility of confusion over what the policy of base commanders should be concerning off-base segregation. he proposed that the staff consider certain "minimum" actions, including "mandatory evaluation of all officers concerning their knowledge of this program and the extent to which they have complied with the policy of anti-discrimination."[ - ] secretary zuckert discussed charyk's proposal with his assistants on january . it was also considered by mcnamara, who then passed it to the other services, calling on them to develop similar programs.[ - ] finally, air force officials discussed command responsibility in preparing their critique of gesell committee recommendations, and secretary zuckert informed assistant secretary of defense paul that "the responsibility for this [the air force's anti-discrimination] program will be clearly designated down to base level."[ - ] despite this attention, the subject of specific command responsibility was not clearly delineated in the air force's outline plan. [footnote - : memo, actg secaf cofsaf, dec , sub: anti-discrimination policy in the military service, secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa and navy, mar , sub: anti-discrimination policy in the military service, copy in cmh. mcnamara received the air force document from charyk through yarmolinsky. see memo, benjamin fridge, spec asst for manpower and reserve forces, for secaf, mar , sub: anti-discrimination policies; see also memo, asst vice cofs, usaf, for secaf, feb , same sub, - ; both in secaf files.] [footnote - : memo, secaf for asd (m), jul , sub: air force response to the gesell committee report, asd (m) . .] paul ignored the critical differences in the services' outline plans when he approved all three without distinction on september.[ ] alfred fitt later explained why the department had not insisted (p.  ) the services adopt the committee's specific recommendations on command responsibility. commenting on the committee's call for the appointment of a special officer at each base to transmit black servicemen's grievances to base commanders, fitt acknowledged that most negroes were reluctant to complain, but said the services were aware of this reluctance and had already devised means to overcome it. problems in communication, he pointed out, were leadership problems, and commanders must be left free to find their own method of learning about conditions in their commands. as for the committee's suggestion that equal opportunity initiatives in the local community be made a consideration in the promotion of the commander, the defense department had temporized. such initiatives, fitt explained, might be considered part of the commander's total performance, but it should never be the governing factor in determining advancement.[ ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., sep , sub: dod directive . , jul , equal opportunity, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : alfred b. fitt, deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights), "remarks before civilian aides conference of the secretary of the army," mar , copy in cmh.] yet the principle of command responsibility was not completely ignored, for paul made his approval of the plans contingent on several additional service actions. each service had to prepare for commanders an instruction manual dealing with the discharge of their equal opportunity responsibilities, develop an equal opportunity information program for the periodic orientation of all personnel, and institute some method of insuring that all new commanders promptly reviewed equal opportunity programs applicable to their commands. the secretary also set deadlines for putting the plans into effect. the preparation of these comprehensive regulations and manuals, however, took much longer than expected, a delay, fitt admitted, that slowed equal opportunity progress to some extent.[ - ] in fact, it was not until january that the last of the basic service regulations on equal opportunity was published.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (civil rights) to gesell, apr , asd (m) . .] [footnote - : ar - , jul (superseded by ar - , mar ); afr - , aug (superseded in may ); secnav instructions . , jan , . a, dec , and . , mar . see also navso p , may , "a commanding officer's guide for establishing minority community relations."] there were several reasons for the delay. the first was the protracted congressional debate over the civil rights bill. some service officials strongly supported the stand that off-base complaints of black servicemen were chiefly the concern of the justice department. on a more practical level, however, the department of defense was reluctant to issue new directives while legislation bearing directly on discrimination affecting servicemen was being formulated. accepting these arguments, paul postponed the services' submission of new regulations and manuals until the act assumed final form. the delayed publication of the service regulations could also be blamed in part on the confusion that surrounded the announcement of a new defense policy on attendance at segregated meetings. the issue arose in early when fitt discovered some defense employees accepting invitations to participate in segregated affairs while others refused on the basis of the secretary's equal opportunity directives. inconsistency on such a delicate subject disturbed the civil rights deputy. the services had fortuitously avoided several (p.  ) potentially embarrassing incidents when officials were invited to attend segregated functions, and fitt warned paul that "if we don't erect a better safeguard than sheer chance, we're bound somewhere, sometime soon to look foolish and insensitive."[ - ] he wanted mcnamara to issue a policy statement on the subject, admittedly a difficult task because it would be hard to write and would require white house clearance that might not be forthcoming. for the short run fitt wanted to deal with the problem at a regular staff meeting where he could discuss the matter and coordinate his strategy without the delay of publishing new regulations. [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for paul, feb , sub: official attendance at segregated meetings, asd (m) . .] as it turned out, anxiety over white house approval proved groundless. "the president has on numerous occasions made clear his view that federal officials should not participate in segregated meetings," white house counsel lee c. white informed all department and agency heads, and he suggested that steps be taken in each department to inform all employees.[ - ] the deputy secretary of defense, cyrus r. vance, complied on july by issuing a memorandum to the services prohibiting participation in segregated meetings. adding to the text prepared in the white house, he ordered that this prohibition be incorporated in regulations then being prepared, a move that necessitated additional staffing of the developing equal opportunity regulations.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, assoc spec counsel to president for heads of departments and agencies, jun , sub: further participation at segregated meetings, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, dep secdef for secys of military departments et al., jul , sub: federal participation at segregated meetings, sd . . the army's regulation, published on july, five days before secretary vance's memorandum, was republished on may to include the prohibition against segregated meetings and other new policies. the navy prepared a special secretary of navy instruction ( . , jul ) on the subject.] objections to the prohibition were forthcoming. continuing on a tack he had pursued for several years, the air force deputy special assistant for manpower, personnel, and organization, james p. goode, objected to the application of the vance memorandum to base commanders. these men had to maintain good relations with community leaders, he argued, and good relations were best fostered by the commander's joining local community organizations such as the rotary club and the chamber of commerce, which were often segregated. these civic and social organizations offered an effective forum for publicizing the objectives of the department of defense, and to forbid the commander's participation because of segregation would seriously reduce his local influence. goode wanted the order "clarified" to exclude local community organizations from its coverage on the grounds that including them would be "detrimental to the best interests of all military personnel and their dependents and would result in a corresponding reduction in military effectiveness."[ - ] the defense department would have nothing to do with the idea. such an exception to the rule, the civil rights deputy declared, would not constitute a (p.  ) clarification, but rather a nullification of the order. the air force request was rejected.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, james p. goode for dep secdef, sep , sub: federal participation at segregated meetings, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : draft memo, dasd (civ pers, indus rels, and cr) for dep for manpower, personnel, and organization, usaf, oct , sub: federal participation at segregated meetings. the memorandum was not actually dispatched, and a note on the original draft discloses that after discussion between the deputy assistant secretary of defense and the assistant secretary of defense (manpower) the rejection of the air force request was "handled verbally." copy of the memo in cmh.] the confusion surrounding the publication of service regulations suggested that without firm and comprehensive direction from the office of the secretary of defense the services would never develop effective or uniform programs. service officials argued that commanders had always been allowed to execute racial policy without specific instructions. they feared popular reaction to forceful regulations, and, in truth, they were already being subjected to congressional criticism over minor provisions of the gesell committee's report. even the innocuous suggestion that officers be appointed to channel black servicemen's complaints was met with charges of "snooping" and "gestapo" tactics.[ - ] [footnote - : fitt, "remarks before civilian aides conference of the secretary of the army," mar .] although both the gesell committee and secretary mcnamara had made clear that careful direction was necessary, the manpower office of the department of defense temporized. instead of issuing detailed guidelines to the services that outlined their responsibilities for enforcing the provision of the secretary's equal opportunity directive, instead of demanding a strict accounting from commanders of their execution of these responsibilities, paul asked the services for outline plans and then indiscriminately approved these plans even when they passed over real accountability in favor of vaguely stated principles. the result was a lengthy period of bureaucratic confusion. protected by the lack of specific instructions the services went through an alfonse-gaston routine, each politely refraining from commitment to substantial measures while waiting to see how far the others would go.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with evans, jul , cmh files.] _fighting discrimination within the services_ the immediate test for the services' belatedly organized civil rights apparatus was the racial discrimination lingering within the armed forces themselves. the civil rights commission and the gesell committee had been concerned with the exceptions to the services' generally satisfactory equal opportunity record. it was these exceptions, such chronic problems as underrepresentation of negroes in some services, in the higher military grades, and in skilled military occupations, that continued to concern the defense department civil rights organization and the services as they tried to carry out mcnamara's directive. seemingly minor compared to the discrimination faced by black servicemen outside the military reservation, racial problems within the military family and how the services dealt with them would have direct bearing on the tranquility of the armed forces in the 's. [illustration: listening to the squad leader. _men of company d, st infantry, prepare to move out, quang tin province, vietnam._] two pressing needs, and obviously interrelated ones, were to (p.  ) attract a greater number of young blacks to a military career and improve the status of negroes already in uniform. these were not easy, short-term tasks. in the first place the negro, ironically in view of the services' now genuine desire to have him, was no longer so interested in joining. as explained by defense department civil rights officials, the past attitudes and practices of the services, especially the treatment of negroes during world war ii, had created among black opinion-makers an indifference toward the services as a vocation.[ - ] lacking encouragement from parents, teachers, and peers, black youths were increasingly reluctant to consider a military career. for their part the services tried to counter this attitude with an energetic public relations program.[ - ] encouraged by the department's civil rights experts they tried to establish closer (p.  ) relations with black students. they even reorganized their recruitment programs, and the secretary of defense himself initiated a program to attract more black rotc cadets.[ - ] service representatives also worked with teachers and school officials to inform students on military career opportunities. [footnote - : paul memo.] [footnote - : for accounts of navy and marine corps attempts to attract more negroes, see memos: smedberg for under secnav, may , sub: interim progress report on navy measures in the area of equality of opportunity in the armed forces; under secnav for secnav, jul , sub: first report of progress in the area of equal opportunity in the navy department; e. hidalgo, spec asst to secnav, for l. howard bennett, principal asst for civil rights, oasd (cr), oct , sub: summary of steps deemed necessary to increase number of qualified negro officers and enlisted personnel on the navy/marine corps team, secnav file ( ). all in genrecsnav. see also memos, marine aide to secnav for cofs, usmc, aug , sub: equal opportunity in the armed services, and acofs, g- , usmc, for cofs, usmc, aug , same sub, both in mc files. for osd awareness of the problem, see stephen n. shulman, "the civil rights policies of the department of defense," may , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, secdef for educators, oct , sub: equal opportunity at the service academies of the united states army, navy, and air force, sd . .] enlistment depended not only on a man's desire to join but also on his ability to qualify. following the publication of a presidential task force report on the chronic problem of high draft rejection rates, the army inaugurated in august a special training and enlistment program (step), an experiment in the "military training, education, and physical rehabilitation of men who cannot meet current mental or medical standards for regular enlistment in the army."[ - ] aimed at increasing enlistments by providing special training after induction for those previously rejected as unqualified, the program provided for the enlistment of , substandard men, which included many negroes. before the men could be enlisted, however, congress killed the program, citing its cost and duplication of the efforts of the job corps. it was not until that the idea of accepting many young men ineligible for the draft because of mental or educational deficiencies was revived when mcnamara launched his project , .[ - ] [footnote - : dod news release, aug . see the president's task force on manpower conservation, _one-third of a nation: a report on young men found unqualified for military service_ (washington: government printing office, ). kennedy established the task force in september . its members included the secretaries of labor, defense, and health, education and welfare and the director of selective service.] [footnote - : mcnamara, _the essence of security_, pp. - . see also bahr, "the expanding role of the department of defense," ch. v.] the services were unable to bring off a dramatic change in black enlistment patterns in the 's. with the exception of the marine corps, in which the proportion of black enlisted men increased percent, the percentage of negroes in the services remained relatively stationary between and (_table _). in , when negroes accounted for percent of the american population, their share of the enlisted service population remained at . , with significant differences among the services. nor did there seem much chance of increasing the number of black servicemen since the percentage of negroes among draftees and first-time enlistees was rising very (p.  ) slowly while black reenlistment rates, for some twenty years a major factor in holding black strength steady, began to decline (_table _). actually, enlistment figures for both whites and blacks declined, a circumstance usually attributed to the unpopularity of the vietnam war, although in the midst of the war, in , black first-term reenlistment rates continued to exceed white rates to . table --black percentages, - | army | navy | marine corps | air force year| enlisted| enlisted| enlisted| enlisted |officers| men |officers| men |officers| men |officers| men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _source_: records of asd (m) . . table --rates for reenlistments, - army navy marine corps air force year | white | black | white | black | white | black | white | black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _source_: records of asd (m) . ; see especially paul memo. the low percentage of black officers, a matter of special concern to the civil rights commission and the gesell committee as well as the civil rights organizations, remained relatively unchanged in the 's (_see table _). nor could any dramatic rise in the number of black officers be expected. between and the three service academies graduated just fifty-one black officers, an impressive statistic only in the light of the record of a total of sixty black graduates in the preceding eighty-six years. furthermore, there were only black cadets in , a vast proportional increase over former years but also an indication of the small number of black officers that could be expected from that source during the next four years (_table _). since cadets were primarily chosen by congressional nomination and from other special categories, little could be done, many officials assumed, to increase substantially the number of black cadets and midshipmen. an imaginative effort by fitt in early , however, proved this assumption false. fitt got the academies to agree to take all the qualified negroes he could find and some senators and congressmen to relinquish some of their appointments to the cause. he then wrote every major school district in the country, seeking black applicants and assuring them that the academies were truly open to all those qualified. even though halfway through the academic year, fitt's "micro-personnel operation," as he later called it, yielded appointments for ten negroes. unfortunately, (p.  ) his successor did not continue the effort.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, fitt to author, oct , cmh files.] table --black attendance at the military academies, july class class class class total total academy | of | of | of | of | negro | attendance army , navy , air force , totals _source_: office, deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights). the rotc program at predominantly black colleges had always been the chief source of black officers, but here, again, there was little hope for immediate improvement. with the exception of a large increase in the number of black air force officers graduating from five black colleges, the percentage of officers entering the service from these institutions remained essentially unchanged throughout the 's despite the services' new equal opportunity programs (_table _). some civil rights leaders had been arguing for years that the establishment of rotc units at predominantly black schools merely helped perpetuate the nation's segregated college system. fitt agreed that as integrated education became more commonplace the number of black rotc graduates would increase in predominantly white colleges, but meanwhile he considered units at black schools essential. among the approximately black colleges without rotc affiliation, some could possibly qualify for units, and in february fitt's successor, stephen n. shulman, called for the formation of more (p.  ) rotc units as an equal opportunity measure.[ - ] the army responded by creating a unit at arkansas a&m normal college, and the navy opened a unit at prairie view a&m in the president's home state of texas. balancing the expectations implied by the formation of these new units were the growing antiwar sentiment among college students and the special competition for black college graduates in the private business community, both of which made rotc commissions less attractive to many black students. [footnote - : fitt left the civil rights office in august to become the general counsel of the army. at his departure the position of deputy assistant secretary of defense for civil rights was consolidated with that of the deputy for civilian personnel and industrial relations. the incumbent of the latter position, stephen shulman, became deputy assistant secretary of defense for civilian personnel, industrial relations, and civil rights. shulman, a graduate of yale law school and former executive assistant to the secretary of labor, had been closely involved in the defense department's equal opportunity program in industrial contracts.] table --army and air force commissions granted at predominantly black schools army commissions class of|class of|class of|class of school | | | a&t college, n.c. central state college, ohio florida a&m college hampton university, va. lincoln university, pa. morgan state college, md. prairie view a&m college, tex. south carolina state college southern university, la. tuskegee institute, ala. virginia state college west virginia state college howard university, washington, d.c. total percentage of total such commissions granted . . . . air force commissions class of class of class of school | | a&t college, n.c. howard university, washington, d.c. maryland state college tennessee a&i university tuskegee institute, ala. total _source_: office, deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights). chance of promotion for officers and men was one factor in judging equal treatment and opportunity in the services. a statistical comparison of the ranks of enlisted black servicemen between and reveals a steady advance (_table _). with the exception of the air force, the percentage of negroes in the higher enlisted ranks compared favorably with the total black percentage in each service. the advance was less marked for officers, but here too the black share of the o- grade (major or lieutenant commander) was comparable with the black percentage of the service's total strength. the services could declare with considerable justification that reform in this area was necessarily a drawn-out affair; promotion to the senior ranks must be won against strong competition. table --percentage of negroes in certain military ranks, - e- (staff sergeant or petty officer, first class) _ _ _ _ _ _ army . . . navy . . . marine corps . . . air force . . . o- (major or lieutenant commander) army . . . navy . . . marine corps . . . air force . . . _source_: office, deputy assistant secretary of defense (civil rights). the department's civil rights office forwarded to the services complaints from black servicemen who, despite the highest efficiency ratings and special commendations from commanders, failed to win promotions. "almost uniformly," the office reported in , "the reply comes back from the service that there had been no bias, no partiality, no prejudice operating in detriment on the complainant's consideration for promotion. they reply the best qualified was promoted, but this was not to say that the complainant did not have a very good record."[ - ] while black officers might well have (p.  ) been subtly discriminated against in matters of promotion, they also, it should be pointed out, shared in the general inflation in efficiency ratings, common in all the services, that resulted in average officers being given "highest efficiency ratings." [footnote - : paul memo.] in addition to complaining of direct denial of promotion opportunity, so-called "vertical mobility," some black officers alleged that their chances of promotion had been systematically reduced by the services when they failed to provide negroes with "horizontal mobility," that is, with a wide variety of assignments and all-important command experience which would justify their future advancement. supporting these claims, the civil rights office reported that only negroes were enrolled at the senior service schools in , black naval officers with command experience were on active duty, and black air force officers had been given tactical command experience since . the severely limited assignment of black army officers at the major command headquarters, moreover, illustrated the "narrow gauge" assignment of negroes.[ - ] this picture seemed somewhat at variance with deputy assistant secretary shulman's assurances to the kansas conference on civil rights in may that "we have paid particular attention to the assignment of negro officers to the senior service schools, and to those positions of command that are so vital to officer advancement to the highest rank."[ - ] [footnote - : ibid.] [footnote - : shulman, "the civil rights policies of the department of defense," may .] since promotion in the military ranks depended to a great extent on a man's skills, training in and assignment to vital job categories were important to enlisted men. here, too, the statistics revealed that the percentage of negroes in the technical occupations, which had begun to rise in the years after korea, had continued to increase but that a large proportion still held unskilled or semiskilled military occupational specialties (_table _). eligibility for the various military occupations depended to a great extent on the servicemen's mental aptitude, with men scoring in the higher categories usually winning assignment to technical occupations. when the army began drafting large numbers of men in the mid- 's, the number of men in category iv, which included many negroes, began to go up. given the fact that many negroes with the qualifications for technical training were ignoring the services for other vocations while the less qualified were once again swelling the ranks, the department of defense could do little to insure a fair representation of negroes in technical occupations or increase the number of black soldiers in higher grades. the problem tended to feed upon itself. not only were the statistics the bane of civil rights organizations, but they also influenced talented young blacks to decide against a service career, in effect creating a variation of gresham's law in the army wherein men of low mentality were keeping out men of high intelligence. there seemed little to be done, although the department's civil rights office pressed the services to establish remedial training for category iv men so that they might become eligible for more technical assignments. table --distribution of servicemen in occupational groups by race, | white | black |unknown|total | | | | | percent| | | | | | |of total| | | |percent| |percent| in each| | group/activity | number| dist. | number| dist. | group/ | number|number | | | | |activity| | combat troops , . , . . , , electronics repairmen , . , . . , communications specialists , . , . . , medical personnel , . , . . , other technicians , . , . . , administrative personnel , . , . . , mechanical repairmen , . , . . , draftsmen , . , . . , service & supply personnel , . , . . , miscellaneous/ unknown , . , . . , , trainees[a] , . , . . , , total , , . , . . , , , [tablenote a: represents an army category only.] _source_: bahr, "the expanding role of the department of defense as an instrument of social change." bahr's table is based on unpublished data from the dasd (cr). if a man's assignment and promotion depended ultimately on his (p.  ) aptitude category, that category depended upon his performance in the armed forces qualifying test and other screening tests usually administered at induction. these tests have since been widely criticized as being culturally biased, more a test of an individual's understanding of the majority race's cultural norms than his mental aptitude. even the fact that the tests were written also left them open to charges of bias. some educational psychologists have claimed that an individual's performance in written tests measured his cultural and educational background, not his mental aptitude. it is true that the accuracy of test measurements was never reassessed in light of the subsequent performance of those tested. the services paid little attention to these serious questions in the 's, yet as a defense department task force studying the administration of military justice was to observe later: the most important determination about a serviceman's future career (both in and out of the service) is made almost solely on the basis of the results of these tests: where he will be placed, how and whether he will be promoted during his hitch, and whether what he will learn in the service will be saleable for his post-service career.[ - ] [footnote - : department of defense, "report of the task force on the administration of military justice in the armed forces," nov , vol. i, p. .] the department of defense depended on the "limited predictive capability of these tests," the task force charged, in deciding whether a serviceman was assigned to a "soft core" field, that is, given a job in such categories as transportation or supply, or whether he could enter one of the more profitable and prestigious "hard core" fields that would bring more rapid advancement. accurate and comprehensive testing and the measurement of acquired (p.  ) skills was obviously an important and complex matter, but in it was ignored by both the civil rights commission and the gesell committee. president kennedy, however, seemed aware of the problem. before leaving for europe in the summer of he called on the secretary of defense to consider establishing training programs keyed primarily to the special problems of black servicemen found ineligible for technical training. according to lee white, the president wanted to use new training techniques "and other methods of stimulating interest and industry" that might help thousands of men bridge "the gap that presently exists between their own educational and cultural backgrounds and those of the average white serviceman."[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asst spec counsel to president for secdef, jun , copy in cmh.] because of the complexity of the problem, white agreed with fitt that the program should be postponed pending further study, but the president's request happened to coincide with a special survey of the deficiencies and changes in recruit training then being made by under secretary of the army stephen ailes.[ - ] ailes offered to develop a special off-duty training program in line with the president's request. the program, to begin on a trial basis in october , would also include evaluation counseling to determine if and when trainees should be assigned to technical schools.[ - ] such a program represented a departure for the services, which since world war ii had consistently rejected the idea frequently advanced by sociologists that the culturally, environmentally, and educationally deprived were denied equal opportunity when they were required to compete with the middle-class average.[ - ] although no specific, measurable results were recorded from this educational experiment, the project was eventually blended into the army's special training and enlistment program and finally into mcnamara's project , .[ - ] [footnote - : acsfor, "annual historical summary, fiscal years - ," copy in cmh; memo, dasd (cr) for paul, sep , sub: training program keyed primarily to the special problems of negro servicemen, asd (m) files.] [footnote - : memo, under sa for asd (m), sep , sub: training program keyed primarily to the special problems of negro servicemen; memo, asd (m) for asst spec counsel to president, sep ; both in asd (m) files.] [footnote - : for a discussion of this argument, see [bupers] memo for rcd, capt k. j. b. sanger, usn, oct , pers , bupersrecs.] [footnote - : interv, author with davenport, asa, manpower (ret.), aug , cmh files.] beyond considering the competence of black servicemen, the department of defense had to face the possibility that discrimination was operating at least in some cases of assignment and promotion. abolishing the use of racial designations on personnel records was one obvious way of limiting such discrimination, and throughout the mid- 's the department sought to balance the conflicting demands for and against race labeling. along with the integration of military units in the 's, the services had narrowed their multiple and cumbersome definition of races to a list of five groups. even this list, a compromise drawn up by the defense department's personnel policy board, was criticized. reflecting the opinion of the civil rights forces, evans declared that the definition of five races and twelve subcategories was scientifically inaccurate, statistically (p.  ) complicated, and racially offensive. he wanted a simple "white, nonwhite" listing of servicemen.[ - ] the subject continued to be discussed throughout the 's, the case finally going to the director of the bureau of the budget, the ultimate authority on government forms. in august the director announced a uniform method for defining the races in federal statistics. the collectives "negro and other races," "all other rates," or "all other" would be acceptable to designate minorities; the terms "white," "negro," and "other races" would be acceptable in distinguishing between the majority, principal minority, and other races.[ - ] [footnote - : see, for example, the following memos: evans for judge jackson, apr , and mr. jordan, sep , sub: racial designations; douglas dahlin for e. e. moyers, sep , sub: case history of an osd action; james evans for philip m. timpane, aug , sub: race and color-coding. see also memo for rcd, evans, aug , sub: racial designations. all in dasd (cr) files.] [footnote - : bureau of the budget, circular no. a- , transmittal memorandum no. , aug .] it was the use to which these definitions were put more than their number that had concerned civil rights leaders since the 's. under pressure from civil rights organizations, some congressmen, and the office of the secretary of defense, the services began to abandon some of the least justifiable uses of racial designations, principally those used on certain inductees' travel orders, reassignment orders, and reserve rosters.[ - ] but change was not widespread, and as late as the services still distinguished by race in their basic personnel records, casualty reports, statistical and command strength reports, personnel control files, and over twenty-five other departmental forms.[ - ] they continued to defend the use of racial designations on the grounds that measurement of equal opportunity programs and detection of discrimination patterns depended on accurate racial data.[ - ] few could argue with these motives, although critics continued to question the need for race designations on records that were used in assignment and promotion processes. when public opposition developed to the use of racial entries on federal forms in general, the president's committee on equal opportunity appointed a subcommittee in under civil service chairman john w. macy, jr., to investigate. after much deliberation this group conducted a statistical experiment within the department of agriculture to discover whether employees could be identified by racial groups in a confidential manner separate from other personnel data.[ - ] [footnote - : see ltr, clarence mitchell, naacp, to asd (m), jul ; ltr, congressman henry s. reuss of wisconsin to secdef, sep ; memo, yarmolinsky for fitt, nov ; memo, dep under sa for asd (m), dec , sub: racial designation in special orders; ltr, chmn, cmte on gov operations, house of representatives, to sa, jul ; memo, asd (m) for sa, mar , sub: racial designations on travel orders; memo, chief, mil personnel management div, g- , for dir, personnel policies, aug , sub: racial designations, g- . ; memo, secnav for asd (m), may , sub: deletion of question regarding "race" ... copies of all in cmh.] [footnote - : see memo, tag for distribution, sep , sub: racial identification in army documents, agam (m) . ; memo for rcd, evans, dec , sub: racial designations--navy, asd (m) . ; memo, dasd (cr) for dasd (h&m) et al., feb , sub: racial designations on department of defense forms, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : see, for example, ltr, dir of personnel policy (osd) to j. francis pohlhous, counsel, naacp, jul , asd (m) . .] [footnote - : ltr, director, civil service commission, to rear adm robert l. moore, chief of industrial relations, usn, jul , copy in cmh.] [illustration: supplying the seventh fleet. _uss procyon crewmen rig netload of supplies for a warship._] the civil rights staff of the defense department was also (p.  ) interested in further limiting the use of race in departmental forms. in april assistant secretary paul ordered a review of military personnel records and reporting forms to determine where racial entries were included unnecessarily.[ - ] his review uncovered twenty-five forms used in common by the services and the office of the secretary of defense that contained racial designations. on march paul discreetly ordered the removal of race designations on all but nine of these forms, those concerning biostatistical, criminal, and casualty figures.[ - ] his order did not, however, extend to another group of forms used by individual services for their own purposes, and later in the year fitt drafted an order that would have eliminated all racial designations in the services except an entry for data processing systems and one for biostatistical information. the directive also would have allowed racial designations on forms that did not identify individuals, arranged for the disposition of remains and casualty reporting, described fugitives and other "wanted" types, and permitted other exceptions granted at the level of the assistant secretary of defense or that of the service secretary. finally it would have set up a system for purging existing records and removing photographs from promotion board selection folders.[ - ] the services strongly objected to a purge of existing records on the grounds of costliness, and they were particularly opposed to the removal of photographs. photographs were traditional and remained desirable, deputy under secretary of the army roy k. davenport explained, because they were useful in portraying individual physical characteristics unrelated to race.[ - ] davenport added, however, that photographs could be eliminated from promotion board materials. [footnote - : memo, spec asst to asd (m) for under sa, apr , sub: racial identification on military records (similar memorandums were sent to the secretaries of navy and air force on the same day); memo, asd (m) for oasd (comptroller) (ca. jun ); both in asd (m) . . for service reviews, answers, and exchanges on the subject, see asd (m) a- . see also memo, ssj [stephen s. jackson, spec asst to asd (m)] for valdes, oasd (m), and james c. evans, jun , asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for dasd (management), mar , sub: elimination of racial designations on dd forms (the army adopted this dod policy in the form of change to ar - in october ). see also memo, dasd (cr) for dasd (h&m) et al., feb , sub: racial designations on department of defense forms; idem for lee c. white, jul . all in asd (m) files. see also washington _evening star_, june , , p. a .] [footnote - : memo, philip m. timpane for dasd (cr), aug , sub: race on records, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dep under sa for dasd (cr), jun , sub: proposed dod instruction re: use of racial designations in forms and records and annual racial distribution report, copy in cmh.] these proposals marked a high point in the effort to simplify and (p.  ) reduce the use of racial designations by the department of defense. although several versions of fitt's draft order were discussed in later years, none was ever published.[ - ] nor did the bureau of the budget, to which the matter was referred for the development of a government-wide policy, publish any instructions. in fact, by the mid- 's an obvious trend had begun in the department of defense toward broader use of racial indicators but narrower definition of race. [footnote - : l. howard bennett, untitled minutes of equal opportunity council meetings on the subject of racial indicators, sep ; memo, bennett for thomas morris and jack moskowitz, dec , sub: actions to aid in assuring equality of opportunity during ratings, assignment, selection, and promotion processes, copies of both in cmh. judge bennett was the executive secretary of the equal opportunity council within the office of the secretary of defense, an interdepartmental working group dealing with racial indicators in september and consisting of two members from each manpower office of the services and p. m. timpane of the dasd (equal opportunity) office.] several changes in american society were responsible for the changes. the need for more exact racial documentation overcame the argument for removing racial designations, for the civil rights experts both within and outside the department demanded more detailed racial statistics to protect and enlarge the equal opportunity gains of the sixties. the demand was also supported by representatives of the smaller racial minorities who, joining in the civil rights revolution, developed a self-awareness that made detailed racial and ethnic statistics mandatory. the shift was made possible to a great extent by the change in public opinion toward racial minorities. as one civil rights official later noted, the change in attitude had caused black servicemen to reconsider their belief that detrimental treatment necessarily followed racial identification.[ - ] ironically, just a decade after the mcnamara directive on equal opportunity, a departmental civil rights official, himself a negro, was defending the use of photographs in the selection process on the grounds that such procedures were necessary in any large organization where individuals were relatively unknown to their superiors.[ - ] so strong had the services' need for black officers become, it could be argued, that a promotion board's knowledge of a candidate's race redounded to the advantage of the black applicants. for whatever reason, the pressure to eliminate racial indicators from personnel forms had largely disappeared at the end of the 's. [footnote - : memo, bennett for asd (m) and dasd (civ pers, indus rels, and cr), dec , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : interv, author with johnson, aug .] the gesell committee's investigations also forced the department of defense to consider the possibility of discrimination in the rarefied area of embassy and special mission assignments and the certainty of discrimination against black servicemen in local communities near some overseas bases. concerning the former, the staff of the civil rights deputy concluded that such assignments were voluntary and based on special selection procedures. race was not a factor except for three countries where assignments were "based on politically ethnic considerations."[ - ] nevertheless, fitt began to discuss with the services ways to attract more qualified black volunteers for (p.  ) assignments to attaché, mission, and military assistance groups. [footnote - : memo, exec to dasd (cr) for dasd (cr), mar ; see also oasd (cr), summary of military personnel assignments in overseas areas; both in odasd (cr) files. negroes were not the only americans excluded from certain countries for "politically ethnic considerations." jewish servicemen were barred from certain middle east countries.] the department was less responsive to the gesell committee's recommendations on racial restrictions encountered off base overseas. the services, traditionally, had shunned consideration of this matter, citing their role as guests. when the department of defense outlined the commander's responsibility regarding off-base discrimination overseas, it expressly authorized commanders to impose sanctions in foreign communities, yet just five weeks later the services clarified the order for the press, explaining that sanctions would be limited to the united states.[ - ] a spokesman for the u.s. army in germany admitted that discrimination continued in restaurants and bars, adding that such discrimination was illegal in germany and was limited to the lowest class establishments.[ - ] supporting these conclusions was a spate of newspaper reports of segregated establishments in certain areas of okinawa and the neighborhood around an army barracks near frankfurt, germany.[ - ] [footnote - : dod directive cited in gesell committee's "final report," p. ; see also new york _times_, september , .] [footnote - : new york _times_ and washington _post_, december , .] [footnote - : see, for example, new york _herald tribune_, january , ; new york _times_, march , .] despite these continuing press reports, the services declared in mid- that the "overwhelming majority" of overseas installations were free of segregation problems in housing or public accommodations. one important exception to this overwhelming majority was reported by general paul freeman, the commander of u.s. army forces in europe. he not only admitted that the problem existed in his command but also concluded that it had been imported from the united states. the general had met with gerhard gesell and subsequently launched a special troop indoctrination program in europe on discrimination in public accommodations. he also introduced a voluntary compliance program to procure open housing.[ - ] [footnote - : memo for rcd, timpane, nov , odasd (cr) files.] the gesell committee had repeatedly asserted that discrimination existed only in areas near american bases, and its most serious manifestations were "largely inspired by the attitude of a minority of white servicemen" who exerted social pressure on local businessmen. it was, therefore, a problem for american forces, and not primarily one for its allies. the civil rights office, however, preferred to consider the continuing discrimination as an anti-american phenomenon rather than a racial problem.[ - ] fitt and his successor seemed convinced that such discrimination was isolated and its solution complex because of the difficulty in drawing a line between the attitudes of host nations and american gi's. consequently, the problem continued throughout the next decade, always low key, never widespread, a problem of black morale inadequately treated by the department. [footnote - : paul memo.] the failure to solve the problem of racial discrimination overseas and, indeed, the inability to liquidate all remaining vestiges of discrimination within the military establishment, constituted the major shortfall of mcnamara's equal opportunity policy. with no (p.  ) attempt to shift responsibility to his subordinates,[ - ] mcnamara later reflected with some heat on the failure of his directive to improve treatment and opportunities for black servicemen substantially and expeditiously: "i was naive enough in those days to think that all i had to do was show my people that a problem existed, tell them to work on it, and that they would then attack the problem. it turned out of course that not a goddamn thing happened."[ - ] [footnote - : for an example of mcnamara's extremely self-critical judgments on the subject of equal opportunity, see brock brower, "mcnamara seen now, full length," _life_ (may , ): .] [footnote - : interv, author with mcnamara, may .] although critical of his department's performance, mcnamara would probably admit that more than simple recalcitrance was involved. for example, the services' traditional opposition to outside interference with the development of their personnel policies led naturally to their opposition to any defense programs setting exact command responsibilities or dictating strict monitoring of their racial progress. defense officials, respecting service attitudes, failed to demand an exact accounting. again, the services' natural reluctance to court congressional criticism, a reluctance shared by mcnamara and his defense colleagues, led them all to avoid unpopular programs such as creating ombudsmen at bases to channel black servicemen's complaints. as one manpower official pointed out, all commanders professed their intolerance of discrimination in their commands, yet the prospect of any effective communication between these commanders and their subordinates suffering such discrimination remained unlikely.[ - ] again defense officials, restrained by the white house from antagonizing congress, failed to insist upon change. [footnote - : memo, william c. baldes, odasd (cr), for dasd (cr), jul , asd (m) . .] finally, while it was true that the services had not responded any better to mcnamara's directive than to any of several earlier and less noteworthy calls for racial equality within the military community, it was not true that the reason for the lack of progress lay exclusively with the service. against the background of the integration achievements of the previous decade, a feeling existed among defense officials that such on-base discrimination as remained was largely a matter of detail. even fitt shared the prevailing view. "in three years of close attention to such matters, i have observed [no] ... great gains in on-base equality," because, he explained to his superior, "_the basic gains were made in the - period_."[ - ] it must be remembered that discrimination operating within the armed forces was less tractable and more difficult to solve than the patterns of segregation that had confronted the services of old or the off-base problems confronting them in the early 's. the services had reached what must have seemed to many a point of diminishing returns in the battle against on-base discrimination, a point at which each successive increment of effort yielded a smaller result than its predecessor. [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for asd (m), jul , copy in cmh. emphasis not in original.] no one--not the civil rights commission, the gesell committee, the civil rights organizations, and, judging from the volume of complaints, not even black servicemen themselves--seriously tried to disabuse these officials of their satisfaction with the pace of reform. (p.  ) certainly no one equated the importance of on-base discrimination with the blatant off-base discrimination that had captured everyone's attention. in fact, problems as potentially explosive as the discrimination in the administration of military justice were all but ignored during the 's.[ - ] [footnote - : the administration of military justice was not considered by the civil rights commission nor by the gesell committee, although it was mentioned once by the naacp as a cause of numerous complaints and once by the deputy assistant secretary for civil rights in regard to black representation on courts-martial. see naacp, "proposals for executive action to end federal supported segregation and other forms of racial discrimination," submitted to the white house on aug , white house central files, j. f. kennedy library; memo, philip m. timpane, odasd (civ pers, indus rels, and cr) for dasd (civ pers, indus rels and cr), feb , sub: representation by race on courts-martial. odasd (civ pers, indus rels, and cr) files.] [illustration: usaf ground crew, tan son nhut air base, vietnam, _relaxes over cards in the alert tent_.] the sense of satisfaction that pervaded fitt's comment, however understandable, was lamentable because it helped insure that certain inequities in the military community would linger. the failure of negroes to win skilled job assignments and promotions, for example, would remain to fester and contribute significantly to the bitterness visited upon a surprised department of defense in later years. in brief, because the services had become a model of racial equality when judged by contemporary standards, the impulse of almost all concerned was to play down the reforms still needed on base and turn instead to the pressing and spectacular challenges that lay in wait outside the gates. chapter (p.  ) from voluntary compliance to sanctions the defense department's attitude toward off-base discrimination against servicemen underwent a significant change in the mid- 's. at first secretary mcnamara relied on his commanders to win from the local communities a voluntary accommodation to his equal opportunity policy. only after a lengthy interval, during which the accumulated evidence demonstrated that voluntary compliance would, in some cases, not be forthcoming, did he take up the cudgel of sanctions. his use of this powerful economic weapon proved to be circumscribed and of brief duration, but its application against a few carefully selected targets had a salubrious and widespread effect. at the same time developments in the civil rights movement, especially the passage of strong new legislation in , permitted servicemen to depend with considerable assurance upon judicial processes for the redress of their grievances. sanctions were distasteful, and almost everyone concerned was anxious to avoid their use. the gesell committee wanted them reserved for those recalcitrants who had withstood the informal but determined efforts of local commanders to obtain voluntary compliance. mcnamara agreed. "there were plenty of things that the commanders could do in a voluntary way," he said later, and he wanted to give them time "to get to work on this problem."[ - ] his principal civil rights assistants considered it inappropriate to declare businesses or local communities off limits while the services were still in the process of developing voluntary action programs and before the full impact of new federal civil rights legislation on those programs could be tested. as for the services themselves, each was on record as being opposed to any use of sanctions in equal opportunity cases. the equal opportunity directive of the secretary of defense reflected this general reluctance. it authorized the use of sanctions, but in such a carefully restricted manner that for three years agencies of the department of defense never seriously contemplated using them. [footnote - : interv, author with mcnamara, may .] _development of voluntary action programs_ despite this obvious aversion to the use of sanctions in equal opportunity cases, the public impression persisted that secretary mcnamara was trying to use military commanders as instruments for forcing the desegregation of civilian communities. actually, the (p.  ) gesell committee and the mcnamara directive had demanded no such thing, as the secretary's civil rights deputy was repeatedly forced to point out. military commanders, fitt explained, were obligated to protect their men from harm and to secure their just treatment. therefore, when "harmful civilian discrimination" was directed against men in uniform, "the wise commander seeks to do something about it." commanders, he observed, did not issue threats or demand social reforms; they merely sought better conditions for servicemen and their families through cooperation and understanding. as for the general problem of racial discrimination in the united states, that was a responsibility of the civilian community, not the services.[ - ] [footnote - : see memo, dasd (cr) for asd (m), jul ; fitt, "remarks before the civilian aides conference of the secretary of the army," mar ; copies of both in cmh. the quoted passage is from the latter document.] exhibiting a similar concern for the sensibilities of congressional critics, secretary mcnamara assured the senate armed services committee that he had no plans "to utilize military personnel as a method of social reform." at the same time he reiterated his belief that troop efficiency was affected by segregation, and added that when such a connection was found to exist "we should work with the community involved." he would base such involvement, he emphasized, on the commander's responsibility to maintain combat readiness and effectiveness.[ - ] similar reassurances had to be given the military commanders, some of whom saw in the gesell recommendations a demand for preferential treatment for negroes and a level of involvement in community affairs that would interfere with their basic military mission.[ - ] to counter this belief, fitt and his successor hammered away at the gesell committee's basic theme: discrimination affects morale; morale affects military efficiency. the commander's activities in behalf of equal opportunity for his men in the community is at least as important as his interest in problems of gambling, vice, and public health, and is in furtherance of his military mission.[ - ] [footnote - : robert s. mcnamara, testimony before senate armed services committee, oct , quoted in new york _times_, october , .] [footnote - : memo, william c. valdes, oasd (m), for alfred b. fitt, jul , sub: case studies of minority group problems at keesler afb, brookley afb, greenville afb, and columbus afb, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : see shulman, "the civil rights policies of the department of defense," may .] mcnamara's civil rights assistants tried to provide explicit guidance on the extent to which it was proper for base commanders to become involved in the community. fitt organized conferences with base commanders to develop techniques for dealing with off-base discrimination, and his office provided commanders with legal advice to counter the arguments of authorities in segregated communities. fitt also encouraged commanders to establish liaison with local civil rights groups whose objectives and activities coincided with departmental policy. at his request, assistant secretary of defense for manpower paul devised numerous special instructions and asked the services to issue regulations supporting commanders in their attempts to change community attitudes toward black servicemen. these regulations, in turn, called on commanders to enlist community support for equal treatment and opportunity measures, utilizing in the (p.  ) cause their command-community relations committees. consisting of base officials and local business and community leaders, these committees had originally been organized by the services to improve relations between the base and town. henceforth, they would become the means by which the local commanders might introduce measures to secure equal treatment for servicemen.[ - ] [footnote - : memos: dasd (cr) for white, assoc spec council to president, jul ; philip m. timpane. staff asst, odasd (cp, ir, & cr), for dasd (cp, ir, & cr), feb , sub: service reports on equal rights activities; dasd (cp, ir, & cr) for john g. stewart, dec , sub: civil rights responsibilities of the department of defense. copies of all in cmh. for a discussion of the composition and activities of these command-community relations committees and a critical analysis of the command initiatives in the local community in general, see david sutton, "the military mission against off-base discrimination," _public opinion and the military establishment_, ed. charles c. moskos, jr. (beverly hills, california: sage publications, ), pp. - .] [illustration: fighter pilots on the line. _col. daniel (chappie) james, jr., commander of an f- jet, and his pilot readying for takeoff from a field in thailand._] perhaps the most important, certainly most controversial, of fitt's moves[ - ] was the establishment of a system to measure the local commanders' progress against off-base discrimination. his vehicle was a series of off-base equal opportunity inventories, the first comprehensive, statistical record of discrimination affecting servicemen in the united states. based on detailed reports from every military installation to which or more servicemen were (p.  ) assigned, the first inventory covered some bases in forty-eight states and the district of columbia and nearly percent of the total military population stationed in the united states. along with detailed surveys of public transportation, education, public accommodations, and housing, the inventory reported on local racial laws and customs, police treatment of black servicemen, the existence of state and local agencies concerned with equal opportunity enforcement, and the base commander's use of command-community relations committees.[ - ] [footnote - : see especially upi press release, october , ; new york _times_, october , ; memo, robert e. jordan iii, staff asst, odasd (cr), for asd (m), oct , sub: status of defense department implementation of dod directive . ("equal opportunity in the armed forces," july , ), asd (m) . ( jul ).] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., sep , sub: off-base equal opportunity inventory, asd (m) . ( jul ); dasd (cr) "summary of off-base equal opportunity inventory responses" (ca. jan ), copy inclosed with ltr, dasd (cr) to gesell, apr , gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library. for examples of service responses, see bupers instruction . , oct , and marine corps order . , oct . for details of a service's experiences with conducting an off-base inventory, see the many documents in cs . ( aug ).] the first inventory confirmed the widespread complaints of special discrimination encountered by black servicemen. it also uncovered interesting patterns in that discrimination. in matters of commercial transportation, local schools, and publicly owned facilities such as libraries and stadiums, the problem of discrimination against black servicemen was confined almost exclusively to areas around installations in the south. but segregated public accommodations such as motels, restaurants, and amusements, a particularly virulent form of discrimination for servicemen, who as transients had to rely on such businesses, existed in all parts of the country including areas as diverse as iowa, alaska, arizona, and illinois. discrimination in these states was especially flagrant since all except arizona had legislation prohibiting enforced segregation of public accommodations. discrimination in the sale and rental of houses showed a similar pattern. only thirty installations out of the reporting were located in states with equal housing opportunity statutes. these were in northern states, stretching from maine to california. at the same time, some of these installations reported discrimination in housing despite existing state legislation forbidding such practices. no differences were reported in the treatment of black and white servicemen with respect to civilian law enforcement except that in some communities black servicemen were segregated when taken into custody for criminal violations. generally, the practice of most forms of discrimination was more intense in the south, but the record of other sections of the country was no better than mixed, even where legislation forbade such separate and unequal treatment. obviously there was much room for progress, and as indicated in the inventory much still could be done within the armed forces themselves. the reports revealed that almost one-third of the commands inventoried failed to form the command-community relations committees recommended by the gesell committee and ordered in the services' equal opportunity directives. of the rest, only sixty-one commands had invited local black leaders to participate in what were supposed to be biracial groups. the purpose of the follow-up inventories--three were due from each service at six-month intervals--was to determine the progress of local commanders in achieving equal opportunity for their men. the (p.  ) defense department showed considerable energy in extracting from commanders comprehensive information on the state of equal opportunity in their communities.[ - ] in fact, this rather public exposition proved to be the major reporting system on equal opportunity progress, the strongest inducement for service action, and the closest endorsement by the department of the gesell committee's call for an accountability system. [footnote - : see, for example, the following memos: usaf dep for manpower, personnel, and organization for asd (m), feb , sub: off-base equal opportunity inventory report, secaf files; dasd (cr) for fridge, usaf manpower office, may ; idem for davenport et al., aug , sub: off-base equal opportunity inventory follow-up reports. all in asd (m) . .] the first follow-up inventory revealed some progress in overcoming discrimination near military installations, but progress was slight everywhere and in some areas of concern nonexistent. discrimination in schooling for dependents off base, closely bound to the national problem of school desegregation, remained a major difficulty. commanders reported that discrimination in public accommodations was more susceptible to command efforts, but here, too, in some parts of the country, communities were resisting change. a marine corps commander, for example, reported the successful formation of a command-community relations committee at his installation near albany, georgia, but to inquiries concerning the achievements of this committee the commander was forced to reply "absolutely none."[ - ] [footnote - : oasd (cr), summary of follow-up off-base equal opportunity inventory (ca. jun ), dasd (cr) files.] some forms of discrimination seemed impervious to change. open housing, for one, was the exception rather than the rule throughout the country. one survey noted the particular difficulty this created for servicemen, especially the many enlisted men who lived in trailers and could find no unsegregated place to park.[ - ] at times the commanders' efforts to improve the situation seemed to compound the problem. the stipulation that only open housing be listed with base housing officers served more to reduce the number of listings than to create opportunities for open housing. small wonder then that segregated housing, "the most pervasive and most intractable injustice of all," in alfred fitt's words, was generally ignored while the commanders and civil rights officials concentrated instead on the more easily surmountable forms of discrimination.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cp, ir, & cr) for stewart, dec , sub: civil rights responsibilities of the department of defense, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, fitt to author, may .] at least part of the reason for the continued existence of housing discrimination against servicemen lay in the fact that the department of defense continued to deny itself the use of its most potent equal opportunity weapon. well into , fitt could report that no service had contemplated the use of sanctions in an equal opportunity case.[ - ] nor had housing discrimination ever figured prominently in any decision to close a military base. at fitt's suggestion, assistant secretary paul proposed that community discrimination patterns be listed as one of the reasons for closing military (p.  ) bases.[ - ] although the assistant secretary for installations and logistics, thomas d. morris, agreed to consult such information during deliberations on closings, he pointed out that economics and operational suitability were the major factors in determining a base's value.[ - ] as late as december , an official of the office of the secretary of defense was publicly explaining that "discrimination in the community is certainly a consideration, but the military effectiveness and justification of an installation must be primary."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (cr) to congressman charles diggs, feb , copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for asd (m), apr , sub: base closings; memo, asd (m) for asd (i&l), apr , sub: base closing decisions; both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, asd (i&l) for asd (m), may , sub: base closing decisions, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : ltr, principal asst for cr, dasd (cp, ir, & cr) to stanley t. gutman, dec , asd (m) . .] clearly, voluntary compliance had its limits, and fitt said as much on the occasion of his departure after a year's assignment as the civil rights deputy. reviewing the year's activities for gesell, fitt concluded that "we have done everything we could think of" in formulating civil rights policy and in establishing a monitoring system for its enforcement. he was confident that the department's campaign against discrimination had gained enough momentum to insure continued progress. if, as he put it, the "off-base lot of the negro serviceman will not in my time be the same as that of his white comrade-in-arms" he was nevertheless satisfied that the department of defense was committed to equal opportunity and that commitment was "bound to be beneficial."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (cr) to gesell, jul , copy in cmh.] fitt's assessment was accurate, no doubt, but not exactly in keeping with the optimistic spirit of the gesell committee and secretary mcnamara's subsequent equal opportunity commitment to the president. obviously more could be achieved through voluntary compliance if the threat of legal sanctions were available. in the summer of , therefore, the defense department's manpower officials turned to new federal civil rights legislation for help. _civil rights, - _ the need for strong civil rights legislation had become increasingly apparent in the wake of _brown_ v. _board of education_.[ - ] with that decision, the judicial branch finally lined up definitively with the executive in opposition to segregation. but the effect of this united opposition was blunted by the lack of a strong civil rights law, something that president kennedy had not been able to wrestle from a reluctant legislative branch. the demands of the civil rights movement only underscored the inability of court judgments and (p.  ) executive orders alone to guarantee the civil rights of all americans. such a profound social change in american society required the concerted action of all three branches of government, and by the drive for strong civil rights legislation had made such legislation the paramount domestic political issue. lyndon johnson fully understood its importance. "we have talked long enough in this country about equal rights," he told his old colleagues in congress, "we have talked for one hundred years or more. it is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law."[ - ] [footnote - : _benjamin muse, the american negro revolution: from nonviolence to black power, - _ (bloomington: university of indiana press, ). the following survey is based on muse and on robert d. marcus and david burner, eds., _america since _ (new york: st. martin's, ), especially the chapter by james sundquist, "building the great society: the case of equal rights, from politics and policy," and that by daniel walker, "violence in chicago, : the walker report"; _report of the national advisory commission on civil disorders_; otis l. graham, jr., ed., _perspectives on th century america, readings and commentary_ (new york: dodd, mead, ); zinn, _postwar america, - _; roger beaumont, "the embryonic revolution: perspectives on the riots," in robin higham, ed., _bayonets in the street: the use of troops in civil disturbances_ (lawrence: university press of kansas, ); woodward's _strange career of jim crow_.] [footnote - : lyndon b. johnson, "address before a joint session of the congress," nov , _public papers of the presidents: lyndon b. johnson, - _ (washington: government printing office, ), i: .] he was peculiarly fitted for the task. a southerner in quest of national support, johnson was determined for very practical reasons to carry out the civil rights program of his slain predecessor and to end the long rule of jim crow in many areas of the country. he let it be known that he would accept no watered-down law. i made my position [on the civil rights bill] unmistakably clear: we were not prepared to compromise in any way. "so far as this administration is concerned," i told a press conference, "its position is firm." i wanted absolutely no room for bargaining.... i knew that the slightest wavering on my part would give hope to the opposition's strategy of amending the bill to death.[ - ] [footnote - : lyndon b. johnson, _the vantage point_ (new york: holt, rinehart and winston, ), p. .] certainly this pronouncement was no empty rhetoric, coming as it did from a consummate master of the legislative process who enjoyed old and close ties with congressional leaders. johnson was also philosophically committed to change. "civil rights was really something that was, by this time, burning pretty strongly in johnson," harris l. wofford later noted.[ - ] the new president exhorted his countrymen: "to the extent that negroes were imprisoned, so was i ... to the extent that negroes were free, really free, so was i. and so was my country."[ - ] skillfully employing the wave of sympathy for equal rights that swept the country after john kennedy's death, president johnson procured a powerful civil rights act, which he signed on july .[ - ] [footnote - : interv, bernhard with wofford, nov . special assistant to presidents kennedy and johnson, wofford was later appointed to a senior position in the peace corps.] [footnote - : johnson, _vantage point_, p. .] [footnote - : pl - , _u.s. stat._ .] the object of the civil rights act of was no less than the overthrow of segregation in america. its major provisions outlawed discrimination in places of amusement and public accommodation, in public education, labor unions, employment, and housing. it called for federal intervention in voting rights cases and established a community relations service in the department of commerce to arbitrate racial disputes. the act also strengthened the civil rights commission and broadened its powers. it authorized the united states attorney general and private citizens to bring suit in discrimination cases, outlining the procedures for such cases. most significant were the sweeping provisions of the law's title vi that forbade (p.  ) discrimination in any activity or program that received federal financial assistance. this added the threat of economic sanctions against any of those thousands of institutions, whether public or private, which, while enjoying federal benefactions, discriminated against citizens because of race. accurately characterized as the "most effective instrument yet found for the elimination of racial discrimination,"[ - ] title vi gave the federal government leave to cut segregation and discrimination out of the body politic. in professor woodward's words, "a national consensus was in the making and a peaceful solution was in sight."[ - ] [footnote - : muse, _the american negro revolution_, p. . for a detailed discussion of the provisions of the civil rights act of , see muse's book, pp. - .] [footnote - : woodward, _strange career of jim crow_, p. .] the presidential election was at hand to test this consensus. given the republican candidate's vehement opposition to the civil rights act, lyndon johnson's overwhelming victory was among other things widely interpreted as a national plebiscite for the new law. the president, however, preferred a broader interpretation. believing that "great social change tends to come rapidly in periods of intense activity before the impulse slows,"[ - ] he considered his victory a mandate for further social reform. on the advice of the justice department and the civil rights commission, he called on congress to eliminate the "barriers to the right to vote."[ - ] [footnote - : johnson, "remarks at the national urban league's community action assembly," dec , as reproduced in _public papers of the presidents: johnson, - _, ii: .] [footnote - : lyndon b. johnson, "annual message to congress on the state of the union," jan , _public papers of the presidents: lyndon b. johnson, _ (washington: government printing office, ), i: .] in common with its predecessors, the civil rights act had only touched lightly on the serious obstacles in the way of black voters. although some , negroes were added to the voting rolls in the southern states in the year following passage of the law, the civil rights advocates were calling for stronger legislation. with bipartisan support, the president introduced a measure aimed directly at states that discriminated against black voters, providing for the abolition of literacy tests, appointment of federal examiners to register voters for all elections, and assignment of federal supervisors for those elections. the twenty-fourth amendment, adopted in february , had eliminated the poll tax in federal elections, and the president's new measure carried a strong condemnation of the use of the poll tax in state elections as well. in all of his efforts the president had the unwitting support of the segregationists, who treated the nation to another sordid racial spectacular. in february alabama police jailed martin luther king, jr., and some , members of his voting rights drive, and a generally outraged nation watched king's later clash with the police over a voting rights march. this time he and his followers were stopped at a bridge in selma, alabama, by state troopers using tear gas and clubs. the incident climaxed months of violence that saw the murder of three civil rights workers in philadelphia, mississippi; the harassment of the mississippi summer project, a voting registration campaign sponsored by several leading civil rights organizations; and ended in the assassination of a white unitarian minister, james (p.  ) reeb, of washington, d.c., one of the hundreds of clergymen, students, and other americans who had joined in the king demonstrations. addressing a joint session of congress on the voting rights bill, the president alluded to the selma incident, declaring: "their cause must be our cause too. because it is not just negroes, but really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. and we shall overcome."[ - ] [footnote - : lyndon b. johnson, "speech before joint session of congress," mar , _public papers of the presidents: johnson, _, i: .] [illustration: medical examination. _navy doctor on duty, yokosuka, japan._] the president's bill passed easily with bipartisan support, and he signed it on august . two days later federal examiners were on the job in three states. the act promised a tremendous difference in the political complexion of significant portions of the country. in less than a year federal examiners certified , new voters in four states and almost half of all eligible negroes were registered to vote in the states and counties covered by the law. another result of the new legislation was that the attorney general played an active role in the defeat of the state poll tax laws in _harper_ v. _virginia board of elections_.[ - ] [footnote - : u.s. ( ).] useful against legalized discrimination, chiefly in the south, the civil rights laws of the mid- 's were conspicuously less successful in those areas where discrimination operated outside the law. in the great urban centers of the north and west, home of some percent of the black population, _de facto_ segregation in housing, employment, and education had excluded millions of negroes from the benefits of economic progress. this ghettoization, this failure to meet human needs, led to the alienation of many young americans and a bitter resentment against society that was dramatized just five days after the signing of the voting rights act when the watts section of los angeles exploded in flames and violence. there had been racial unrest before, especially during the two previous summers when flare-ups occurred in cambridge (maryland), philadelphia, jacksonville, brooklyn, cleveland, and elsewhere, but watts was a different matter. before the california national guard with some logistical help from the army quelled the riots, thirty-four people were killed, some , arrested, and $ million worth of property damaged or destroyed. the greatest civil disturbance since the detroit riot, watts was but the first in a series of urban (p.  ) disturbances which refuted the general belief that the race problem had been largely solved in cities of the north and the west.[ - ] [footnote - : for an account of the watts riot and its aftermath, see robert conot, _rivers of blood, years of darkness_ (new york: bantam books, ), and anthony platt, ed., _the politics of riot commissions_ (new york: collin books, ), ch. vi.] discrimination in housing was a major cause of black urban unrest, and housing was foremost among the areas of discrimination still untouched by federal legislation. the housing provision of the civil rights act was severely limited, and johnson rejected the idea of yet another executive order proposed by his committee on equal opportunity in housing. like the order signed by kennedy, it could cover only new housing and even that with dubious legality. johnson, relying on the civil rights momentum developed over the previous years, decided instead to press for a comprehensive civil rights bill that would outlaw discrimination in the sale of all housing. the new measure was also designed to attack several other residual areas of discrimination, including jury selection and the physical protection of negroes and civil rights workers. although he enjoyed a measure of bipartisan support for these latter sections of the bill, the president failed to overcome the widespread opposition to open housing, and the civil rights bill died in the senate, thereby postponing an effective law on open housing until after the assassination of dr. king in . the spectacle of demonstrators and riots in northern cities and the appearance in of the "black power" slogan considered ominous by many citizens were blamed for the bill's failure. another and more likely cause was that in violating the sanctity of the all-white neighborhood johnson had gone beyond any national consensus on civil rights. in august , for example, a survey by the louis harris organization revealed that some percent of white america would object to having a black family as next-door neighbors and percent believed that negroes "were trying to move too fast." of particular importance to the department of defense, which would be taking some equal opportunity steps in the housing field in the next months, was the fact that this opposition was not translated into a general rejection of the concept of equal opportunity. in fact, although the bill failed to win enough votes to apply the senate's cloture rule, the president could boast that he won a clear majority in both houses. his defeat slowed the pace of the civil rights movement and postponed a solution to a major domestic problem; postponed, because, as roy wilkins reminded his fellow citizens at the time, "the problem is not going away ... the negro is not going away."[ - ] [footnote - : both the harris and wilkins remarks are quoted in sundquist, "building the great society," pp. - .] _the civil rights act and voluntary compliance_ the enactment of new civil rights legislation in had thrust the armed forces into the heart of the civil rights movement in a special way. as secretary mcnamara himself reminded his subordinates, president johnson was determined to have each federal department develop programs and policies that would give meaning to the new (p.  ) legislation. that legislation, he added, created "new opportunities" to win full equality for all servicemen. the secretary made the usual connection between discrimination and military efficiency, adding that "this reason alone" compelled departmental action.[ - ] obviously other reasons existed, and when mcnamara called on all commanders to support their men in the "lawful assertion of the rights guaranteed" by the act he was making his more than local commanders agents of the new federal legislation. [footnote - : memo, secdef for sa et al., jul , copy in cmh; see also secdef news conference, jul , p. , oasd (pa).] defense officials quickly arranged for the publication of directives and regulations applying the provisions of the new law to the whole defense establishment. to insure, as mcnamara put it, that military commanders understood their responsibility for seeing that those in uniform were accorded fair treatment as prescribed by the new law, assistant secretary paul had already ordered the services to advise the rank and file of their rights and instruct commanders to seek civilian cooperation for the orderly application of the act to servicemen.[ - ] after considering the service comments solicited by his civil rights deputy,[ - ] paul issued a departmental instruction on july that prescribed specific policies and procedures for processing the requests of uniformed men and women for legal action under titles ii (public accommodations), iii (public facilities), and iv (public education) of the act. the instruction encouraged, but did not compel, the use of command assistance by servicemen who wished to request suit by the u.s. attorney general.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., jul , asd (m) . ; see also secdef news conference, jul , p. .] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for roy davenport, et al., may , sub: requests for suit by military personnel under the civil rights bill; idem for asd (m), jul , sub: dod instruction on processing of requests by military personnel for the bringing of civil rights suits by the attorney general; both in asd (m) . . for an example of a service response, see memo, dep under sa (pers management) for dasd (cr), jul , same sub, asd (m) . .] [footnote - : dod instr . , jul , processing of requests by military personnel for action by the attorney general under the civil rights act; see also memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., jul , same sub, asd (m) . .] finally in december, mcnamara issued a directive spelling out his department's obligations under the act's controversial title vi, nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs.[ - ] this directive was one of a series requested by the white house from various governmental agencies and reviewed by the justice department and the bureau of the budget in an attempt to coordinate the federal government's activities under the far-reaching title vi provision.[ - ] after arranging for the circulation of the directive throughout the services, secretary mcnamara explained in considerable detail how grants and loans of federal funds, transfer, sale, or lease of military property, and in fact any federal assistance would be denied in cases where discrimination could be found. although this directive would affect the department of defense chiefly through the national guard and various civil defense programs, it was (p.  ) nevertheless a potential source of economic leverage for use by the armed forces in the fight against discrimination.[ - ] furthermore, this directive, unlike mcnamara's equal opportunity directive of the previous year, was supported by federal legislation and thus escaped the usual criticism suffered by his earlier directives on discrimination. [footnote - : dod directive . , dec .] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for dir, bob, jul , sub: defense department regulations to implement title vi of the civil rights act; see also ltr, spec asst to dasd (cr), to gesell, jul ; copies of both in gesell collection, j. f. kennedy library.] [footnote - : dasd (cp, ir, & cr), the civil rights policies of the department of defense, may , copy in cmh.] the department of defense's voluntary compliance program in off-base discrimination cases had its greatest success in the months following the passage of the civil rights act. given the passage of the act and other federal legislation, pronouncements of the federal courts, and the broad advance of racial tolerance throughout the nation, the defense department's civil rights officials came to expect that most discrimination could be dealt with in a routine manner. as robert e. jordan iii, a staff assistant to the department's civil rights deputy, put it, the use of sanctions would not "normally" be invoked when the civil rights act or other laws could provide a judicial remedy.[ - ] fitt predicted that only a "very tiny number" of requests by servicemen for suits under the act would ever be processed all the way through to the courts. he expected to see many voluntary settlements achieved by commanders spurred to action by the filing of requests for suit.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, jordan to william a. smith, aug , asd (m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for asd (m), jul , sub: dod instruction on processing of requests by military personnel for the bringing of civil rights suits by the attorney general, asd (m) . .] by early local commanders had made "very good progress," according to one defense department survey, in securing voluntary compliance with title ii of the act for public accommodations frequented by servicemen. each service had reported "really surprising examples of progress" in obtaining integrated off-base housing in neighborhoods adjoining military installations and heavily populated by service families. the services also reported good progress in obtaining integrated off-duty education for servicemen, as distinct from their dependents in the public schools.[ - ] at the same time lesser but noticeable progress was reported in titles ii and iii cases. in the first off-base inventory some installations in twenty states had reported widespread discrimination in nearby restaurants, hotels, bars, bowling alleys, and other title ii businesses; forty installations in nine states reported similar discrimination in libraries, city parks, and stadiums (title iii categories). each succeeding inventory reported impressive reductions in these figures. [footnote - : memo, timpane (staff asst) for shulman, dasd (cp, ir, & cr), feb , sub: service reports on equal rights activities, asd (m) . .] defense department officials observed that the amount of progress depended considerably on the size of the base, its proximity to the local community, and the relationship between the commander and local leaders. progress was most notable at large bases near towns. the influence of the civil rights act on cases involving servicemen was also readily apparent. but above all, these officials pointed to the personal efforts of the local commander as the vital factor. many commanders were able to use the off-base inventory itself as a weapon to fight discrimination, especially when the philosophy of "if (p.  ) everybody else desegregates i will" was so prevalent. nor could the effect of commanders' achievements be measured merely in terms of hotels and restaurants open to black servicemen. the knowledge that his commander was fighting for his rights in the community gave a tremendous boost to the black serviceman's morale. it followed that when a commander successfully forced a change in the practices of a business establishment, even one only rarely frequented by servicemen, he stirred a new pride and self-respect in his men.[ - ] [footnote - : for discussion of command initiatives and black morale, see memo, dasd (cr) for under sa et al., may , sub: off-base equal opportunity inventories; fitt, "remarks before civilian aides conference of the secretary of the army," mar ; memo, dasd (cr) for burke marshall, dept of justice, mar , sub: the civil rights of negro servicemen. copies of all in cmh.] _the limits of voluntary compliance_ if the civil rights act strengthened the hands of the commander, it also quickly revealed the ultimate limits of voluntary compliance itself. the campaign against titles ii and iii discrimination was only one facet of the department of defense's battle against off-base discrimination, which also included major attacks against discrimination in the national guard, in the public schools, and, finally, in housing. it was in these areas that the limits of voluntary compliance were reached, and the technique was abandoned in favor of economic sanctions. because of its intimate connection with the department of defense, the national guard appeared to be an easy target in the attack against off-base discrimination. although secretary mcnamara had accepted his department's traditional voluntary approach toward ending discrimination in this major reserve component,[ - ] the possibility of using sanctions against the guard had been under discussion for some time. as early as the legal counsel of the national guard bureau had concluded that the federal government had the right to compel integration.[ - ] essentially the same stand was taken in by the defense department's assistant general counsel for manpower.[ - ] [footnote - : for the discussion of mcnamara's initial dealings with the national guard on the subject of race, see chapter .] [footnote - : "opinion of the legal adviser of the national guard bureau, april ," reproduced in special board to study negro participation in the army national guard (arng) and the united states army reserve (usar), "participation of negroes in the reserve components of the army," vols. ( ) (hereafter cited as williams board rpt), ii: - .] [footnote - : memo, asst gen counsel (manpower) for asd (m), jul , sub: integration of national guard, asd (m) . .] these opinions, along with the staff study on the guard and the new jersey case,[ - ] provided support extending over more than a decade for the argument that the federal government could establish racial policies for the national guard. indeed, there is no evidence of opposition to this position in the 's, and southern guard leaders openly accepted federal supremacy during the period when the army and air force were segregated. but in the 's, long after (p.  ) the services had integrated their active forces and seemed to be moving toward a similar policy for the guard, doubts about federal authority over a peacetime guard appeared. the national guard bureau disputed the opinion of its legal counsel and the more recent one from the defense department and stressed the political implications of forcing integration; a bureau spokesman asserted that "an ultimatum to a governor that he must commit political suicide in order to obtain federal support for his national guard will be rejected." moreover, if federal officials insisted on integration, the bureau foresaw a deterioration of guard units to the detriment of national security.[ - ] [footnote - : for a discussion of earlier efforts to integrate the new jersey national guard and the attitude of individual states toward defense department requests, see chapter .] [footnote - : memo, legal adviser, ngb, for bruce docherty, office of the general counsel, da, jul , sub: authority to require integration in the national guard, copy in cmh.] [illustration: auto pilot shop. _airmen check out equipment, biggs air force base, texas._] the national guard bureau supported voluntary integration, and its chiefs tried in and to prod state adjutants general into taking action on their own account. citing the success some states, notably texas, enjoyed in continuing the integration their units first experienced during federalized service in the berlin call-up, maj. gen. d. w. mcgowan warned other state organizations that outright defiance of federal authorities could not be maintained indefinitely and would eventually lead to integration enforced by washington.[ - ] replies from the state adjutants varied, but in some cases it (p.  ) became clear that the combination of persuasion and quiet pressure might bring change. the louisiana adjutant general, for example, reported that considering the feelings in his state's legislature any move toward integration would require "a selling job." at the same time, he carefully admitted, "some of these days, the thing [integration] is probably inevitable."[ - ] the administration, however, continued to take the view that integration of the national guard was a special problem because the leverage available to implement it was in no way comparable to the federal government's control over the active forces or the organized reserves. [footnote - : ltrs, chief, ngb, to ag's of alabama et al., mar , jul , and dec ; see also williams board rpt, ii: .] [footnote - : ltr, maj gen raymond h. fleming, adjutant general, louisiana national guard, to chief, ngb, jul , copy in cmh.] progress toward total integration continued through and , although slowly.[ - ] near the end of , the national guard bureau announced that every state national guard was integrated, though only in token numbers in some cases.[ - ] even this slight victory could not be claimed by the department of defense or its national guard bureau, but was the result of the pressure exerted on states by the gesell committee. [footnote - : see memos: chief, ngb, for gen counsel, da, oct , sub: current status of integration of national guard in ten southern states; idem for dasd (cr), dec , sub: year-end report on integration of negroes in the national guard; idem for dep under sa (manpower and res forces), jan , sub: meeting with national chairman of the american veterans committee. copies of all in cmh.] [footnote - : "statement by maj. gen. winston c. wilson, chief, national guard bureau concerning integration of the national guard," dec , copy in cmh; see also new york _times_, december , , and williams board rpt, ii: .] the civil rights act of altered the defense department's attitude toward the national guard. title vi of the act undercut all arguments against federal supremacy over the guard, for it no longer mattered who had technical responsibility for units in peacetime. in practical terms, the power to integrate clearly rested now with the federal government, which in a complete reversal of its earlier policy showed a disposition to use it. on february deputy secretary of defense vance ordered the army and air force to amend national guard regulations to eliminate any trace of racial discrimination and "to ensure that the policy of equal opportunity and treatment is clearly stated."[ - ] vance's order produced a speedy change in the states, so much so that later in the department of defense was finally able to oppose new york congressman abraham j. multer's biannual bill to withhold federal aid from segregated guard units on the grounds that there were no longer any such units.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dep secdef for sa and secaf, feb , sub: equality of opportunity in the national guard, sd . ; see also memo, chief, ngb, for chief, office of reserve components, jan . for examples of how vance's order was transmitted to the individual states, see texas air national guard regulation - , march , and state of michigan general order no. , july . in march the army and air force published a joint regulation outlining procedures to assure compliance with title vi in the army and air national guard and designating the chief of the national guard bureau as the responsible official to implement departmental directives regarding all federally assisted activities of the national guard. see national guard regulation , mar .] [footnote - : congressman multer first introduced such a bill on january and pressed, unsuccessfully, for similar measures in each succeeding congress; see williams board rpt, ii: - .] lack of equal opportunity in the national guard might have been resented by civil rights groups, but black servicemen themselves suffered more generally and more deeply from discrimination (p.  ) visited on their children. alfred fitt summarized these feelings in : the imposition of unconstitutionally segregated schooling on their children is particularly galling for the negro servicemen. as comparative transients--and as military men accustomed to avoiding controversy with civilian authorities--they cannot effectively sue for the constitutional rights of their sons and daughters. yet they see their children, fresh from the integrated environment which is the rule on military installations, condemned to schools which are frequently two, even three grades behind the integrated schools these same children had attended on-base or at their fathers' previous duty stations.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for burke marshall, mar , sub: the civil rights of negro servicemen, copy in cmh.] there was much to be said for the defense department's theory that an appeal for voluntary compliance would produce much integration in off-base schools attended by military dependents. that these children were the offspring of men serving in defense of their country was likely to have considerable impact in the south, especially, with its strong military traditions. that the children had in most cases already attended integrated schools, competing and learning with children of another race, was likely to make their integration more acceptable to educators. beyond these special reasons, the services could expect help from new legislation and new administration rulings. the civil rights act of , for example, had authorized the department of health, education, and welfare to provide integrated education for military dependents in areas where public schools were discontinued. in march secretary of health, education, and welfare abraham ribicoff announced that racially segregated schools were no longer "suitable" institutions under the terms of public laws and and that beginning in september his department would "exercise sound discretion, take appropriate steps" to provide integrated education for military dependents. if the children were withdrawn from local school systems to achieve this, he warned, so too the federal aid.[ - ] lending credence to ribicoff's warning, his department undertook a survey in the fall of of selected military installations to determine the educational status of military dependents.[ - ] on september attorney general kennedy filed suit in richmond to bar the use of federal funds in the segregated schools of prince george county, virginia, the location of fort lee.[ - ] finally, in january , the department of health, education, and welfare announced that unless state officials relented it would start a crash program of construction and operation of integrated schools for military dependents in alabama, georgia, mississippi, and south carolina.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, actg u.s. comm of ed to superintendent of public instruction, fla., et al., nov , with incls; see also memo for rcd, evans, nov , sub: schools for dependents, copies of both in cmh.] [footnote - : afns, release no. , aug .] [footnote - : four similar suits were filed in january regarding segregation in huntsville and mobile, alabama; gulfport and biloxi, mississippi; and bossier parish, louisiana. ltr, atty gen to president, jan (released by white house on jan ), copy in cmh. see new york _times_, september , .] [footnote - : washington _post_, january , .] some local commanders took immediate advantage of these emotional (p.  ) appeals and administration pressures. the commandant of the marine corps schools, quantico, for example, won an agreement from stafford county, virginia, authorities that the county would open its high school and two elementary schools to marine corps dependents without regard to race. the commandant also announced that schools in albany, georgia, had agreed to take military dependents on an integrated basis.[ - ] the air force announced that schools near eglin, whiting, and macdill air force bases in florida as well as those near six bases in texas, including sheppard and connally, would integrate. the under secretary of the navy reported similar successes in school districts in florida, tennessee, and texas. and the commander of fort belvoir started discussions with the fairfax county, virginia, school board looking toward the speedy desegregation of schools near the fort. [footnote - : both the marine corps and the navy operated installations in the vicinity of albany, georgia.] lest any commander hesitate, the department of defense issued a new policy in regard to the education of military dependents. on july assistant secretary paul directed all local commanders in areas where public education was still segregated--large parts of some fifteen states--to counsel parents on the procedures available for the transfer of their children to integrated schools, on how to appeal assignment to segregated schools, and on legal action as an alternative to accepting local school board decisions to bar their children.[ - ] in december fitt drew up contingency plans for the education of dependent children in the event of local school closings.[ - ] in april of fitt reminded the services that defense department policy called for the placement of military dependents in integrated schools and that commanders were expected to make "appropriate efforts" on behalf of the children to eliminate any deviation from that policy.[ - ] in effect, base commanders were being given a specific role in the fight to secure for black and white dependents equal access to public schools. [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for sa et al., jul , sub: assignment of dependents of military personnel to public schools, asd(m) . .] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for under secnav, dec , sub: dependent schooling in closed school districts; memo, asst secnav for dasd (cr), dec , same sub; both in secnav files, genrecsnav. see also memo, dasd (cr) for burke marshall et al., mar , sub: possible september school closings affecting military dependents, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for under sa et al., apr , sub: assignment of dependents of military personnel to public schools; see also idem for asd (m), apr , sub: segregated schools and military dependents. for an example of how this new responsibility was conveyed to local commanders, see bupers notice . , jul , "assignment of dependents of military personnel to public schools." copies of all in cmh.] the action taken by base commanders under this responsibility might alter patterns of segregated education in some areas, but in the long run any attempt to integrate schools through a program of voluntary compliance appeared futile. at the end of the school year more than , military dependents, including , black children, at forty-nine installations attended segregated schools. another , children on these same bases attended integrated schools, usually (p.  ) grade school, on the military base itself.[ - ] because of the restrictions against base closings and off-limits sanctions, there was little hope that base commanders could produce any substantial improvement in this record. fitt admitted that the department of defense could not compel the integration of a school district. he recognized that it was impossible to establish an accredited twelve-grade system at the forty-nine installations, yet at the same time he considered it "incompatible with military requirements" to assign black servicemen with children to areas where only integrated schools were available. even the threat to deny impacted-area aid was limited because in many communities the services' contracts with local school districts to educate dependent children was contingent on continuous federal aid. if the aid was stopped the schools would be closed, leaving service children with no schools to attend.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for under sa et al., may , sub: off-base equal opportunity inventories, copy in cmh.] [footnote - : for an example of how these contracts for the education of dependents were tied to federal aid, see the case concerning columbus air force base, mississippi, as discussed in ltr, dasd (cr) to j. francis pohlhous, naacp, nov . for the views of the secretary's race counselor on the fitt assessment, see ltr, evans to mrs. frank c. eubanks, jun . copies of both in cmh.] the only practical recourse for parents of military dependents, fitt believed, was to follow the slow process of judicial redress under title iv of the civil rights bill then moving through congress. anticipating the new law, fitt asked the services to provide him with pertinent data on all school districts where military dependents attended segregated schools. he planned to use this information in cooperation with the departments of justice and health, education, and welfare for use in federal suits. he also requested reports on the efforts made by local commanders to integrate schools used by dependent children and the responses of local school officials to such efforts.[ - ] later, after the new law had been signed by the president, norman paul outlined for the services the procedures to be used for lodging complaints under titles iv and vi of the civil rights act and directed that local commanders inform all parents under their command of the remedies afforded them under the new legislation.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dasd (cr) for spec asst to secaf for manpower, personnel, and reserve forces, jun , secaf files. similar memos were sent to the army and navy the same day. for an example of how these reports were used, see memo, spec asst to dasd (cr) for st. john barrett, civil rights div, dept of justice, aug , sub: desegregation of schools serving children of shaw afb, south carolina, personnel. copies of all in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for under sa et al., aug , sub: assignment of dependents of military personnel to public schools, asd (m) . .] with no prospect in sight for speedy integration of schools attended by military dependents, the department of defense summarily ended the attendance of uniformed personnel at all segregated educational institutions. with the close of the spring semester, paul announced, no defense department funds would be spent to pay tuition for such schooling.[ - ] the economic pressure implicit in this ruling, which for some time had been applied to the education of (p.  ) civilian employees of the department, allowed many base commanders to negotiate an end to segregation in off-base schools.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for sa et al., mar , sub: non-discrimination in civil schooling of military personnel; ltr, dasd (cr) to congressman john bell williams of mississippi, mar ; ltr, dasd (m) to sen. richard russell of georgia, jul ; memo, dasd (cr) for roy davenport et al., apr . copies of all in cmh.] [footnote - : memo, timpane for dasd (cp, ir, & cr), feb , sub: service reports on equal rights activities. in a related action the department made military facilities available for the use of the college entrance examination board when that body was confronted with segregated facilities in which to administer its tests; see memos, dep chief, pers services div, usaf, for aflc et al., mar , sub: college entrance examinations, and evans for dasd (m), jan , sub: college entrance examination board communication. fitt opposed this policy on the grounds that it removed a wholesome pressure on the segregated private facilities; see memo, dasd (cr) for asd (m), mar , sub: college entrance examinations at military installations. fitt was overruled, and the military facilities were provided for the college entrance examinations; see ltr, regional dir, college entrance examination bd, to evans, apr . copies of all in cmh.] the effort of the department of defense to secure education for its military dependents in integrated schools was, on the whole, unsuccessful. integration, when it finally came to most of these institutions later in the 's, came principally through the efforts of the department of health, education, and welfare to enforce title vi of the civil rights act of . yet the role of local military commanders in the effort to secure integrated schools cannot be ignored, for with the development of a new policy toward off-base facilities in the commander became a permanent and significant partner in the administration's fight to desegregate the nation's schools. in contrast to earlier times when the department of defense depended on moral suasion to desegregate schools used by servicemen's children, its commanders now educated parents on their legal rights, collected data to support class action suits, and negotiated with school boards. if the primary impetus for this activity was the civil rights act of , the philosophy of the gesell committee and the secretary of defense's directive were also implicit. discrimination in the sale and lease of housing continued to be the most widespread and persistent form of racial injustice encountered by black servicemen, and a most difficult one to fight. the chronic shortage of on-base accommodations, the transient nature of a military assignment, and the general reluctance of men in uniform to protest publicly left the average serviceman at the mercy of local landlords and real estate interests. nor did he have recourse in law. no significant federal legislation on the subject existed before , and state laws (by over half the states had some form of prohibition against discrimination in public housing and twenty-one states had open housing laws) were rather limited, excluding owner-occupied dwellings, for example, from their provisions. even president kennedy's housing order was restricted to future building and to housing dependent on federal financing. both the civil rights commission and the gesell committee studied the problem in some detail and concluded that the president's directive to all federal agencies to use their "good offices" to push for open housing in federally supported housing had not been followed in the department of defense. the civil rights commission, in particular, painted a picture of a defense department alternating between naivete and indifference in connection with the special housing problems of black servicemen.[ - ] white house staffer wofford later decided (p.  ) that the secretary of defense was dragging his feet on the subject of off-base housing, although wofford admitted that each federal agency was a forceful advocate of action by other agencies.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (cr) for secdef, oct , sub: family housing and the negro serviceman, civil rights commission staff report; memo, asd (m) for secdef, nov , sub: family housing for negro servicemen; both in asd (m) . .] [footnote - : interv, bernhard with wofford, nov , p. .] [illustration: submarine tender duty. _a senior chief boatswain mate and master diver at his station on the uss hunley._] the assistant secretary for manpower conceded in november that little had been done, but, citing the widely misunderstood off-base inventory, he pleaded the need to avoid retaliation by segregationist forces in congress both on future authorizations for housing and on the current civil rights legislation. he recommended that the department of defense complete and disseminate to local commanders information packets containing relevant directives, statistics, and legal procedures available in the local housing field.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, asd (m) for secdef, nov , sub: family housing for negro servicemen, asd (m) - .] mcnamara approved this procedure, again investing local commanders with responsibility for combating a pervasive form of discrimination with a voluntary compliance program. specifically, local commanders were directed to promote open housing near their bases, expanding their open housing lists and pressing the problem of local housing (p.  ) discrimination on their biracial community committees for solution. they were helped by the secretary's assistants. his civil rights and housing deputies became active participants in the president's housing committee, transmitting to local military commanders the information and techniques developed in the executive body. mcnamara's civil rights staff inaugurated cooperative programs with state and municipal equal opportunity commissions and other local open housing bodies, making these community resources available to local commanders. finally, in february , the department of defense entered into a formal arrangement with the federal housing administration to provide commanders with lists of all housing in their area covered by the president's housing order and to arrange for the lease of foreclosed federal housing authority properties to military personnel.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dasd (cr) to chmn, president's cmte on equal opportunity in housing, sep , copy in cmh; see also paul memo.] these activities had little effect on the military housing situation. an occasional apartment complex or trailer court got integrated, but no substantial progress could be reported in the four years following secretary mcnamara's equal opportunity directive. on the contrary, the record suggests that many commanders, discouraged perhaps by the overwhelming difficulties encountered in the fair housing field, might agree with fitt: "i have no doubt that i did nothing about it [housing discrimination] in - because i was working on forms of discrimination at once more blatant and easier to overcome. i did not fully understand the impact of housing discrimination, and i did not know what to do about it."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, fitt to author, may .] a special defense department housing survey of thirteen representative communities, including a study of service families in the washington, d.c., area, documented this failure. the survey described a housing situation as of early in which progress toward open off-base housing for servicemen was minimal. despite the active off-base programs sponsored by local commanders, discrimination in housing remained widespread,[ - ] and based on four years' experience the department of defense had to conclude that appeals to the community for voluntary compliance would not produce integrated housing for military families on a large scale. still, defense officials were reluctant to substitute more drastic measures. deputy secretary vance, for one, argued in early that nationwide application of off-limits sanctions would raise significant legal issues, create chaotic conditions in the residential status of all military personnel, downgrade rather than enhance the responsibility of local commanders to achieve their equal opportunity goals, and, above all, fail to produce more integrated housing. writing to the chairman of the action coordinating committee to end segregation in the suburbs (access),[ - ] he asserted that open housing for servicemen (p.  ) would be achieved only through the "full commitment at every level of command to the proposition of equal treatment."[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, dep secdef to j. charles jones, chairman, access, feb , copy in cmh; see also the detailed account of the department of defense's housing campaign in bahr, "the expanding role of the department of defense," p. .] [footnote - : access was one of the several local, biracial open-housing groups that sprang up to fight discrimination in housing during the mid- 's. the center of this particular group's concern was in the washington, d.c., suburbs.] [footnote - : ltr, dep secdef to jones, feb , copy in cmh.] but even as vance wrote, the department's housing policy was undergoing substantial revision. and, ironically, it was the very group to which vance was writing that precipitated the change. it was the members of access who climaxed their campaign against segregated apartment complexes in the washington suburbs with a sit-down demonstration in mcnamara's reception room in the pentagon on february, bringing the problem to the personal attention of a secretary of defense burdened with vietnam.[ - ] although strongly committed to the principle of equal opportunity and always ready to support the initiatives of his civil rights assistants,[ - ] mcnamara had largely ignored the housing problem. later he castigated himself for allowing the problem to drift for four years. i get charged with the tfx. it's nothing compared to the bay of pigs or my failure for four years to integrate off-base military housing. i don't want you to misunderstand me when i say this, but the tfx was only money. we're talking about blood, the moral foundation of our future, the life of the nation when we talk about these things.[ - ] [footnote - : ltr, fitt to author, may ; see also new york _times_ and washington _post_, february , .] [footnote - : robert e. jordan, former dasd (cr) assistant, described the secretary's eagerness to support civil rights initiatives: "he would hardly wait for an explanation, but start murmuring, 'where do i sign, where do i sign?'" interv, author with jordan, jun .] [footnote - : quoted by brower, "mcnamara seen now, full length," p. . the tfx mentioned by mcnamara was an allusion to the heated and lengthy controversy that arose during his administration over fighter aircraft for the navy and air force.] mcnamara was being unnecessarily harsh with himself. there were several reasons, quite unrelated to either the secretary of defense or his assistants, that explain the failure of voluntarism to integrate housing used by servicemen. a major cause--witness the failure of president johnson's proposed civil rights bill in --was that open housing lacked a national consensus or widespread public support. voluntary compliance was successful in other areas, such as public accommodation, transportation, and to some extent even in dependent schooling, precisely because the requests of local commanders were supported by a growing national consensus and the force of national legislation. in dealing with housing discrimination, however, these same commanders faced public indifference or open hostility without the comforting support of federal law. even with the commander's wholehearted commitment to open housing, a commitment that equal opportunity directives from the services could by no means insure, his effectiveness against such widespread discrimination was questionable. nothing in his training prepared him for the delicate negotiations involved in obtaining integrated housing. moreover, it was extremely difficult if not impossible to isolate the black serviceman's housing plight from that of other black citizens; thus, an open housing campaign really demanded comprehensive action by the whole federal government. the white house had never launched a national open housing campaign; it was not, indeed, until february that president johnson submitted a compulsory national open housing bill to congress.[ - ] [footnote - : a weakened version of this bill eventually emerged as the civil rights act of .] whatever the factors contributing to the lack of progress, (p.  ) mcnamara admitted that "the voluntary program had failed and failed miserably."[ - ] philosophically, robert mcnamara found this situation intolerable. he had become interested in the "unused potential" of his department to change american society as it affected the welfare of servicemen. as fitt explained, the secretary believed any department which administers % of the gross national product, with influence over the lives of million people, is bound to have an impact. the question is whether it's going to be a dumb, blind impact, or a marshaled and ordered impact. mcnamara wanted to marshal that impact by committing defense resources to social goals that were still compatible with the primary mission of security.[ - ] [footnote - : mcnamara, _the essence of security_, p. .] [footnote - : quoted by brower, "mcnamara seen now, full length," p. .] clearly, the secretary of defense considered open housing for service families one of these goals, and when his attention was drawn to the immediacy of the problem by the access demonstration he acted quickly. at his instigation vance ordered the local commanders of all services to conduct a nationwide census of all apartment houses, housing developments, and mobile home courts consisting of five or more rental units within normal commuting distance of all installations having at least servicemen. he also ordered the commanders to talk to the owners or operators of these properties personally and to urge them to open their properties to all servicemen. he organized an off-base equal opportunity board, consisting of the open housing coordinators of each service and his office to monitor the census. finally, he announced the establishment of a special action program under the direction of thomas d. morris, now the assistant secretary for manpower. aimed at the washington, d.c., area specifically, the program was designed to serve as a model for the rest of the country.[ - ] [footnote - : memo, dep secdef for secys of military departments, apr , sub: equal opportunity for military personnel in rental of off-base housing. vance's instructions were spelled out in great detail, replete with charts and forms, in memo, asd (m) for dep under secys of military departments (manpower), apr , same sub. copies of both in cmh.] vance also notified the service secretaries that subsequent to the census all local commanders would be asked to discuss the census findings with local community leaders in an effort to mobilize support for open housing. later assistant secretary morris, with the help of the acting civil rights deputy, l. howard bennett, spelled out a program for "aggressive" negotiation with community leaders and cooperation with other government agencies, in effect a last-ditch attempt to achieve open housing for servicemen through voluntary compliance. underscoring the urgency of the housing campaign, the department demanded a monthly report from all commanders on their open housing activities,[ - ] and morris promptly launched a proselytizing effort of his own in the metropolitan washington area. described simply by mcnamara as "a decent man," morris spoke indefatigably before civil leaders and realtors on behalf of open housing.[ - ] [footnote - : memos, asd (m) for dep under secys of military departments, apr and jul , sub: equal opportunity for military personnel in rental of off-base housing. for the effect of this order on an individual commander, see article by charles hunter in charleston, south carolina, _post_, august , . see also interv, author with bennett, dec .] [footnote - : intervs, author with mcnamara, may , and jordan, jan .] the department's national housing census confirmed the gloomy (p.  ) statistics projected from earlier studies indicating that housing discrimination was widespread and intractable and damaging to servicemen's morale.[ - ] mcnamara decided that local commanders "were not going to involve themselves," and for the first time since sanctions were mentioned in his equal opportunity directive some four years before, he decided to use them in a discrimination case. the secretary of defense himself, not the local commander nor the service secretaries, made the decision: housing not opened to _all_ servicemen would be closed to _all_ servicemen.[ - ] aware of the controversy accompanying such action, the secretary's legal counsel prepared a justification. predictably, the department's lawyer argued that sanctions against discrimination in off-base housing were an extension of the commander's traditional right to forbid commerce with establishments whose policies adversely affected the health or morals of his men. acutely conscious of the lack of federal legislation barring housing discrimination, vance and his legal associates were careful to distinguish between an owner's legal right to choose his tenants and the commander's power to impose a military order on his men. [footnote - : mcnamara, _the essence of security_, p. .] [footnote - : interv, author with mcnamara, may .] although committed to a nationwide imposition of sanctions on housing if necessary, the secretary of defense hoped that the example of a few cases would be sufficient to break the intransigence of offending landlords; certainly a successful test case would strengthen the hand of the commanders in their negotiations with community leaders. metropolitan washington was the obvious area for the first test case, and the maryland general assembly further focused attention on that region when on february it called on the secretary of defense to end housing discrimination for all military personnel in the state.[ - ] on the night of june, gerhard gesell received an unexpected phone call: there would be something in tomorrow's paper, robert mcnamara told him, that should be especially interesting to the judge.[ - ] and there was, indeed, on the front page. as of july, all military personnel would be forbidden to lease or rent housing in any segregated apartment building or trailer court within a three-and-a-half-mile radius of andrews air force base, maryland. citing the special housing problems of servicemen returning from vietnam, mcnamara pointed out that in the andrews area of maryland less than percent of some , local apartment units were open to black servicemen. the andrews situation, he declared, was causing problems "detrimental to the morale and welfare of the majority of our negro military families and thus to the operational effectiveness of the base."[ - ] [footnote - : joint resolution of the maryland general assembly as cited in memo, secdef for secretaries of military departments, jun , sub: unsatisfactory housing of negro military families living off-post in the andrews air force base area, copy in cmh. see also new york _times_, may , , and yarmolinsky, _the military establishment_, p. .] [footnote - : interv, author with gesell, nov .] [footnote - : memo, secdef for secretaries of military departments, jun , sub: unsatisfactory housing of negro military families living off-post in the andrews air force base area, sd files. the quotation is from mcnamara's news conference, june , as quoted in the new york _times_, june , .] the secretary's rhetoric, skillfully justifying sanctions in (p.  ) terms of military efficiency and elementary fairness for returning combat veterans, might have explained the singular lack of adverse congressional reaction to the order. no less a personage than chairman l. mendel rivers of the house armed services committee admitted that he had no objection to the sanctions near andrews. asked about possible sanctions elsewhere, rivers added that he would cross that bridge later.[ - ] [footnote - : new york _times_, june , . rivers did criticize later applications of the housing sanctions; see washington _post_, december , .] rivers and his congressional allies would have little time for reflection, because mcnamara quickly made it clear that the andrews action was only a first step. sanctions were imposed in rapid succession on areas surrounding four other military installations in maryland, fort george g. meade, aberdeen proving ground, edgewood arsenal, and fort holabird.[ - ] more pressure was placed on segregationists when mcnamara announced on september his intention to extend the sanctions nationwide. he singled out california, where the defense department census had shown black servicemen barred from a third of all rental units, for special attention. in fact, off-limits sanctions imposed on broad geographical areas were used only once more--in december against multiple rental properties in the northern virginia area.[ - ] in the meantime, the department of defense had developed a less dramatic but equally effective method of exerting economic pressure on landlords. on july mcnamara ordered the establishment of housing referral offices at all installations where more than men were assigned. all married servicemen seeking off-base housing were required to obtain prior clearance from these offices before entering into rental agreements with landlords.[ - ] [footnote - : actually, mcnamara imposed the sanctions in the first two instances, the secretary of the army in the other two.] [footnote - : dod news release no. - , dec .] [footnote - : memo, secdef for service secys et al., jul , sub: off-base housing referral services, sd files.] finally, in the wake of the passage of the civil rights act of and the supreme court's ruling against housing discrimination in _jones_ v. _mayer_, mcnamara's successor, clark m. clifford, was able to combine economic threats with new legal sanctions against landlords who continued to discriminate. on june clifford ordered the services to provide advice and legal assistance to servicemen who encountered discrimination in housing. the services were also to coordinate their housing programs with the departments of housing and urban development and justice, provide assistance in locating nondiscriminatory rental units, and withhold authorization for servicemen to sign leases where discriminatory practices were evident. in a separate action the manpower assistant secretary also ordered that housing referral offices be established on all bases to which --as opposed to the earlier --military personnel were assigned.[ - ] [footnote - : in _jones_ v. _mayer_ ( u.s. , [ ]) the supreme court held that the civil rights act of "bars all racial discrimination, private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property." for clifford's response, see memo, secdef for secys of military departments, et al., jun ; clark clifford, news conference, jun ; memo, asd (m&ra) for secys of military departments, et al., nov . for instructions concerning legal assistance to servicemen and civilian employees of the department of defense under the civil rights act, see dod instr . , aug . copy of all in cmh.] [illustration: first aid. _soldier of the d infantry gives water to heat stroke victim during "operation wahiawa," vietnam._] the result of these directives was spectacular. by june the (p.  ) ratio of off-base housing units carried on military referral listings--that is, apartment and trailer court units with open housing policies assured in writing by the owner or certified by the local commander--rose to some percent of all available off-base housing for a gain of , units over the inventory.[ - ] in the suburban washington area alone, the number of housing units opened to all servicemen rose more than percent in days--from , to more than , units.[ - ] by the end of some . million rental units, percent of all those identified in the survey, were open to all servicemen.[ - ] still, these impressive gains did not signal the end of housing discrimination for black servicemen. the various defense department sanctions excluded dwellings for four families or less, and the evidence suggests that the original and hastily compiled off-base census on which all the open housing gains were measured had ignored some particularly intransigent landlords in larger apartment houses and operators of trailer courts on the grounds that their continued refusal to negotiate with commanders had made (p.  ) the likelihood of integrating their properties extremely remote. [footnote - : secdef news conference, jun , transcript in cmh.] [footnote - : mcnamara, _the essence of security_, p. .] [footnote - : bahr, "_the expanding role of the department of defense_," p. .] the campaign for open housing is the most noteworthy chapter in the fight for equality of treatment and opportunity for servicemen. the efforts of the department of defense against other forms of off-base discrimination were to a great extent successful because they coincided with court rulings and powerful civil rights legislation. the campaign for open housing, on the other hand, was launched in advance of court and congressional action and in the face of much popular feeling against integrated housing. mcnamara's fight for open housing demonstrates, as nothing had before, his determination to use, if necessary, the department's economic powers in the civilian community to secure equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. in the name of fair housing, mcnamara invested not only his own prestige but also the defense department's manpower and financial resources. in effect, this willingness to use the extreme weapon of off-limits sanctions revitalized the idea of using the department of defense as an instrument of social change in american society. mcnamara's willingness to push the department beyond the national consensus on civil rights (as represented by the contemporary civil rights laws) also signified a change in his attitude. unlike yarmolinsky and robert kennedy, mcnamara limited his attention to discrimination's effect on the individual serviceman and, ultimately, on the military efficiency of the armed forces. despite his interest in the cause of civil rights, he had, until the open housing campaign, always circumscribed the department's equal opportunity program to fit a more traditional definition of military mission. seen in this light, mcnamara's attack against segregated housing represented not only the substitution of a new and more powerful technique--sanctions--for one that had been found wanting--voluntary compliance, but also a substantial evolution in his own social philosophy. he later implied as much. we request cooperation and seek voluntary compliance [in obtaining open housing].... i am fully aware that the defense department is not a philanthropic foundation or a social-welfare institution. but the department does not intend to let our negro servicemen and their families continue to suffer the injustices and indignities they have in the past. i am certain my successors will pursue the same policy.[ - ] [footnote - : mcnamara, _the essence of security_, p. .] by the major programs derived from secretary mcnamara's equal opportunity policy had been defined, and the department of defense could look back with pride on the substantial and permanent changes it had achieved in the treatment of black servicemen in communities near military bases.[ - ] emphasizing voluntary compliance with its policy, the department had proved to be quite successful in its campaign against discrimination in off-base recreation, public transportation and accommodation, in the organized reserves, and even, to a limited extent, in off-base schools. it was logical that the services should seek voluntary compliance before resorting to more drastic methods. as the gesell committee had pointed out, base (p.  ) commanders had vast influence in their local communities, influence that might be used in countless ways to alter the patterns of off-base discrimination. for the first time the armed forces had fought discrimination by making the local commander responsible for a systematic program of negotiations in the community. [footnote - : this analysis owes much to the author's correspondence with alfred fitt and the interviews with mcnamara, gesell, and jordan. see also memo, timpane tor stephen schulman, feb , sub: service reports of equal rights activities, and paul memo. copies of all in cmh.] but voluntary compliance had its limits. its success depended in large measure on the ability and will of local commanders, who, for the most part, were unprepared by training or temperament to deal with the complex and explosive problems of off-base discrimination. even if the commander could qualify as a civil rights reformer, he had little time or incentive for a duty that would go unrecognized in terms of his efficiency rating yet must compete for his attention with other necessary duties that were so recognized. finally, the successful use of voluntary compliance techniques depended on the implied threat of legal or economic pressures, yet, for a considerable period following mcnamara's directive, no legal strictures against some forms of discrimination existed, and the use of economic sanctions had been so carefully circumscribed by defense officials as to render the possibility of their use extremely remote. the decision to circumscribe the use of economic sanctions against off-base discrimination made sense. closing a base because of discrimination in nearby communities was practically if not politically impossible and might conceivably become a threat to national security. as to sanctions aimed at specific businesses, the secretary's civil rights assistants feared the possibility that the abrupt or authoritarian imposition of sanctions by an insensitive or unsympathetic commander might sabotage the department's whole equal opportunity program in the community. they were determined to leave the responsibility for sanctions in the hands of senior civilian officials. in the end it was the most senior of these officials who acted. when his attention turned to the problem of discrimination in off-base housing for black servicemen in , secretary mcnamara quickly decided to use sanctions against a discriminatory practice widely accepted and still legal under federal law. the combination of voluntary compliance techniques and economic sanctions, in tandem with the historic civil rights legislation of the mid- 's, succeeded in eliminating most of the off-base discrimination faced by black servicemen. ironically, in view of its unquestioned control in the area, the department of defense failed to achieve an equal success against discrimination within the military establishment itself. complaints concerning the number, promotion, assignment, and punishment of black servicemen, a limited problem in the mid- 's, went mostly unrecognized. relatively speaking, they were ignored by the gesell committee and the civil rights organizations in the face of the more pressing off-base problems and only summarily treated by the services, which remained largely silent about on-base and in-house discrimination. long after off-base discrimination had disappeared as a specific military problem, this neglected on-base discrimination would rise up again to trouble the armed forces in more militant times.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with bennett, dec .] chapter (p.  ) conclusion the defense department's response to the recommendations of the gesell committee marked the close of a well-defined chapter in the racial history of the armed forces. within a single generation, the services had recognized the rights of black americans to serve freely in the defense of their country, to be racially integrated, and to have, with their dependents, equal treatment and opportunity not only on the military reservation but also in nearby communities. the gradual compliance with secretary mcnamara's directives in the mid- 's marked the crumbling of the last legal and administrative barriers to these goals. _why the services integrated_ in retrospect, several causes for the elimination of these barriers can be identified. first, if only for the constancy and fervor of its demands, was the civil rights movement. an obvious correlation exists between the development of this movement and the shift in the services' racial attitudes. the civil rights advocates--that is, those spokesmen of the rapidly proliferating civil rights organizations and their allies in congress, the white house, and the media--formed a pressure group that zealously enlisted political support for equal opportunity measures. their metier was presidential politics. in several elections they successfully traded their political assistance, an unknown quantity, for specific reform. their influence was crucial, for example, in roosevelt's decision to enlist negroes for general service in the world war ii navy and in all branches of the army and in truman's proclamation of equal treatment and opportunity; it was notable in the adjudication of countless discrimination cases involving individual black servicemen both on and off the military base. running through all their demands and expressed more and more clearly during this period was the conviction that segregation itself was discrimination. the success of their campaign against segregation in the armed forces can be measured by the extent to which this proposition came to be accepted in the counsels of the white house and the pentagon. because the demands of the civil rights advocates were extremely persistent and widely heard, their direct influence on the integration of the services has sometimes been overstressed. in fact, for much of the period their most important demands were neutralized by the logical-sounding arguments of those defending the racial _status quo_. more to the point, the civil rights revolution itself swept along some important defense officials. thus the reforms begun by james forrestal and robert mcnamara testified to the indirect but important influence of the civil rights movement. resisting the pressure for change was a solid bloc of officials (p.  ) in the services which held out for the retention of traditional policies of racial exclusion or segregation. professed loyalty to military tradition was all too often a cloak for prejudice, and prejudice, of course, was prevalent in all the services just as it was in american society. at the same time traditionalism simply reflected the natural inclination of any large, inbred bureaucracy to preserve the privileges and order of an earlier time. basically, the military traditionalists--that is, most senior officials and commanders of the armed forces and their allies in congress--took the position that black servicemen were difficult to train and undependable in battle. they cited the performance of large black combat units during the world wars as support for their argument. they also rationalized their opposition to integration by saying that the armed forces should not be an instrument of social change and that the services could only reflect the social mores of the society from which they sprang. thus, in their view, integration not only hindered the services' basic mission by burdening them with undependable units and marginally capable men, but also courted social upheaval in military units. eventually reconciled to the integration of military units, many military officials continued to resist the idea that responsibility for equal treatment and opportunity of black servicemen extended beyond the gates of the military reservation. deeply ingrained in the officer corps was the conviction that the role of the military was to serve, not to change, society. to effect social change, the traditionalist argued, would require an intrusion into politics that was by definition militarism. it was the duty of the department of justice and other civilian agencies, not the armed forces, to secure those social changes essential for the protection of the rights of servicemen in the civilian community.[ - ] if these arguments appear to have overlooked the real causes of the services' wartime racial problems and ignored some of the logical implications of truman's equal treatment and opportunity order, they were nevertheless in the mainstream of american military thought, ardently supported, and widely proclaimed. [footnote - : speaking at a later date on this subject, former army chief of staff j. lawton collins observed that "when we look about us and see the deleterious effects of military interference in civilian governments throughout ... many other areas of the world, we can be grateful that american military leaders have generally stuck to their proper sphere." see memo, collins for osd historian, aug , copy in cmh.] the story of integration in the armed forces has usually, and with some logic, been told in terms of the conflict between the "good" civil rights advocates and the "bad" traditionalists. in fact, the history of integration goes beyond the dimensions of a morality play and includes a number of other influences both institutional and individual. [illustration: vietnam patrol. _men of the th infantry advance during "operation baker."_] the most prominent of these institutional factors were federal legislation and executive orders. after world war ii most americans moved slowly toward acceptance of the proposition that equal treatment and opportunity for the nation's minorities was both just and prudent.[ - ] a drawn-out process, this acceptance was in reality a grudging concession to the promptings of the civil rights movement; translated into federal legislation, it exerted constant pressure (p.  ) on the racial policy of the armed forces. the selective service acts of and , for example, provided an important reason for integrating when, as interpreted by the executive branch, their racial provisions required each service to accept a quota of negroes among its draftees. the services could evade the provisions of the acts for only so long before the influx of black draftees in conjunction with other pressures led to alterations in the old racial policies. truman's order calling for equality of treatment and opportunity in the services was also a major factor in the racial changes that took place in the army in the early 's. to a great extent the dictates of the civil rights laws of and exerted similar pressure on the services and account for the success of the defense department's comprehensive response during the mid- 's to the discrimination faced by servicemen in the local community. [footnote - : for an extended discussion of the moral basis of racial reform, see o'connor's interview with hesburgh, mar .] questions concerning the effect of law on social custom, and particularly the issue of whether government should force social change or await the popular will, are of continuing interest to the sociologist and the political scientist. in the case of the armed forces, a sector of society that habitually recognizes the primacy of authority and law, the answer was clear. ordered to integrate, the members of both races adjusted, though sometimes reluctantly, to a new social relationship. the traditionalists' genuine fear that racial unrest would follow racial mixing proved unfounded. the performance of individual negroes in the integrated units demonstrated that changed social relationships could also produce rapid improvement in individual and group achievement and thus increase military efficiency. furthermore, the successful integration of military units in the 's so raised expectations in the black community that the civil rights leaders would use that success to support their successful campaign in the 's to convince the government that it must impose social change on the community at large.[ - ] [footnote - : for an extended discussion of the law and racial change, see greenberg, _race relations and american law_; charles c. moskos, jr., "racial integration in the armed forces," _american journal of sociology_ (september ): - ; ginzberg, _the negro potential_, pp. - .] paralleling the influence of the law, the quest for military efficiency was another institutional factor that affected the services' racial policies. the need for military efficiency had always been used by the services to rationalize racial exclusion and segregation; later it became the primary consideration in the decision of each service to integrate its units. reinforcing the efficiency argument was the realization by the military that manpower could no longer be considered an inexhaustible resource. world war ii had demonstrated that the federal government dare not ignore the military and industrial potential of any segment of its population. the reality of the limited national manpower pool explained the services' guarantee that negroes would be included in the postwar period as cadres for the full wartime mobilization of black manpower. timing was somewhat dependent on the size and mission of the individual service; integration came to each when it became obvious that black manpower could not be used efficiently in separate organizations. in the case of the largest service, the army, the fahy committee used the (p.  ) failure to train and use eligible negroes in unfilled jobs to convince senior officials that military efficiency demanded the progressive integration of its black soldiers, beginning with those men eligible for specialist duties. the final demonstration of the connection between efficiency and integration came from those harried commanders who, trying against overwhelming odds to fight a war in korea with segregated units, finally began integrating their forces. they found that their black soldiers fought better in integrated units. [illustration: marine engineers in vietnam. _men of the th engineer battalion move culverts into place in a mountain stream during "operation pegasus."_] later, military efficiency would be the rationale for the defense department's fight against discrimination in the local community. the gesell committee was used by adam yarmolinsky and others to demonstrate to secretary mcnamara if not to the satisfaction of skeptical military traditionalists and congressional critics that the need to solve a severe morale problem justified the department's intrusion. appeals to military efficiency, therefore, became the ultimate justification for integrating the units of the armed forces and providing for equal treatment of its members in the community. beyond the demands of the law and military efficiency, the integration of the armed forces was also influenced by certain individuals within the military establishment who personified america's awakening social conscience. they led the services along the road toward (p.  ) integration not because the law demanded it, nor because activists clamored for it, nor even because military efficiency required it, but because they believed it was right. complementing the work of these men and women was the opinion of the american serviceman himself. between and his attitude toward change was constantly discussed and predicted but only rarely solicited by senior officials. actually his opinion at that time is still largely unknown; documentary evidence is scarce, and his recollections, influenced as they are by the intervening years of the civil rights movement, are unreliable. yet it was clearly the serviceman's generally quiet acceptance of new social practices, particularly those of the early 's, that ratified the services' racial reforms. as a perceptive critic of the nation's racial history described conditions in the services in : there was a rising tide of tolerance around the nation at that time. i was thrilled to see it working in the services. whether officers were working for it or not it existed. from time to time you would find an officer imbued with the desire to improve race relations.... it was a marvel to me, in contrast to my recent investigations in the south, to see how well integration worked in the services.[ - ] [footnote - : interv, author with muse, mar .] indeed, it could be argued, american servicemen of the 's became a positive if indirect cause of racial change. by demonstrating that large numbers of blacks and whites could work and live together, they destroyed a fundamental argument of the opponents of integration and made further reforms possible if not imperative. _how the services integrated, - _ the interaction of all these factors can be seen when equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces is considered in two distinct phases, the first culminating in the integration of all active military units in , the second centering around the decision in to push for equal opportunity for black servicemen outside the gates of the military base.[ - ] [footnote - : portions of the following discussion have been published in somewhat different form under the title "armed forces integration--forced or free?" in _the military and society, proceedings of the fifth military symposium_ (u.s. air force academy, ).] the navy was the acknowledged pioneer in integration. its decision during world war ii to assign black and white sailors to certain ships was not entirely a response to pressures from civil rights advocates, although secretary james forrestal relied on his friends in the urban league, particularly lester granger, to teach him the techniques of integrating a large organization. nor was the decision solely the work of racial reformers in the bureau of naval personnel, although this small group was undoubtedly responsible for drafting the regulations that governed the changes in the wartime navy. rather, the navy began integrating its general service because segregation proved painfully inefficient. the decision was largely the result of the impersonal operation of the draft law. although imperfectly applied during the war, the anti-discrimination provision of that law produced a massive infusion of black inductees. the army, with its larger (p.  ) manpower base and expandable black units, could evade the implications of a nondiscrimination clause, but the sheer presence of large numbers of negroes in the service, more than any other force, breached the walls of segregation in the navy. [illustration: loading a rocket launcher. _crewmen of the uss carronade participating in a coordinated gunfire support action near chu lai, vietnam._] the navy experiment with an all-black crew had proved unsatisfactory, and only so many shore-based jobs were considered suitable for large segregated units. bowing to the argument that two navies--one black, one white--were both inefficient and expensive, secretary forrestal began to experiment with integration during the last months of the war and finally announced a policy of integration in february . the full application of this new policy would wait for some years while the navy's traditional racial attitudes warred with its practical desire for efficiency. the air force was the next to end segregation. again, immediate outside influences appeared to be slight. despite the timing of the air force integration directive in early and secretary stuart symington's discussions of the subject with truman and the fahy committee, plans to drop many racial barriers in the air force had already been formulated at the time of the president's equal opportunity order in . nor is there any evidence of special concern among air force officials about the growing criticism of their segregation policy. the record clearly reveals, however, that by late the air staff had become anxious over the manpower requirements of the gillem board report, which enunciated the postwar racial policy that the air force shared with the army. the gillem board report would hardly be classified as progressive by later standards; its provisions for reducing the size of black units and integrating a small number of black specialists were, in a way, an effort to make segregation less wasteful. nevertheless, with all its shortcomings, this postwar policy contained the germ of integration. it committed the army and air force to total integration as a long-range objective, and, more important, it made permanent the wartime policy of allotting percent of the army's strength to negroes. later branded by the civil rights spokesmen as an instrument for limiting black enlistment, the racial quota committed the army and its offspring, the air force, not only to maintaining at least percent black strength but also to assigning black servicemen to all branches and all job categories, thereby significantly weakening (p.  ) the segregated system. although never filled in either service, the quotas guaranteed that a large number of negroes would remain in uniform after the war and thus gave both services an incentive to desegregate. once again the army could postpone the logical consequences of its racial policy by the continued proliferation of its segregated combat and service units. but the new air force almost immediately felt the full force of the gillem board policy, quickly learning that it could not maintain percent black strength separate but equal. it too might have continued indefinitely enlarging the number of service units in order to absorb black airmen. like the army, it might even have ignored the injunction to assign a quota of blacks to every military occupation and to every school. but it was politically impossible for the air force to do away with its black flying units, and it became economically impossible in a time of shrinking budgets and manpower cuts to operate separate flying units for the small group of negroes involved. it was also unfeasible, considering the small number of black rated officers and men, to fill all the positions in the black air units and provide at the same time for the normal rotation and advanced training schedules. facing these difficulties and mindful of the navy's experience with integration, the air force began serious discussion of the integration of its black pilots and crews in , some months before truman issued his order. committed to integrating its air units and rated men in , the air staff quietly enlarged its objectives and broke up all its black units, thereby making the air force the first service to achieve total integration. there were several reasons for this rapid escalation in what was to have been a limited program. as devised by general edwards and colonel marr of the air staff the plan demanded that all black airmen in each command be conscientiously examined so that all might be properly reassigned, further trained, retained in segregated units, or dismissed. the removal of increasing numbers of eligible men from black units only hastened the end of those organizations, a tendency ratified by the trouble-free acceptance of the program by all involved. the integration of the army was more protracted. the truman order in and the fahy committee, the white house group appointed to oversee the execution of that order, focused primarily on the segregated army. there is little doubt that the president's action had a political dimension. given the fact that the army had become a major target of the president's own civil rights commission and that it was a highly visible practitioner of segregation, the equal opportunity order would almost have had to be part of the president's plan to unite the nation's minorities behind his candidacy. the order was also a logical response to the threat of civil disobedience issued by a. philip randolph and endorsed by other civil rights advocates. in a matter of weeks after truman issued his integration order, randolph dropped his opposition to the draft law and his call for a boycott of the draft by negroes. it remained for the fahy committee to translate the president's order into a working program leading toward integration of the army. like randolph and other activists, the committee quickly concluded that segregation was a denial of equal treatment and opportunity and that the executive order, therefore, was essentially a call for the (p.  ) services to integrate. after lengthy negotiations, the committee won from the army an agreement to move progressively toward full integration. gradual integration was disregarded, however, when the army, fighting in korea, was forced by a direct threat to the efficiency of its operations to begin wide-scale mixing of the races. specifically, the proximate reason for the army's integration in the far east was the fact that general ridgway faced a severe shortage of replacements for his depleted white units while accumulating a surplus of black replacements. so pressing was his need that even before permission was received from washington integration had already begun on the battlefield. the reason for the rapid integration of the rest of the army was more complicated. the example of korea was persuasive, as was the need for a uniform policy, but beyond that the rapid modernization of the army was making obsolete the large-scale labor units traditionally used by the army to absorb much of its black quota. with these units disappearing, the army had to find new jobs for the men, a task hopelessly complicated by segregation. the postwar racial policy of the marine corps struck a curious compromise between that of the army and of the navy. adopting the former's system of segregated units and the latter's rejection of the percent racial quota, the corps was able to assign its small contingent of black marines to a few segregated noncombatant duties. but the policy of the corps was only practicable for its peacetime size, as its mobilization for korea demonstrated. even before the army was forced to change, the marine corps, its manpower planners pressed to find trained men and units to fill its divisional commitment to korea, quietly abandoned the rules on segregated service. while progressives cited the military efficiency of integration, traditionalists used the efficiency argument to defend the racial _status quo_. in general, senior military officials had concluded on the basis of their world war ii experience that large black units were ineffective, undependable in close combat, and best suited for supply assignments. whatever their motives, the traditionalists had reached the wrong conclusion from their data. they were correct when they charged that, despite competent and even heroic performance on the part of some individuals and units, the large black combat units had, on average, performed poorly during the war. but the traditionalists failed, as they had failed after world war i, to see the reasons for this poor performance. not the least of these were the benumbing discrimination suffered by black servicemen during training, the humiliations involved in their assignments, and the ineptitude of many of their leaders, who were most often white. above all, the postwar manpower planners drew the wrong conclusion from the fact that the average general classification test scores of men in world war ii black units fell significantly below that of their white counterparts. the scores were directly related to the two groups' relative educational advantages which depended to a large extent on their economic status and the geographic region from which they came. this mental average of servicemen was a unit problem, for at all times the total number of white individuals who scored in low-aptitude categories iv and v greatly outnumbered black individuals in those categories. this greater number of less gifted white (p.  ) servicemen had been spread thinly throughout the services' thousands of white units where they caused no particular problem. the lesser number of negroes with low aptitude, however, were concentrated in the relatively few black units, creating a serious handicap to efficient performance. conversely, the contribution of talented black servicemen was largely negated by their frequent assignment to units with too many low-scoring men. small units composed in the main of black specialists, such as the black artillery and armor units that served in the european theater during world war ii, served with distinction, but these units were special cases where the effect of segregation was tempered by the special qualifications of the carefully chosen men. segregation and not mental aptitude was the key to the poor performance of the large black units in world war ii. [illustration: american sailors _help evacuate vietnamese child_.] postwar service policies ignored these facts and defended segregation in the name of military efficiency. in short, the armed forces had to make inefficiency seem efficient as they explained in paternalistic fashion that segregation was best for all concerned. "in general, the negro is less well educated than his brother citizen that is white," general eisenhower told the senate armed forces committee in , "and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every company the negro is going to be relegated to the minor jobs ... because the competition is too rough."[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in senate, hearings before the u.s. senate committee on armed services, _universal military training_, th cong., d sess., , pp. - .] competence in a great many skills became increasingly important for servicemen in the postwar period as the trend toward technical complexity and specialization continued in all the services. differences in recruiting gave some services an advantage. the navy and air force, setting stricter standards of enlistment, could fill their ranks with high-scoring volunteers and avoid enlisting large groups of low-scoring men, often black, who were eventually drafted for the army. while this situation helped reduce the traditional opposition to integration in the navy and air force, it made the army more determined to retain separate black units to absorb the large number of low-scoring draftees it was obligated to take. a major factor in the eventual integration of the army--and the single most significant contribution of the secretary of defense to that (p.  ) end--was george marshall's decision to establish a parity of enlistment standards for the services. on the advice of his manpower assistant, anna rosenberg, marshall abolished the special advantage enjoyed by the navy and air force, making all the services share in the recruitment of low-scoring men. the common standard undercut the army's most persuasive argument for restoring a racial quota and maintaining segregated units. [illustration: booby trap victim _from company b, th infantry, resting on buddy's back, awaits evacuation_.] in the years from to , then, several forces converged to bring about integration of the regular armed forces. pressure from the civil rights advocates was one, idealistic leadership another. most important, however, was the services' realization that segregation was an inefficient way to use the manpower provided by a democratic draft law or a volunteer system made democratic by the secretary of defense. each service reached its conclusion separately, since each had a different problem in the efficient use of manpower and each had its own racial traditions. accordingly, the services saw little need to exchange views, develop rivalries, or imitate one another's racial policies. there were two exceptions to this situation: both the army and air force naturally considered the navy's integration experience when they were formulating postwar policies, and the navy and air force fought the army's proposals to experiment with integrated units and institute a parity of enlistment standards. _equal treatment and opportunity_ segregation officially ended in the active armed forces with the announcement of the secretary of defense in that the last all-black unit had been disbanded. in the little more than six years after president truman's order, some quarter of a million blacks had been intermingled with whites in the nation's military units worldwide. these changes ushered in a brief era of good feeling during which the services and the civil rights advocates tended to overlook some forms of discrimination that persisted within the services. this tendency became even stronger in the early 's when the discrimination suffered by black servicemen in local communities dramatized the relative effectiveness of the equal treatment and opportunity policies on military installations. in july , in the wake of another presidential investigation of racial equality (p.  ) in the armed forces, secretary of defense mcnamara outlined a new racial policy. an extension of the forces that had produced the abolition of segregated military units, the new policy also vowed to carry the crusade for equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen outside the military compound into the civilian community beyond. mcnamara's directive became the model for subsequent racial orders in the defense department. this enlargement of the department's concept of equal treatment and opportunity paralleled the rise of the modern civil rights movement, which was reaching its apogee in the mid- 's. mcnamara later acknowledged the influence of the civil rights activists on his department during this period. but the department's racial progress cannot be explained solely as a reaction to the pressures exerted by the civil rights movement. several other factors lay behind the new and broader policy. the defense department was, for instance, under constant pressure from black officers and men who were not only reporting inequities in the newly integrated services and complaining of the remaining racial discrimination within the military community but were also demanding the department's assistance in securing their constitutional rights from the communities outside the military bases. this was particularly true in the fields of public education, housing, and places of entertainment. the services as well as the defense department's manpower officials resisted these demands and continued in the early 's to limit their racial reforms to those necessary but exclusively internal matters most obviously connected with the efficient operation of their units. reinforcing this resistance was the reluctance on the part of most commanders to break with tradition and interfere in what they considered community affairs. nor had mcnamara's early policy statements in response to servicemen's demands come to grips with the issue of discrimination in the civilian community. at the same time, some reformers in the defense department had allied themselves with like-minded progressives throughout the administration and were searching for a way to carry out president kennedy's commitment to civil rights. these individuals were determined to use the services' early integration successes as a stepping-stone to further civil rights reforms while the administration's civil rights program remained bogged down in congress. although these reformers believed that the armed forces could be an effective instrument of social change for society at large, they clothed their aims in the garb of military efficiency. in fact, military efficiency was certainly mcnamara's paramount concern when he supported the idea of enlarging the scope of his department's racial programs and when in he readily accepted the proposal to appoint the gesell committee to study the services' racial program. the gesell committee easily documented the connection, long suspected by the reformers, between discrimination in the community and poor morale among black servicemen and the link between morale and combat efficiency. more important, with its ability to publicize the extent of discrimination against black servicemen in local communities and to offer practical recommendations for reform, the committee was able (p.  ) to stimulate the secretary into action. yet not until his last years in office, beginning with his open housing campaign in , did mcnamara, who had always championed the stand of adam yarmolinsky and the rest, become a strong participant. mcnamara promptly endorsed the gesell committee's report, which called for a vigorous program to provide equal opportunity for black servicemen, ordering the services to launch such a program in communities near military bases and making the local commander primarily responsible for its success. he soft-pedaled the committee's controversial provision for the use of economic sanctions against recalcitrant businessmen, stressing instead the duty of commanders to press for changes through voluntary compliance. these efforts, according to defense department reports, achieved gratifying results in the next few years. in conjunction with other federal officials operating under provisions of the civil rights act, local commanders helped open thousands of theaters, bowling alleys, restaurants, and bathing beaches to black servicemen. only in the face of continued opposition to open housing by landlords who dealt with servicemen, and then not until , did mcnamara decide to use the powerful and controversial weapon of off-limits sanctions. in short order his programs helped destroy the patterns of segregation in multiple housing in areas surrounding most military bases. the federal government's commitment to civil rights, manifest in supreme court decisions, executive orders, and congressional actions, was an important support for the defense department's racial program during this second part of the integration era. it is doubtful whether many of the command initiatives recommended by the gesell committee would have succeeded or even been tried without the court's school ruling and the civil rights act of . yet in several important instances, such as the mcnamara equal opportunity directive and the open housing campaign in , the department's actions antedated federal action. originally a follower of civilian society in racial matters, the armed forces moved ahead in the 's and by the mid- 's had become a powerful stimulus for change in civilian practices in some areas of the country.[ - ] [footnote - : for a discussion of this point, see yarmolinsky's _the military establishment_, pp. - .] achievements of the services should not detract from the primacy of civil rights legislation in the reforms of the 's. the sudden fall of barriers to black americans was primarily the result of the civil rights acts. but the fact and example of integration in the armed forces was an important cause of change in the communities near military bases. defense officials, prodding in the matter of integrated schooling for dependent children, found the mere existence of successfully integrated on-base schooling a useful tool in achieving similar schooling off-base. the experience of having served in the integrated armed forces, shared by so many young americans, also exercised an immeasurable influence on the changes of the 's. gesell committee member benjamin muse recalled hearing a mississippi hitchhiker say in at the height of the anti-integration, anti-negro fever in that area: "i don't hold with this stuff about 'niggers'. (p.  ) i had a colored buddy in korea, and i want to tell you he was all right."[ - ] [footnote - : quoted in ltr, muse to chief of military history, aug , in cmh.] [illustration: camaraderie. _a soldier of company c, th infantry, lights a cigarette for a marine from d company, th marines, during "operation pegasus" near khe sanh._] in retrospect, the attention paid by defense officials and the services to off-base discrimination in the 's may have been misdirected; many of these injustices would eventually have succumbed to civil rights legislation. certainly more attention could have been paid to the unfinished business of providing equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen within the military community. discrimination in matters of promotion, assignment, and military justice, overlooked by almost everyone in the early 's, was never treated with the urgency it deserved. to have done so might have averted at least some of the racial turmoil visited on the services in the vietnam era. but these shortcomings merely point to the fact that the services were the only segment of american society to have integrated, however imperfectly, the races on so large a scale. in doing so they demonstrated that a policy of equal treatment and opportunity is more than a legal concept; it also ordains a social condition. between (p.  ) the enunciation of such a policy and the achievement of its goals can fall the shadow of bigotry and the traditional way of doing things. the record indicates that the services surmounted bigotry and rejected the old ways to a gratifying degree. to the extent that they were successful in bringing the races together, their efficiency prospered and the nation's ideal of equal opportunity for all citizens was fortified. unfortunately, the collapse of the legal and administrative barriers to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces did not lead immediately to the full realization of this ideal. equal treatment and opportunity would remain an elusive goal for the department of defense for years to come. the post- period comprises a new chapter in the racial history of the services. the agitation that followed the mcnamara era had different roots from the events of the previous decades. the key to this difference was suggested during the vietnam war by the kerner commission in its stark conclusion that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate but unequal."[ - ] in contrast to the mcnamara period of integration, when civil rights advocates and defense department officials worked toward a common goal, subsequent years would be marked by an often greater militancy on the part of black servicemen and a new kind of friction between a fragmented civil rights movement and the department of defense. clearly, in coping with these problems the services will have to move beyond the elimination of legal and administrative barriers that had ordered their racial concerns between and . [footnote - : _report of the national advisory commission on civil disorders_, p. .] note on sources (p.  ) the search for source materials used in this volume provided the writer with a special glimpse into the ways in which various government agencies have treated what was until recently considered a sensitive subject. most important documents and working papers concerning the employment of black servicemen were, well into the 's and in contrast to the great bulk of personnel policy papers, routinely given a security classification. in some agencies the "secret" or "confidential" stamp was considered sufficient to protect the materials, which were filed and retired in a routine manner and, therefore, have always been readily available to the persistent and qualified researcher. but, as any experienced staff officer could demonstrate, other methods beyond mere classification can be devised to prevent easy access to sensitive material. thus, subterfuges were employed from time to time by officials dealing with racial subjects. in some staff agencies, for example, documents were collected in special files, separated from the normal personnel or policy files. in other instances the materials were never retired in a routine matter, but instead remained for many years scattered in offices of origin or, less often, in some central file system. if some officials appear to have been overly anxious to shield their agency's record, they also, it should be added, possessed a sense of history and the historical import of their work. though the temptation may have been strong within some agencies to destroy papers connected with past controversies, most officials scrupulously preserved not only the basic policy documents concerning this specialized subject, but also much of the back-up material that the historian treasures. the problem for the modern researcher is that these special collections and reserved materials, no longer classified and no longer sensitive, have fallen, largely unnoted, into a sea of governmental paper beyond the reach of the archivist's finding aids. the frequently expressed comment of the researcher, "somebody is withholding something," should, for the sake of accuracy, be changed to "somebody has lost track of something." this material might never have been recovered without the skilled assistance of the historical offices of the various services and office of the secretary of defense. at times their search for lost documents assumed the dimensions of a detective story. in partnership with marine corps historian ralph donnelly, for example, the author finally traced the bulk of the world war ii racial records of the marine corps to an obscure and unmarked file in the classified records section of marine corps headquarters. a comprehensive collection of official documents on the employment of black personnel in the navy between and was unearthed, not in the official archives, but in a dusty file cabinet in the bureau of naval personnel's management information division. the search also had its frustrations, for some materials seem (p.  ) permanently lost. despite persistent and imaginative work by the coast guard's historian, truman strobridge, much of the documentary record of that service's world war ii racial history could not be located. the development of the coast guard's policy has had to be reconstructed, painstakingly and laboriously, from other sources. the records of many army staff agencies for the period - were destroyed on the assumption that their materials were duplicated in the adjutant general's files, an assumption that frequently proved to be incorrect. although generally intact, the navy's records of the immediate post-world war ii period also lack some of the background staff work on the employment of black manpower. fortunately for this writer, the recent, inadvertent destruction of the bulk of the bureau of naval personnel's classified wartime records occurred after the basic research for this volume had been completed, but this lamentable accident will no doubt cause problems for future researchers. thanks to the efforts of the services' historical offices and the wonder of photocopying, future historians may be spared some of the labor connected with the preparation of this volume. most of the records surviving outside regular archives have been identified and relocated for easy access. copies of approximately percent of all documents cited in this volume have been collected and are presently on file in the center of military history, from which they will be retired for permanent preservation. _official archival material_ the bulk of the official records used in the preparation of this volume is in the permanent custody of the national archives and records service, washington, d.c. the records of most military agencies for the period - are located in the modern military records branch or in the navy and old army branch of the national archives proper. most documents dated after , along with military unit records (including ships' logs), are located in the general archives division in the washington national records center, suitland, maryland. the suitland center also holds the other major group of official materials, that is, all those documents still administered by the individual agencies but stored in the center prior to their screening and acquisition by the national archives. these records are open to qualified researchers, but access to them is controlled by the records managers of the individual agencies, a not altogether felicitous arrangement for the researcher, considering the bulk of the material and its lack of organization. the largest single group of materials consulted were those of the various offices of the army staff. although these agencies have abandoned the system of classifying all documents by a decimal-subject system, the system persisted in many offices well into the 's, thereby enabling the researcher to accomplish a speedy, if unrefined, screening of pertinent materials. even with this crutch, the researcher must still comb through thousands of documents created by the secretary of war (later secretary of the army), his assistant secretary, the chief of staff, and the various staff divisions, (p.  ) especially the personnel (g- ), organization and training (g- ), and operations divisions, together with the offices of the adjutant general, the judge advocate general, and the inspector general. the war department special planning division's files are an extremely important source, especially for postwar racial planning, as are the records of the three world war ii major commands, the army ground, service, and air forces. although illuminating in regard to the problem of racial discrimination, the records of the office of the secretary's civilian aide are less important in terms of policy development. finally, the records of the black units, especially the important body of documents related to the tribulations of the d infantry division in world war ii and the th infantry regiment in korea, are also vital sources for this subject. the records managers in the office of the secretary of defense also used the familiar . classification to designate materials related to the subject of negroes. (an exception to this generalization were the official papers of the secretary's office during the forrestal period when a navy file system was generally employed.) the most important materials on the subject of the defense department's racial interests are found in the records of the office of the secretary of defense. the majority of these records, including the voluminous files of the assistant secretary (manpower) so helpful for the later sections of the study, have remained in the custody of the department and are administered by the office of the deputy assistant secretary of defense (administration). after the office of the deputy assistant secretary (civil rights) and its successor organizations loom as a major source. many of the official papers were eventually filed with those of the assistant secretary (manpower) or have been retained in the historical files of the equal opportunity office of the secretary of defense. the records of the personnel policy board and the office of the general counsel, both part of the files of the office of the secretary of defense, are two more important sources of materials on black manpower. a subject classification system was not universally applied in the navy department during the 's and even where used proved exceedingly complicated. the records of the office of the secretary of the navy are especially strong in the world war ii period, but they must be supplemented with the national archives' separate forrestal papers file. despite the recent loss of records, the files of the bureau of naval personnel remain the primary source for documents on the employment of black personnel in the navy. research in all these files, even for the world war ii period, is best begun in the records management offices of those two agencies. more readily accessible, the records of the chief of naval operations and the general board, both of considerable importance in understanding the navy's world war ii racial history, are located in the operational archives branch, naval historical division, washington navy yard. this office has recently created a special miscellaneous file containing important documents of interest to the researcher on racial matters that have been gleaned from various sources not easily available to the researcher. copies of all known staff papers concerning black marines and the (p.  ) development of the marine corps' equal opportunity program during the integration period have been collected and filed in the reference section of the director of marine corps history and museums, headquarters, u.s. marine corps. likewise, most of the very small selection of extant official coast guard records on the employment of negroes have been identified and collected by the coast guard historian. the log of the _sea cloud_, the first coast guard vessel in modern times to boast a racially mixed crew, is located in the archives branch at suitland. the air force has retained control of a significant portion of its postwar personnel records, and the researcher would best begin work in the office of the administrative assistant, secretary of the air force. this office has custody of the files of the secretary of the air force, his assistant secretaries, the office of the chief of staff, and the staff agencies pertinent to this story, especially the deputy chief of staff, personnel, and the director of military personnel. the records of black air units, as well as the extensive and well-indexed collection of official unit and base histories and studies and reports of the air staff that touch on the service's racial policies, are located in the albert f. simpson historical research center, maxwell afb, alabama. these records are supplemented, and sometimes duplicated, by the holdings of the suitland records center and the office of air force history, boiling air force base, washington, d.c. other air force files of interest, particularly in the area of policy planning, can be found in the holdings of the national archives' modern military branch. the records of the selective service system also provide some interesting material, but most of this has been published by the selective service in its _special groups_ (special monograph number , vols. [washington: government printing office, ]). far more important are the records of the war manpower commission, located in the national archives, which, when studied in conjunction with the papers of the secretaries of war and navy, reveal the influence of the draft law on the services' racial policies. _personal collections_ the official records of the integration of the armed forces are not limited to those documents retired by the governmental agencies. parts of the story must also be gleaned from documents that for various reasons have been included in the personal papers of individuals. documents created by government officials, as well as much unofficial material of special interest, are scattered in a number of institutional or private repositories. probably the most noteworthy of these collections is the papers of the president's committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces (the fahy committee) in the harry s. truman library. in addition to this central source, the truman library also contains materials contributed by philleo nash, oscar chapman, and clark clifford, whose work in the white house was intimately, if briefly, concerned with armed forces integration. the president's own papers, especially the recently opened white house secretary's file, contain a number of important (p.  ) documents. documents of special interest can also be found in the roosevelt papers at the franklin d. roosevelt library and among the various white house files preserved in the dwight d. eisenhower library. the central white house file in the john f. kennedy library, along with the papers of harris wofford and gerhard gesell, are essential to the history of equal opportunity in the early 's. most of these collections are well indexed. the james v. forrestal papers, princeton university library, while helpful in tracing the urban league's contribution to the navy's integration policy, lack the focus and comprehensiveness of the forrestal papers in the national archives' office of the secretary of the navy file. another collection of particular interest for the naval aspects of the story is the dennis d. nelson papers, in the custody of the nelson family in san diego, california, with a microfilm copy on file in the navy's operational archives branch in washington. the heart of this collection is the materials nelson gathered while writing "the integration of the negro in the united states navy, - ," a u.s. navy monograph prepared in . the nelson collection also contains a large group of newspaper clippings and other rare secondary materials of special interest. the maxie m. berry papers, in the custody of the equal opportunity officer of the u.s. coast guard headquarters, offer a rare glimpse into the life of black coast guardsmen during world war ii, especially those assigned to the all-black pea island station, north carolina. the u.s. army military history research collection at carlisle barracks, pennsylvania, has acquired the papers of james c. evans, the long-time civilian aide to the secretaries of war and defense, and those of lt. gen. alvan c. gillem, jr., the chairman of the army's special personnel board that bears his name. the evans materials contain a rare collection of clippings and memorandums on integration in the armed forces; the gillem papers are particularly interesting for the summaries of testimony before the gillem board. the papers of the national association for the advancement of colored people in the manuscript division, library of congress, are useful, especially if used in conjunction with that library's arthur b. spingarn papers, in assessing the role of the civil rights leaders in bringing about black participation in world war ii. the collection of secondary materials on negroes in the armed forces in the schomburg collection, new york public library, however, is disappointing, considering the prominence of that institution. finally, the u.s. army center of military history, washington, d.c., has on file those materials collected by the author in the preparation of this volume, including not only those items cited in the footnotes, but also copies of hundreds of official documents and correspondence with various participants, together with the unique body of documents and notes collected by lee nichols in his groundbreaking research on integration. of particular importance among the documents in the center of military history are copies of many bureau of naval personnel documents, the originals of which have since been destroyed, as well as copies of the bulk of the papers produced by the fahy committee. _interviews_ (p.  ) the status of black servicemen in the integration era has attracted considerable attention among oral history enthusiasts. the author has taken advantage of this special source, but oral testimony concerning integration must be treated cautiously. in addition to the usual dangers of fallible memory that haunt all oral history interviews, the subjects of some of these interviews, it should be emphasized, were separated from the events they were recalling by a civil rights revolution that has changed fundamentally the attitudes of many people, both black and white. in some instances it is readily apparent that the recollections of persons being interviewed have been colored by the changes of the 's and 's, and while their recitation of specific events can be checked against the records, their estimates of attitudes and influences, not so easily verified, should be used cautiously. much of this danger can be avoided by a skillful interviewer with special knowledge of integration. because of the care that went into the interviews conducted in the u.s. air force oral history program, which are on file at the albert f. simpson historical research center, they are particularly dependable. this is especially true of those used in this study, for they were conducted by lt. col. alan gropman and maj. alan osur, both serious students of the subject. particular note should be made of the especially valuable interviews with former secretary of the air force eugene m. zuckert and several of the more prominent black generals. the extensive columbia university oral history collection has several interviews of special interest, in particular the very revealing interview with the national urban league's lester granger. read in conjunction with the national archives' forrestal papers, this interview is a major source for the navy's immediate postwar policy changes. similarly, the kennedy library's oral history program contains several interviews that are helpful in assessing the role of the services in the kennedy administration's civil rights program. of particular interest are the interviews with harris wofford, roy wilkins, and theodore hesburgh. the u.s. marine corps oral history program, whose interviews are on file in marine corps headquarters, and the u.s. navy oral history collection, copies of which can be found in the navy's operational archives branch, contain several interviews of special interest to researchers in racial history. mention should be made of the marine corps interviews with generals ray a. robinson and alfred g. noble and the navy's interviews with captains mildred mcafee horton and dorothy stratton, leaders of the world war ii waves and spars. finally, included in the files of the center of military history is a collection of notes taken by lee nichols, martin blumenson, and the author during their interviews with leading figures in the integration story. the nichols notes, covering the series of interviews conducted by that veteran reporter in - , include such items as summaries of conversations with harry s. truman, truman k. gibson, jr., and emmett j. scott. _printed materials_ (p.  ) many of the secondary materials found particularly helpful by the author have been cited throughout the volume, but special attention should be drawn to certain key works in several categories. in the area of official works, ulysses lee's _the employment of negro troops_ in the united states army in world war ii series (washington: government printing office, ) remains the definitive account of the negro in the world war ii army. the bureau of naval personnel's "the negro in the navy," bureau of naval personnel history of world war ii (mimeographed, , of which there is a copy in the bureau's technical library in washington), is a rare item that has assumed even greater significance with the loss of so much of the bureau's records. presented without attribution, the text paraphrases many important documents accurately. margaret l. geis's "negro personnel in the european command, january - june ," part of the occupation forces in europe series (historical division, european command, ), ronald sher's "integration of negro and white troops in the u.s. army, europe, - " (historical division, headquarters, u.s. army, europe, ), and charles g. cleaver, "personnel problems," vol. iii, pt. , of the "history of the korean war" (military history section, headquarters, far east command, ), are important secondary sources for guiding the student through a bewildering mass of materials. alan m. osur's _blacks in the army air forces during world war ii: the problem of race relations_ (washington: government printing office, ) and alan gropman's _the air force integrates, - _ (washington: government printing office, ), both published by the office of air force history, and henry i. shaw, jr., and ralph w. donnelly's _blacks in the marine corps_ (washington: government printing office, ) provided official, comprehensive surveys of their subjects. finally, there is in the files of the center of military history a copy of the transcripts of the national defense conference on negro affairs ( april ). second only to the transcripts of the fahy committee hearings in comprehensiveness on the subject of postwar racial policies, this document also provides a rare look at the attitudes of the traditional black leadership at a crucial period. as the footnotes indicate, congressional documents and newspapers were also important resources mined in the preparation of this volume. of particular interest, the center of military history has on file a special guide to some of these sources prepared by lt. col. reinhold s. schumann (usar). this guide analyzes the congressional and press reaction to the and draft laws and to the fahy and gesell committee reports. in his _blacks and the military in american history: a new perspective_ (new york: praeger, ), jack d. foner provides a fine general survey of the negro in the armed forces, including an accurate summary of the integration period. among the many specialized studies on the integration period itself, cited throughout the text, several might provide a helpful entree to a complicated subject. the standard account is richard m. dalfiume's _desegregation of the_ _united (p.  ) states armed forces: fighting on two fronts, - _ (columbia, missouri: university of missouri press, ). carefully documented and containing a very helpful bibliography, this work tends to emphasize the influence of the civil rights advocates and harry truman on the integration process. the reader will also benefit from consulting lee nichols's pioneer work, _breakthrough on the color front_ (new york: random house, ). although lacking documentation, nichols's journalistic account was devised with the help of many of the participants and is still of considerable value to the student. the reader may also want to consult richard j. stillman ii's short survey, _integration of the negro in the u.s. armed forces_ (new york: praeger, ), principally for its statistical information on the post-korean period. the role of president truman and the fahy committee in the integration of the armed forces has been treated in detail by dalfiume and by donald r. mccoy and richard t. ruetten in _quest and response: minority rights and the truman administration_ (lawrence, kansas: the university of kansas press, ). a valuable critical appraisal of the short-range response of the army to the fahy committee's work appeared in edwin w. kenworthy's "the case against army segregation," _annals of the american academy of political and social science_ (may ): - . in addition, the reader may want to consult william c. berman's _the politics of civil rights in the truman administration_ (columbus: ohio state university press, ) for a general survey of civil rights in the truman years. the expansion of the defense department's equal treatment and opportunity policy in the 's is explained by adam yarmolinsky in _the military establishment: its impacts on american society_ (new york: harper & row, ). this book is the work of a number of informed specialists sponsored by the th century fund. a general survey of president kennedy's civil rights program is presented by carl m. brauer in his _john f. kennedy and the second reconstruction_ (new york: columbia university press, ). the mcnamara era is treated in fred richard bahr's "the expanding role of the department of defense as an instrument of social change" (ph.d. dissertation, george washington university, ). concerning the rise of the civil rights movement itself, the reader would be advised to consult c. vann woodward's masterful _the strange career of jim crow_, d ed. rev. (new york: oxford university press, ), and the two volumes composed by gesell committee member benjamin muse, _ten years of prelude: the story of integration since the supreme court's decision_ (new york: the viking press, ), and _the american negro revolution: from nonviolence to black power, - _ (bloomington: university of indiana press, ). important aspects of the civil rights movement and its influence on american servicemen are discussed by jack greenberg in _race relations and american law_ (new york: columbia university press, ) and eli ginzberg, _the negro potential_ (new york: columbia university press, ). finally, many of the documents supporting the history of the integration of the armed forces, including complete transcripts of the fahy committee hearings and the conference on negro affairs, have (p.  ) been compiled by the author and bernard c. nalty in the multivolumed _blacks in the united states armed forces: basic documents_ (wilmington: scholarly resources, ). index (p.  ) aberdeen proving ground, md., . action coordinating committee to end segregation in the suburbs (access), , _n_. adler, julius ochs, . advisory committee on negro troop policies (mccloy committee), - , , - , , , . advisory commission on universal training (compton commission), . ailes, stephen, . _air force times_, . air forces second, ; third, ; fourth, ; ninth, . air training command, , . air transport command, . air transport wing, st, . airborne division, d, - , . alaskan command, integration of, . alaskan department, , . alexander, sadie t. m., , _n_. almond, lt. gen. edward m., , , - . american civil liberties union, , . american legion, . american veterans committee, , , , . anderson, robert b., - , - . andrews air force base, md., - . anti-defamation league of b'nai b'rith, , . antiaircraft artillery battalion, d (usmc), . antilles department, . arkansas a&m normal college, . armed forces, negroes in before , - . armed forces qualification test, - , , , _see also_ intelligence levels and test scores. armies first, ; sixth, ; seventh, , - , , ; eighth, - , , - , - , - . armored division, d, . armored field artillery battalion, th, . armstrong, lt. comdr. daniel, . army air forces efficiency, military, and segregation in, - , - ; enlistment practices, ; manpower shortages, black, - ; morale in, - ; officer training schools, integration of, ; officers, black, - , - ; postwar assignments, - , - , , , ; quotas, - , ; racial policies, - , - , - ; training in, , - . army forces, pacific, . army general classification test (agct), - , , _n_, - , - , - , - ; _see also_ intelligence levels and test scores. army ground forces, , ; and assignments, - , ; and postwar location of training camps, - ; and postwar use of black troops, - , . army groups, th and th, - . army service forces, ; and postwar quotas, , ; and postwar use of black troops, - , - . _army talk_, , . arnold, maj. gen. henry h., , , . assignments, air force postwar, - ; and reassignments during integration, - , . assignments, armed forces and civilian community attitudes, , - , - , - ; and embassy and special mission, , - ; and occupational distribution, - , - ; and overseas restrictions, , , - . assignments, army and fahy committee, - ; and korean war, - ; postwar, - ; in world war ii, - , - , - , - . assignments, coast guard, - . assignments, marine corps and integration order, - ; postwar, , - , - , - ; in world war ii, , - . assignments, navy postwar, - ; in world war ii, - , - , - , . attitudes, change in toward negroes, - , , . attorney general, , . availability of facilities to military personnel, the, - . bainbridge naval training center, md., , , , . baker, newton d., - . baldwin, hanson w., , . bard, ralph a., , - , . bare, maj. gen. robert o., - . barr, col. john e., - . base service squadron, th, . battle mountain, korea, . bayonne, n.j. (naval shipyard), - . bennett, l. howard, _n_, . benton, william, _n_. berthoud, d lt. kenneth h., jr., . bethune, mary mcleod, _n_. biggs air force base, texas, . billikopf, jacob, . blood banks, segregated, . blytheville, ark., . bolte, maj. gen. charles l., . bombardment group, th, - , , . bradley, general omar n., , ; and fahy committee, - , ; and a segregated army, - , - , , . branch, d lt. frederick, . bremerhaven, germany, . broad, stuart, _n_. brookley air force base, ala., . brooks, lt. gen. edward h., . brown, edgar g., . brown, ens. jessie, . brown, john nicholas, , , - , . brown, ens. wesley a., , . _brown_ v. _board of education_, , , . brownell, herbert, jr., . browning, charles, _n_. bull, maj. gen. harold r., , . buress, maj. gen. withers a., _n_. burgess, carter l., . burley, dan, _n_. burns, maj. gen. james h., . byrd, robert c., . caffey, brig. gen. benjamin f., . _calypso_, . camp barry, ill., . camp campbell, ky., . camp geiger, n.c., . camp hanford, wash., . camp lejeune, n.c., , . camp perry, va., . camp robert smalls, ill., , , . _campbell_, . career guidance program (war department), - . carey, james b., _n_. caribbean defense command, . carlton, sgt. cornelius h., . cates, general clifton b., - , - . cavalry division, d, - , _n_, , . cavalry regiments, th and th, , - , , , . cemeteries, national, - . chamberlain, col. edwin w., - . chamberlin, lt. gen. stephen j., . chamberlin board, - , , . charleston, s.c. (shipyard), , . charyk, joseph v., . _chemung_, . cherokee, charlie, . chicago _defender_, , . chicago _tribune_, . chief of staff. _see_ eisenhower, general of the army dwight d. chile, . china, , . ch'ongch'on river line, . civil rights act of , , - , , . civil rights demonstrations, participation of servicemen in, - , . civil rights legislation ( - ), , , - , , - . civil rights movement, ; and armed forces before world war ii, - ; and armed forces during world war ii, - , , , - ; and department of defense, - , - ; and eisenhower, - , ; and johnson, - , ; and kennedy, , , - , - , , , , ; and off-base discrimination, , - , - ; post-world war ii, - ; and postwar use of negroes in armed forces, - , ; prior to world war ii, - ; and roosevelt, , - ; and truman, , , - , - , _n_, . civil rights subcabinet group ( ), - . civilian aide to secretary of war for negro affairs. _see_ gibson, truman k., jr., hastie, william h.; ray, marcus h.; scott, emmett j. civilian communities. _see also_ committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces (gesell committee). and assignment of black personnel, , - , - , - ; and off-base discrimination, , , - , , - , - ; and off-base discrimination overseas, - , ; and racial incidents, , , - , . clark, general mark w., , - , . clay, lt. gen. lucius d., . clifford, clark m., - , , . colley, nathaniel s., , . collins, general j. lawton and the fahy committee, - ; and integration of the army, - , , , , - , , _n_. combat service group, d, . _command of negro troops_, - . commerce, department of, . commission of inquiry ( ), - . committee against jim crow in military service and training, , , . committee on civil rights ( ), - . committee on equal employment opportunity ( ), . committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces (gesell committee), - ; conclusions of, - , , - ; congressional opposition to, - ; and dod directive . issued, ; and final report, - ; and local commanders' responsibilities, , - , , ; and off-limits sanctions, - , - , , ; operations of, - ; reactions to, - ; recommendations of, - , . committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces (fahy committee), - , , - ; and the air force, , - , , - , - ; and army assignments, - ; and army opposition to recommendations, - ; and army proposals and counterproposals, - ; and army quotas, , - , - ; assessment of, - ; and department of defense racial policy, - ; and enlistment standards, - ; and initial recommendations, - ; and military efficiency in the army, - , , ; and the navy, , - , , - ; purpose of, - . committee for negro participation in the national defense program ( ), . committee on negro personnel (navy), - , . community facilities, integrated, availability of for servicemen, - . composite group, th, , . composite units in the army, - ; in the marine corps, - , . congress of racial equality (core), , , . construction battalion, th, . contract compliance program, _n_. cooke, brig. gen. elliot d., . crabb, brig. gen. jarred v., . craig, maj. gen. lewis a., - . craig air force base, ala., , . crime and disease rates, - , , . _crisis, the_, , , , . daniels, jonathan, , . darden, colgate, . darden, capt. thomas f., . davenport, roy k., , , - , , - , , - , _n_, . davis, col. benjamin o., jr., , - , , , , . davis, brig. gen. benjamin o., sr., , , , , , . davis, dowdal h., _n_, . davis, john w., _n_. dawson, donald s., - , . dawson william l., . defense, department of, - ; and basic regulations on equal opportunity, , ; and civil rights, - , - ; and civilian communities, , - , , - , - ; and discrimination in the services, 's, - , - , ; and discrimination within the services, 's, - ; and equal opportunity directive, , - , - , , - ; and field of community race relations, - ; and integration of dependents' schools, - , - , ; and off-base discrimination, - , - , - ; and off-base housing, - , - , , - , ; and off-limits sanctions, - , - , - , - , , - , , ; and organization of a civil rights office, - ; and overseas assignments, - ; and racial designations, - , - ; and voluntary compliance programs, - , - , - , - , . _see also_ committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces (gesell committee); committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces (fahy committee). defense appropriations act, . defense battalions st (composite), , - ; d, - , . denfeld, admiral louis e., - . depot companies d medium ; th and th, . dern, george h., . desegregation. _see_ integration _of the four services_. detroit _free press_, - . devers, general jacob l., , , - . devoe, lt. (jg.) edith, . devoto, bernard, - . dewey, thomas e., , . dickey, john s., _n_. diggs, charles c., jr., , - , , . dillon, lt. comdr. charles e., . dillon, douglas, . discipline. _see_ crime and disease rates. discrimination, racial. _see also_ civilian communities; committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces (gesell committee); integration _of the four services_; racial policies _of the four services_. and complaints of in the 's, - , , - , , , - ; and u.s. commission on civil rights study of ( ), - . disease rates. _see_ crime and disease rates. _district of columbia_ v. _john r. thompson co._, . divine, maj. gen. john m., _n_. divisions. _see_ airborne division, d; armored division, d; cavalry division, d; infantry divisions; marine divisions; national guard divisions, th and th. dod directive . , - , - , , - . donahue, alphonsus j., . double v campaign, , , . draper, william h., jr., . drew, charles r., . dubois, william e. b., , . dutton, frederick g., , , . eaker, lt. gen. ira c., - , . earle naval ammunition depot, n.j., , - . early, stephen, . eberstadt, ferdinand, . _ebony_, , . eddy, lt. gen. manton s., . edgewood arsenal, md., . education program, eucom, - . educational backgrounds, - , , , , - , - . edwards, daniel k., . edwards, lt. gen. idwal h. and continued segregation in the air force, - ; and integration plan of , - , , - , ; and overseas restrictions, ; and army postwar racial policy, , . efficiency, military, and segregation, , , , - ; in the air force, , - , - ; in the army, , , - , - , , - , - , ; in the marine corps, , - , - ; in the navy, - , - , - . eisenhower, general of the army dwight d., , , ; and the army's racial policy, - , , ; and civil rights movement, - , ; and federal intervention, , , ; and gillem board report, ; and integration of dependents' schools, - , , - ; and negro infantry training, - . ellender, allen j., . engineer battalion, th, , . engineer combat company, th, . engineers, chief of, - . eniwetok, . enlistment in armed forces, 's, and black indifference, - . enlistment practices in the air force, , , - ; in the army, - , , , - , - , , , - ; in the coast guard, , - ; in the marine corps, - , , - ; in the navy, - , - , , , - , - , - . enlistment standards and the fahy committee, - ; and interservice controversy over in , - ; and qualitative distribution program, - , - . equal opportunity in the 's. _see also_ executive order . in the air force, , ; in the armed forces; assessments of, - , - ; and dod directive . , - , - , , - ; in the army, - ; and executive order , - , ; in the marine corps, ; in the navy, - . ernst, morris l., _n_. ethiopia and the assignment of american servicemen, - . ethridge, mark, - . european command, , , , _n_; and education program, - ; and integration of, - . evans, james c. and dod racial policies, , , - , , , _n_; and foreign assignment of negroes, ; and integration of naval shipyards, , ; and new civil rights office, ; and off-base discrimination, - , , - ; and racial designations, , - . evans, joseph, . ewing, oscar, - , . executive order , . executive order , , - , ; and immediate effect on the air force, - ; and immediate effect on the army, - ; and immediate effect on the marine corps, - ; and immediate effect on the navy, - ; limitations on, - ; public reactions to, - . executive order , - , . executive order , , . fahy, charles, , - , - , - , - , , _n_, . fahy committee. _see_ committee on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces (fahy committee). fair employment practices commission, , - , . fairchild, general muir s., . faix, capt. thomas l., . falgout, . far east command, , , , , - . farmer, james, . fay, paul b., jr., , - , - . fechteler, rear adm. william m., . federal housing authority, - , , . ferguson, homer, . fighter group, d, , . fighter squadron, th, , . fighter wing, d, - , - , . finkle, lee, . finletter, thomas k., - . finucane, charles c., . fish, hamilton, - . fitt, alfred b. and assignments, - ; and dependents' schools, - ; and effort to attract black officer candidates, - ; as first civil rights deputy, _n_, , - , - , _n_, , ; and gesell committee, - ; and racial designations, - ; and voluntary action programs, - , - , . foner, jack, . forrestal, james v., , , , ; and changes in navy's policy, - , - , - , , - , , - , , - ; and executive order , , ; and fahy committee, - , , ; and integration approach as secretary of defense, , - , - , , - , - , , ; and postwar policy aims, - , , , - . fort belvoir, va., , . fort benning, ga., , , . fort bliss, tex., . fort bragg, n. c., . fort dix, n. j., , - , - . fort george g. meade, md., , . fort holabird, md., . fort hood, tex., - . fort jackson, s. c., - , . fort knox, ky., , , , . fort leavenworth, kans., - . fort lee, va., , . fort lewis, wash., . fort mifflin, pa., , . fort ord, calif., - , . fort snelling national cemetery, minn., . fortas, abe, . fowler, maj. james d., - , . francis, h. minton, _n_. _freedom to serve_, , . freeman, douglas southall, . freeman, general paul, . freeman field, ind., , , . fulbright, j. william, . garrison, lloyd k., . garvey, marcus, . german army and segregated units, _n_. gesell, gerhard a., - , - , , - , , . gesell committee. _see_ committee on equality of opportunity in the armed forces (gesell committee). gibson, truman k., jr., , , , - , - , - , , , - , _n_, , , _n_. gillem, lt. gen. alvan c., jr., - , . gillem board, - , - , - , , , ; and attitudes toward new policy, - ; conclusions and recommendations of, - , - , - , , ; and reactions to recommendations, - . gilliam, jerry, . gillmor, reginald e., . gilpatric, roswell l., , - , , , , _n_. ginzberg, eli, - . gittelsohn, roland b., _n_. godman field, ky., , . goldwater, barry m., . goode, james p., , . grafenwohr training center, germany, . graham, annie n., . graham, frank p., _n_, . granger, lester b., , , , , - , ; and fahy committee, - , ; and inspection of black units, - ; and racial problems of department of defense, - , , , , , - ; and recommendations to navy department, - , - , - , - , ; and reforms in steward's branch, , - , ; and shortage of black officers, , . gravely, lt. comdr. samuel l., jr., , _n_, . gray, gordon and fahy committee, , - , - , - ; and integration of the army, - . great britain, - . great falls air force base, mont., . great lakes training center, ill., , , , , . greenland, , . gregg, bishop j. w., _n_. gross, h. r., . gruenther, general alfred m., . guam and black marines at, , , - , ; and race riot at, - . _guide to the command of negro naval personnel_, - . haas, francis j., _n_. hague, rear adm. w. mcl., . haislip, general wade h., - , , . halaby, najeeb, - . hall, lt. gen. charles p., - , . hall, durward g., . hampton institute, va., - . handy, general thomas t., , - . hannah, john a., - , , , . harper, robert, . _harper_ v. _virginia board of elections_, . hastie, william h., - , , , , - , , , , _n_. havenner, franck r., . hawaii, , . hayes, arthur garfield, . healey, capt. michael, _n_. health, education, and welfare, department of, , , - . hebert, f. edward, . hector, louis, . heinz, comdr. luther c., . hershey, maj. gen. lewis b., , , . hesburgh, father theodore, . hewes, laurence i., iii, , . hill, maj. gen. jim dan, - . hill, lister, , . hill, t. arnold, , . hillenkoetter, capt. roscoe h., . hingham, mass., - . hobby, oveta culp, - . hodes, maj. gen. henry i., - . holcomb, maj. gen. thomas, , - , - . holifield, chet, . holloway, vice adm. james l., jr., - . holloway program, . holmes, john haynes, . hope, lt. comdr. edward, . _hoquim_, - . housing, off-base, - , , , , ; and department of defense, - , , - , , - , ; in washington, d.c. area, - . houston, charles h., , _n_. huebner, lt. gen. clarence r., - , , - . huff, sgt. maj. edgar r., . hull, lt. gen. john e., . humphrey, hubert h., , , . hunter college naval training school, n.y., . iceland, , , - . infantry battalions d of th infantry, ; d of th infantry, ; th, ; th and st (separate), _n_. infantry divisions st, , ; d, ; d, ; th, ; th, ; th, ; th, ; th, ; d, , , , , , , - , - , ; d, , , , - , . infantry regiments th, ; th, ; th, , , , , - , - , ; th, , , , ; th, ; th, ; th, ; th, ; th, ; th, . installation group, d, . integration of the air force directive for ( ), - ; and the fahy committee, , ; and local commanders' responsibilities, - ; plan for in , - , , - ; and reassignment of black airmen, - , ; and screening at lockbourne field, - ; and social situations, - ; success of, - , - . integration of the army and continental army commands, - ; in the eighth army, - ; and the european command, - ; and military efficiency, - ; in officer training schools, - , ; and performance of th infantry regiment, - ; in platoons, - ; and review of racial policy ( ), - ; and social situations, , , ; success of, - , - ; and training units, - . integration of the coast guard, - . integration of the marine corps and assignments of negroes, - ; and black reservists, - ; and the korean war, - , ; new racial policy for ( ), - ; and recruit training, - ; and the steward's branch, - . integration of the navy in the fleet, - , - , - , - ; new plan for in , - ; and recruitment of negroes, - ; and shipyards, - ; and the steward's branch, - . intelligence levels and test scores, , , - , , - , , , - , - , - , , - . interstate commerce commission, , , . investigations on conduct of black soldiers, - . jackson, stephen s., , . jacobs, rear adm. randall, - , , , . james, lt. gen. daniel (chappie), jr., . james connally air force base, tex., . javits, jacob k., - , . jenkins, ens. joseph c., . johnson, col. campbell c., , . johnson, earl d., , , , - . johnson, john h., _n_. johnson, louis a. and fahy committee, , - , - , - , , ; as secretary of defense, - , - , - , . johnson, lyndon b., and civil rights legislation, - , ; and gesell committee, , . johnson, mordecai, , , _n_. jones, col. richard l., . _jones_ v. _mayer_, . jordan, robert e., iii, . justice, department of, , , . katzenbach, nicholas b., . kean, maj. gen. william b., - . keeler, leonard, . kelly field, tex., . kennedy, john f. and civil rights, , , - , - , , ; and gesell committee, , , ; and training programs, . kennedy, robert f., , , - , , . kenworthy, edwin w., - , , , , - , - , , . kerner commission, . key west, fla., , , . kilgore, harley m., , _n_. kimball dan a., , , , , - , . king, admiral ernest j., _n_, , , - , - , , , . king, martin luther, jr., - , . kitzingen air base, germany, - , . knowland, william f., . knox, frank, _n_, ; and early views on integration, - , - , ; and induction of negroes into the navy, - , - , - , - ; and the marine corps, - . korean war, - , , - , , . korth, fred, - , , - . krock, arthur, . kuter, maj. gen. laurence s., . labrador, . lafollette, robert m., jr., . lamb, ann e., . langer, william, . lanham, brig. gen. charles t., - , . lautier, louis r., , _n_. lee, ens. john, . lee, lt. gen. john c. h., - , . lee, ulysses, , . legal assistance, , , , . legette, col. curtis w., . lehavre, france, . lehman, herbert h., _n_, . leva, marx, , , , , , , - . lewis, anthony, . lewis, fulton, jr., . lewis, ira f., . lightship no. , . little rock, ark., , . little rock, air force base, ark., - . local commanders, air force, - , . local commanders, armed forces and equal opportunity matters, , - , - , - , , ; and gesell committee's recommendations, - , , , ; and integration of off-base schools, - ; and local community attitudes, - ; and off-base housing, - . local commanders, army and discipline, ; and off-base discrimination, ; and on-base discrimination, , , - . local commanders, navy, . lockbourne field, ohio, , , - , , , - , - . lodge, henry cabot, . logan, rayford w., . long, john d., _n_. long island national cemetery, . louis, joe, , . lovett, robert a., , . luckman, charles, _n_, , _n_. mcafee, capt. mildred h., - . mcalester naval ammunition depot, okla., , , . macarthur, general douglas, , , , , . mcauliffe, maj. gen. anthony c., - , , , - , - , . mccloy, john j., , , , and advisory committee on negro troop policies, - , - , , - ; and postwar use of black troops, - , , , , _n_, - , , . mcconnaughy, james l., , . mccrea, vice adm. john l., . macdill airfield, fla., , . mcfayden, brig. gen. b. m., . mcgill, ralph, . mcgowan, maj. gen. d. w., . mcgrath, earl j., . mcgrath, howard j., . mackay, cliff w., _n_. mcmahon, brian, . mcnair, lt. gen. lesley j., . mcnamara, robert s., , , , ; and civil rights act of , - ; and equal opportunity directive ( ), - , , - ; and equal treatment and opportunity, , - ; and gesell committee, , - ; and the national guard, , ; and off-base housing, , , - ; and off-limits sanctions, - , , , - ; and organization of civil rights apparatus, - , , ; and racial reform directives, , , - ; and voluntary action programs, , . mcnarney, general joseph t., . mcnutt, paul v., , - . macy, john w., jr., . manhattan beach training station, n. y., - , - . manpower shortages, black in the air force, , - ; in the army, - , , - ; in the navy, , - , . march, general peyton c., . march on washington movement, . mare island, calif., . marine air group, , . marine air wing, st, . marine barracks, dahlgren, va., . marine barracks, washington, d.c., . marine divisions st, - ; d, . marine regiments th, ; th, - . maris, maj. gen. ward s., . marr, lt. col. jack f., - , _n_, , . marshall, burke, , , . marshall, general george c., , , ; and integration, - , , , , ; as secretary of defense, , - , , , , . marshall, s. l. a., . marshall, thurgood, , , , - , . martin, louis, _n_. _mason_, - , . matthews, francis p., _n_, , - . maxwell air force base, ala., , , . maxwell field, ala., . mays, benjamin e., _n_. meader, george, . medals of honor, . mediterranean theater, , . meetings, segregated, - . miami beach, fla., , , . _midway_, . miller, donald l., _n_. miller, dorie (doris), , _n_. miller, lt. col. francis p., . miller, loren, _n_. minneapolis _spokesman_, . mississippi summer project, - . mitchell, clarence, , - , , - , . mobilization plans, - , - , , . montford point, n. c., , - , - , , , . montgomery, ala., . morale in the air force, , - ; in the armed forces, , , ; in the army, , - , - , ; in the marine corps, , , - ; in the navy, , - . _morgan_ v. _virginia_, . morris, thomas d., , . morse, wayne, , . morse, brig. gen. winslow c., . moskowitz, jack, _n_. multer, abraham j., , . muse, benjamin, , , , . myrdal, gunnar, , , . nash, philleo, - , , , . national association for the advancement of colored people (naacp) and the army, , , , , ; and enlistment quotas, ; and integration in the armed forces, , - , , , ; and the marine corps, ; and the navy, , ; and off-limits sanctions, ; and racial violence, ; and segregated dependents' schools, ; and segregated national cemeteries, . national defense act of , , . national defense conference on negro affairs ( ), , , - , . national emergency committee against mob violence ( ), . national guard continued segregation in, - , - ; and executive order , - ; integration of, - . national guard divisions, th and th, , - . national negro congress, , . national negro publishers association, . national security act of , - . national urban league, , , , , , . naval reserve officers' training corps, - , - . navy circular letter - , - . nelson, lt. dennis d., , , , , ; and recruitment of officer candidates, , , ; and reform of steward's branch, - , . new orleans, la., . new orleans naval air station, la., . new york _times_, , , . newspapers. _see_ press, negro; _publications by name_. nichols, lee, - , - . niles, david k., - , , - , - . nimitz, admiral chester w., , - . nkrumah, kwame, . noble, maj. gen. alfred h., . norfolk, va., , , , , . norfolk _journal and guide_, , . _northland_, . nugent, maj. gen. richard e., - , . nunn, william g., _n_. nurse corps, u.s. navy, , - , , - . occupational distribution of assignments, - , - . occupational specialties, , - , , - , , - , - . off-base equal opportunity inventories, - , . off-limits sanctions by department of defense and housing, , - , , ; and question of using, - ; recommended by gesell committee, - , - , , ; and requested by naacp, . office of war information, . officer training schools, integration of in the air force, ; in the army, , - ; in the marine corps, ; in the navy, , . officers, black in the air force, , - , , ; in the armed forces, - ; in the army, , - , - , , - , ; in the coast guard, , - ; in the marine corps, , - , , - ; in the navy, - , - , - , , - , - , . officers, white, attitudes of in the army, , - ; in the navy, - , - . ohly, john h., , . oir notice cp ( ), - . okinawa base command, . old, maj. gen. william d., , . o'meara, joseph, . operations research office, - . _opportunity_, . osthagen, clarence h., . overhead spaces in the air force, ; in the army, , - . overseas employment of black servicemen by the army, - ; and the gesell committee, - ; by the marine corps, - ; restrictions on, , , - . overton, john h., . oxford, miss., , . pace, frank, jr., , , _n_, , - , . padover, saul k., . palmer, dwight, . panama canal zone, , , . parachute battalion, th, - . parks, maj. gen. floyd l., - . parks, rosa, , . parris island, s. c., . parrish, col. noel f., , . passman, otto e., . pastore, john, _n_. patch, lt. gen. alexander m., . patterson, robert p., - , , , ; and conduct of black troops in europe, - ; and gillem board, , - , , ; and quotas, , - , - ; sued for violation of selective service act, , . patuxent river naval air station, md., . paul, norman s. and civil rights legislation, , - ; and off-base discrimination, , - ; and organization of civil rights apparatus, - , , . paul, maj. gen. willard s., - , , ; and assignment of black personnel, - , , - ; and composite units, - ; and continued segregation, , ; and expansion of school quotas, - ; and national guard integration, ; and postwar quotas, - , , - , - ; and shortage of black officers, - . paxton, brig. gen. alexander g., . pc , . pea island station, n.c., , . pearl harbor, hawaii, . pensacola naval air station, fla., , - . personnel policy board, dod, , ; and fahy committee, - , , ; and facial designations, - , . petsons, wilton b., . petersen, d lt. frank e., jr., . petersen, howard c., - , ; and postwar quotas, , ; and postwar racial reforms, - , . philadelphia, miss., . philadelphia depot of supplies, pa., . pick, maj. gen. lewis a., . pinchot, gifford, . pine bluff arsenal, ark., . pittsburgh _courier_, , , , , , , , . platoons, integration of, - . _plessy_ v. _ferguson_, . poletti, charles, . port chicago, calif., . port hueneme, calif., . powell, adam clayton, and discrimination in the services, , , - , , , , , , . prairie view a&m, tex., . press, negro. _see also by name of publication._ and equal treatment in the armed forces, , - , , - , , , - , , ; and executive order , , , . price, maj. gen. charles f. b., - . project clear, , , . promotions in the air force, ; in the armed forces, - ; in the army, , ; in the coast guard, ; in the marine corps, , - ; in the navy, , , - . provisional marine brigade, st, . public laws and , - . puner, morton, . pursuit squadron, th. _see_ fighter squadron, th. qualitative distribution of military manpower program, - , - . quartermaster general, , . quesada, lt. gen. elwood r., . quotas, air force, - . quotas, army, - , , _n_, , , - ; assessments of, - , - ; and enlistment practices, - , - , ; and expansion of for schools, - ; and the fahy committee, , - , - ; and postwar opposition to, - , ; and qualitative balance, - . quotas, coast guard, . quotas, marine corps postwar, , , - ; and postwar recruitment efforts, - ; in world war ii, . quotas, navy, - . rabb, maxwell, m., , , . racial designations, , - , - . racial incidents, , ; in the air force, ; in the army, - , , , - ; in the marine corps, - , ; in the navy, , - , - . racial policies, air force - , - ; and immediate effect of executive order , - ; and military traditions, ; and need for change of, - . racial policies, army and arguments for continued segregation, - ; and an assessment of segregation in , - ; and enlisted opinions on integration, - ; and immediate effect of executive order , - ; and immediate postwar. _see_ gillem board; and military traditions, , - ; postwar, - ; and postwar opposition to quotas, - , ; and postwar performance evaluation of black troops, - ; and reforms in , - ; and search for a new postwar policy, - , - , ; in world war ii, - , , - . racial policies, coast guard and limited integration, - ; pre-world war ii experience, - ; in world war ii, - . racial policies, marine corps and immediate effect of executive order , - ; immediate postwar, - , - , - ; and military traditions, , , , , ; and search for a postwar policy, - ; and steps toward integration, - ; in world war ii, - . racial policies, navy between world wars, ; and blood processing, _n_; and commissioning of black officers, - ; and development of a wartime policy, - ; and employment of black recruits, - ; and failure to attract negroes, - , - , - , , - ; and immediate effect of executive order , - ; and immediate postwar, - ; and military traditions, - , , ; and reforms under forrestal, - , - ; and search for a postwar policy, - , - ; and special programs unit reforms, - , - , - . racial policies, and social change in the armed forces, - , , , , , , , ; and congress, - , - , - . randolph, a. philip and civil rights movement, ; and executive order , , ; and integration of the armed forces, - , - , , , ; and proposed draft bill, , - , . randolph field, tex., , . ray, (lt. col.) marcus h., , , , , _n_; and eucom education program, , ; and postwar manpower needs, - , ; and postwar racial reforms, - , , ; and survey of black soldiers in europe, - . recreational facilities, - , - , , - . recruitment. _see_ enlistment practices. red cross, . reddick, l. d., , . reeb, james, . reenlistment. _see_ enlistment practices. reese air force base, tex., . reeves, frank d., . regimental combat team, th, , , . reid, thomas r., - , - . render, frank w., ii, _n_. reserve officers' training corps, , - . reserves, army, integration of, - . reuther, walter p., , . reynolds, grant, , , . reynolds, hobson, e., _n_. ribicoff, abraham, . richardson, elliot, c., . ridgway, general matthew b., , - , . riley, capt. herbert d., . rivers, l. mendel, , . robinson, brig. gen. ray a., , , . roosevelt, eleanor, , , , _n_, . roosevelt, franklin d., , ; and civil rights, ; and integration in the army, - , - ; and integration in the navy, - , - , , , , . roosevelt, franklin d., jr., _n_. roosevelt, james, . rosenberg, anna m., - , , - , , - , . rowan, carl t., _n_. royall, kenneth c., , , ; and enlistment standards, ; and executive order , - ; and the fahy committee, - , ; and further integration in the army, - ; and integration experiments, - ; and integration of reserve components, - ; and shortage of black officers, - . rudder, d lt. john e., - . runge, carlisle p. and the national guard, - ; and off-base discrimination, , _n_, , - ; and racial reform directives, - , . rusk, dean, , . russell, ens. harvey c., . russell, richard b., , - , - . sabath, adolph j., . st. julien's creek, va., . saipan, - , . saltonstall, leverett, . samoa, . samuels, lt. (jg.) clarence, . san antonio, tex., . sargent, lt. comdr. christopher s., , . schmidt, maj. gen. harry, - . schneider, j. thomas, . schools, army, and quotas, - . schools, dependents' and impact aid legislation, - ; off-base, , - , - , ; on-post, . schuyler, george s., , . scotia, n. y., . scott, emmett, j., , . _sea cloud_, - . secretary of the air force. _see_ finletter, thomas k.; symington, w. stuart. secretary of the army. _see_ gray, gordon; pace, frank, jr.; royall, kenneth c.; stevens, robert t. secretary of defense. _see_ clifford, clark m.; forrestal, james v.; johnson, louis a.; lovett, robert a.; mcnamara, robert s.; marshall, general george c.; wilson, charles e. secretary of the navy. _see_ anderson, robert b.; forrestal, james v.; kimball dan a.; knox, frank; matthews, francis p.; sullivan, john l. secretary of war. _see_ patterson, robert p.; royall, kenneth c.; stimson, henry l. segregation. _see_ discrimination, racial. selective service act of , - , , , , . selective service act of , - , - , , , . selective service system, , ; and quotas, - , ; and racial designations, , - . selfridge field, mich., . selma, ala., , - . sengstacke, john h., , . "services and their relations with the community, the," . sexton, vice adm. walton r., - . shaw, bernard, . shaw air force base, s. c., . sherrill, henry knox, _n_. shipyards, naval, integration of, - . shishkin, boris, _n_. shulman, stephen n., _n_, - . signal construction detachment, th, . skinner, lt. comdr. carlton, - . smedberg, vice adm. william r., . smith, lt. gen. oliver p., , . smith, lt. gen. walter bedell, . smith college, mass., . smothers, curtis r., _n_. snyder, rear adm. charles p., - . sollat, ralph p., . somervell, general brehon b., - . sommers, lt. col. davidson, . south boston, mass., . southern christian leadership council, . spaatz, general carl and assignments, - , ; and postwar quotas, , - . spars, , . special training and enlistment program (step), . _spencer_, . spencer, comdr. lyndon, . sprague, rear adm. thomas l., - , - . stanley, frank l., _n_. state, department of, - , . stennis, john, - . stevens, robert t., . stevenson, adlai e., , - . stevenson, william e., . steward's branch coast guard, , - ; marine corps, - , - , - , , - ; navy, , , , , - , - , - . stewart, tenn., . stickney, capt. fred, . stimson, henry l., - , - , , , , , , , . strategic air command, . strength ratios, air force, , _n_, , . strength ratios, armed forces, - , . strength ratios, army, , ; - , - , - , ; in korean war, , , - ; postwar overseas, . strength ratios, coast guard, - , . strength ratios, marine corps postwar, , , , ; in world war ii, - , . strength ratios, navy in , ; - , , , , , , ; - , , - . student nonviolent coordinating committee (sncc), . sullivan, john l., , , , , . surveys on army segregation ( - ), ; and enlisted opinion on segregation, - ; and harris on open housing, ; and hodes on overhead spaces, - ; on integration of platoons, - ; by u.s. commission on civil rights, - ; of washington, d. c. housing, . _sweetgum_, . swing, lt. gen. joseph m., . symington, w. stuart, - , , , , ; and executive order , - , ; and the fahy committee, , ; and integration plan of , - , , , . tactical air command, , , - . taft, robert a., . talbott, harold e., , . "talented tenth," , . talmadge, herman e., . tank battalions th, ; th and th, . taylor, maj. gen. maxwell d., , , . thomas, charles s., . thomas, lt. gen. gerald c., - , - , - , , . thompson, pfc. william, . thurmond, strom, . tiana beach, n.y., . tilly, dorothy, _n_. tobias, channing h., , , _n_. townsend, willard, _n_. training in the air force, - , - , ; in the armed forces, - ; in the army, , - , - , - ; in the coast guard, - ; in the marine corps, , - ; in the navy, - , , , , - , , . training camps, postwar location of, - . transportation, chief of, . transportation facilities, , , . trieste, . trinidad base command, , . troop carrier command, i, . truman, harry s. and civil rights, , , - , - , _n_, ; and executive order , , - , , , , , ; and the fahy committee, - , , - , ; and segregation in the services, , . truscott, lt. gen. lucian k., jr., . turkey, . tuskegee, ala., - , - , . united services organization, - . units, attached v. assigned, - . universal military training, . u.s. coast guard academy, . u.s. commission on civil rights, , , , , , ; and civil rights act of , , ; and study of racial discrimination ( ), - , , , . u.s. commissioner of education, - , . u.s. congress and the armed forces, , - , - , , - , - , , , , ; and civil rights legislation, , , - , ; and senate special investigations committee, - . u.s. military academy, . u.s. office of education, - . u.s. supreme court, , , , - , , . _utilization of negro manpower in the army_, . v- program, - , , . vance, cyrus r., , _n_, , , - . vandegrift, general alexander, , - , , , - . vandenberg, general hoyt s., , , , , , . vanness, lt. comdr. donald o., . vanvoorst, col. m., _n_. venereal disease rates, - , . vinson, carl, , , . voluntary compliance programs, - , - , - , , . votes, black, , ; and election, , , , ; legislation for, , - . voting rights act of , . waac's, , , . waesche, rear adm. russell r., , . wagner, robert f., . walker, addison, - . walker, lt. gen. walton h., . wallace, henry a., , . war department circular no. , . war department circular no. ; and gillem board report, , , , , , ; and provisions of, , , - , . war department pamphlet no. - , . war manpower commission, . warnock, brig. gen. aln d., . washington, booker t., . washington, d. c., and off-base housing, - , . washington _post_, , . watson, col. edwin m., . watts, calif., . waves, , , - , - , . weaver, george l. p., _n_. webb, james e., . wesley, carter, _n_. white, lee c., - , , , . white, walter f., , , ; and civil rights movement, , _n_, , - , ; and eucom's training program, _n_; and integration of the armed forces, , - , , , , , , , , . whiting, capt. kenneth, . wilkins, roy, , , _n_, , . willkie, wendell l., , . wilson, charles e. (secretary of defense), , - , , - . wilson, charles e., , . wilson, maj. gen. winston p., . winstead, arthur a., , , . wofford, harris l., - , , , - . women, black in the marine corps women's reserve, , ; in the nurse corps, u.s. navy, , - , , - ; in the waac's, , , ; in the waves, , , - , - , - . women's army auxiliary corps (waac). _see_ waac's. women's army corps (wac). _see_ waac's. women's reserve, u.s. marine corps, , . wood, capt. hunter, jr., . woodard, sgt. issac, jr., . woods, col. samuel a., jr., . woodward, c. vann, - . wright field, ohio, . yarmolinsky, adam and civil rights, , _n_, , , ; and gesell committee, - , , - ; and need for a new dod racial policy, , - . yokohama base command, . young, p. b., jr., _n_. young, thomas w., _n_. young, whitney m., jr., , , . youngdahl, luther w., . zuckert, eugene m., , , ; and air force integration plans, - , , - , ; and civilian communities, , ; and the fahy committee, , , ; and local commanders, , . zundel, brig. gen. edwin a., . u.s. government printing office: - - none the colored regulars in the united states army with a sketch of the history of the colored american, and an account of his services in the wars of the country, from the period of the revolutionary war to . introductory letter from lieutenant-general nelson a. miles commanding the army of the united states. * * * * * by chaplain t.g. steward, d.d., twenty-fifth u.s. infantry. philadelphia a.m.e. book concern, pine street. [illustration: chaplain t.g. steward, d.d.] table of contents. introductory. chapter i.--sketch of social history. the importation of the africans. character of the colored population in . colored population in british west indian possessions. free colored people of the south. free colored people of the north. notes. chapter ii.--the american negro and the military spirit. early literature of negro soldiers. negro soldiers in the war of the revolution. the war of . negro insurrections. negro troops in the civil war. notes. chapter iii.--the black regulars of the army of invasion in the spanish war. organization of negro regiments in the regular army. first movement in the war. chickamauga and tampa. notes. chapter iv.--brief sketch of spanish history. chapter v.--passage, landing, and first battle in cuba. the tenth cavalry at guasimas. the "rescue of the rough riders." was there an ambush? notes. chapter vi.--the battle of el caney. the capture of the stone fort by the twenty-fifth infantry. chapter vii.--san juan. cavalry division: the ninth and tenth regiments. kent's division: the twenty-fourth infantry. forming under fire. a gallant charge. chapter viii.--san juan (continued). kent's division. the twenty-fourth infantry. forming under fire. a gallant charge. chapter ix.--the surrender and afterwards. in the trenches. the twenty-fourth in the fever camp. are negro soldiers immune? camp wikoff. chapter x.--review and reflections. gallantry of the black regulars. diary of sergeant major e.l. baker, tenth cavalry. chapter xi.--the colored volunteers. the ninth ohio battalion. eighth illinois. twenty-third kansas. third north carolina. sixth virginia. third alabama. the immunes. chapter xii.--colored officers. by captain frank r. steward, a.b., ll.b., harvard, th u. s. volunteer infantry. appendix. preface. the material out of which the story of the colored regulars has been constructed has been collected with great pains, and upon it has been expended a serious amount of labor and care. all the movements of the cuban campaign, and particularly of the battles, have been carefully studied by the aid of official reports, and conversations and correspondence with those who participated in them. the work has been performed with an earnest desire to obtain and present the truth, hoping that the reader will be inspired by it to a more profound respect for the brave and skilled black men who passed through that severe baptism of fire and suffering, contributing their full share to their country's honor. it is also becoming in this place to mention with gratitude the encouragement given by the war department both in granting me the time in which to do the work, and also in supplying me with documents and furnishing other facilities. by this enlightened course on the part of the department great aid has been given to historical science, and, incidentally, very important service rendered to the cause of freedom and humanity. a struggling people has been helped and further glory reflected upon the government. the president, himself, has manifested a kindly interest in the work, and has wished that the story of the black soldiers should be told to the world. the interest of the commanding general of the army is shown in his letter. thus encouraged from official sources and receiving the most hearty words of cheer from friends, of whom none has been more potent or more earnest than bishop b.w. arnett, d.d., of the african m.e. church, i have, after five months of severe labor, about completed my task, so far as i find it in my power to complete it; and trusting that the majesty and interest of the story itself will atone for any defects in the style of the narration, the volume is now offered to a sympathetic public, affectionately dedicated to the men whose heroic services have furnished the theme for my pen. t.g. steward. wilberforce, ohio, september, . letter from general miles. headquarters of the army, washington, august , . rev. t.g. steward, chaplain th infantry, wilberforce, ohio. dear sir:--your letter of the th ultimo was duly received, but my time has been so much engrossed with official duties, requiring my presence part of the time out of the city, that it has not been practicable to comply with your request earlier; and even now i can only reply very briefly. you will remember that my acquaintance with negro character commenced during the civil war. the colored race then presented itself to me in the character of numerous contrabands of war, and as a people who, individually, yearned for the light and life of liberty. ages of slavery had reduced them to the lowest ebb of manhood. from that degree of degradation i have been an interested spectator of the marvelously rapid evolution of the down-trodden race. from the commencement of this evolution to the present time i have been more or less in a position to closely observe their progress. at the close of the war i was in command of one of the very important military districts of the south, and my concern for the welfare of all the people of that district, not excluding the people of color, you will find evidenced in the measures taken by me, more especially in regard to educational matters, at that time. the first regiment which i commanded on entering the regular army of the united states at the close of the war was made up of colored troops. that regiment--the th infantry--achieved a reputation for military conduct which forms a record that may be favorably compared with the best regiments in the service. then, again, refer to my general order no. , issued after the fall of santiago, and you will see that recognition is not grudgingly given to the troops who heroically fought there, whether of american, of african, or of latin descent. if so early in the second generation of the existence of the race in the glorious light of liberty it produces such orators as douglas, such educators as booker t. washington, such divines as the afro-american bishops, what may we not expect of the race when it shall have experienced as many generations of growth and development as the anglo-saxons who now dominate the thought, the inventive genius, the military prowess, and the commercial enterprise of the world! very truly yours, nelson a. miles. [illustration: lieutenant-general nelson a. miles.] headquarters of the army, siboney, cuba, july , . general field orders no. . the gratifying success of the american arms at santiago de cuba and some features of a professional character both important and instructive, are hereby announced to the army. the declaration of war found our country with a small army scattered over a vast territory. the troops composing this army were speedily mobilized at tampa, fla. before it was possible to properly equip a volunteer force, strong appeals for aid came from the navy, which had inclosed in the harbor of santiago de cuba an important part of the spanish fleet. at that time the only efficient fighting force available was the united states army, and in order to organize a command of sufficient strength, the cavalry had to be sent dismounted to santiago de cuba with the infantry and artillery. the expedition thus formed was placed under command of major-general shafter. notwithstanding the limited time to equip and organize an expedition of this character, there was never displayed a nobler spirit of patriotism and fortitude on the part of officers and men going forth to mantain the honor of their country. after encountering the vicissitudes of an ocean voyage, they were obliged to disembark on a foreign shore and immediately engage in an aggressive campaign. under drenching storms, intense and prostrating heat, within a fever-afflicted district, with little comfort or rest, either by day or night, they pursued their purpose of finding and conquering the enemy. many of them, trained in the severe experience of the great war, and in frequent campaigns on the western plains, officers and men alike exhibited a great skill, fortitude, and tenacity, with results which have added a new chapter of glory to their country's history. even when their own generals in several cases were temporarily disabled, the troops fought on with the same heroic spirit until success was finally achieved. in many instances the officers placed themselves in front of their commands, and under their direct and skillful leadership the trained troops of a brave army were driven from the thickets and jungles of an almost inaccessible country. in the open field the troops stormed intrenched infantry, and carried and captured fortified works with an unsurpassed daring and disregard of death. by gaining commanding ground they made the harbor of santiago untenable for the spanish fleet, and practically drove it out to a speedy destruction by the american navy. while enduring the hardships and privations of such campaign, the troops generously shared their scanty food with the , cuban patriots in arms, and the suffering people who had fled from the besieged city. with the twenty-four regiments and four batteries, the flower of the united states army, were also three volunteer regiments. these though unskilled in warfare, yet, inspired with the same spirit, contributed to the victory, suffered hardships, and made sacrifices with the rest. where all did so well, it is impossible, by special mention, to do justice to those who bore conspicuous part. but of certain unusual features mention cannot be omitted, namely, the cavalry dismounted, fighting and storming works as infantry, and a regiment of colored troops, who, having shared equally in the heroism as well as the sacrifices, is now voluntarily engaged in nursing yellow-fever patients and burying the dead. the gallantry, patriotism and sacrifices of the american army, as illustrated in this brief campaign, will be fully appreciated by a grateful country, and the heroic deeds of those who have fought and fallen in the cause of freedom will ever be cherished in sacred memory and be an inspiration to the living. by command of major-general miles: j.c. gilmore, brigadier-general, united states volunteers. introductory. to write the history of the negro race within that part of the western world known as the united states of america would be a task to which one might devote a life time and still fail in its satisfactory accomplishment. the difficulties lying in the way of collecting and unifying the material are very great; and that of detecting the inner life of the people much greater. facts and dates are to history what color and proportion are to the painting. employed by genius, color and form combine in a language that speaks to the soul, giving pleasure and instruction to the beholder; so the facts and dates occurring along the pathway of a people, when gathered and arranged by labor and care, assume a voice and a power which they have not otherwise. as these facts express the thoughts and feelings, and the growth, of a people, they become the language in which that people writes its history, and the work of the historian is to read and interpret this history for the benefit of his fellow men. borrowing a second illustration from the work of the artist, it may be said, that as nature reveals her secrets only to him whose soul is in deepest sympathy with her moods and movements, so a people's history can be discovered only by one whose heart throbs in unison with those who have made the history. to write the history of any people successfully one must read it by the heart; and the best part of history, like the best part of the picture, must ever remain unexpressed. the artist sees more, and feels more than he is able to transfer to his canvas, however entrancing his presentation; and the historian sees and feels more than his brightest pages convey to his readers. nothing less than a profound respect and love for humankind and a special attraction toward a particular people and age, can fit one to engage in so sublime a task as that of translating the history of a people into the language of common men. the history of the american negro differs very widely from that of any people whose life-story has been told; and when it shall come to be known and studied will open an entirely new view of experience. in it we shall be able to see what has never before been discovered in history; to wit: the absolute beginning of a people. brought to these shores by the ship-load as freight, and sold as merchandise; entirely broken away from the tribes, races, or nations of their native land; recognized only, as african slaves, and forbidden all movement looking toward organic life; deprived of even the right of family or of marriage, and corrupted in the most shameless manner by their powerful and licentious oppressors--it is from this heterogeneous protoplasm that the american negro has been developed. the foundation from which he sprang had been laid by piecemeal as the slave ships made their annual deposits of cargoes brought from different points on the west coast, and basely corrupted as is only too well known; yet out of it has grown, within less than three hundred years, an organic people. grandfathers, and great-grandfathers are among them; and personal acquaintance is exceedingly wide. in the face of slavery and against its teaching and its power, overcoming the seduction of the master class, and the coarse and brutal corruptions of the baser overseer class, the african slave persistently strove to clothe himself with the habiliments of civilization, and so prepared himself for social organization that as soon as the hindrances were removed, this vast people almost immediately set themselves in families; and for over thirty years they have been busily engaged hunting up the lost roots of their family trees. we know the pit whence the afro-american race was dug, the rock whence he was hewn; he was born here on this soil, from a people who in the classic language of the hebrew prophet, could be described as, no people. that there has been a majestic evolution quietly but rapidly going on in this mass, growing as it was both by natural development and by accretion, is plainly evident. heterogeneous as were the fragments, by the aid of a common language and a common lot, and cruel yet partially civilizing control, the whole people were forced into a common outward form, and to a remarkable extent, into the same ways of thinking. the affinities within were really aided by the repulsions without, and when finally freed from slavery, for an ignorant and inexperienced people, they presented an astonishing spectacle of unity. socially, politically and religiously, their power to work together showed itself little less than marvellous. the afro-american, developing from this slave base, now directs great organizations of a religious character, and in comprehensive sweep invites to his co-operation the inhabitants of the isles of the sea and of far-off africa. he is joining with the primitive, strong, hopeful and expanding races of southern africa, and is evidently preparing for a day that has not yet come. the progress made thus far by the people is somewhat like that made by the young, man who hires himself to a farmer and takes his pay in farming stock and utensils. he is thus acquiring the means to stock a farm, and the skill and experience necessary to its successful management at the same time. his career will not appear important, however, until the day shall arrive when he will set up for himself. the time spent on the farm of another was passed in comparative obscurity; but without it the more conspicuous period could never have followed. so, now, the american colored people are making history, but it is not of that kind that gains the attention of writers. having no political organizations, governments or armies they are not performing those deeds of splendor in statesmanship and war over which the pen of the historian usually delights to linger. the people, living, growing, reading, thinking, working, suffering, advancing and dying--these are all common-place occurrences, neither warming the heart of the observer, nor capable of brightening the page of the chronicler. this, however, is, with the insignificant exception of liberia, all that is yet to be found in the brief history of the afro-american race. the period for him to set up for himself has not yet come, and he is still acquiring means and training within a realm controlled in all respects by a people who maintain toward him an attitude of absolute social exclusion. his is the history of a people marching from nowhere to somewhere, but with no well-defined canaan before them and no moses to lead. it is indeed, on their part, a walk by faith, for as yet the wisest among the race cannot tell even the direction of the journey. before us lie surely three possible destinies, if not four; yet it is not clear toward which one of these we are marching. are we destined to see the african element of america's population blend with the euro-american element and be lost in a common people? will the colored american leave this home in which as a race he has been born and reared to manhood, and find his stage of action somewhere else on god's earth? will he remain here as a separate and subordinate people perpetuating the conditions of to-day only that they may become more humiliating and exasperating? or is there to arise a war of races in which the blacks are to be exterminated? who knows? fortunately the historian is not called upon to perform the duties of prophet. his work is to tell what has been; and if others, building upon his presentation of facts can deduce what is to be, it is no small tribute to the correctness of his interpretations; for all events are parts of one vast system ever moving toward some great end. one remark only need be made. it is reasonable to presume that this new afro-american will somehow and somewhere be given an opportunity to express that particular modification of material life which his spiritual nature will demand. whether that expression will be made here or elsewhere; whether it will be higher or lower than what now surrounds us, are questions which we may well leave to the future. no people can win and hold a place, either as a nation among other nations, or as an elementary component of a nation, merely by its own goodness or by the goodness of others. the struggle for national existence is a familiar one, and is always initiated by a display of physical force. those who have the power seize territory and government, and those who can, keep possession and control. it is in some instances the backing up of right by might, and in others the substituting of right by might. too often the greatest of all national crimes is to be weak. when the struggle is a quiet one, going on within a nation, and is that of an element seeking a place in the common social life of the country, much the same principles are involved. it is still a question to be settled by force, no matter how highly the claim of the weaker may be favored by reason and justice. the powers by which a special people may emerge from an unhappy condition and secure improved social relations, using the word social in its broadest sense, are physical, intellectual and material. there must be developed manly strength and courage and a power of intellect which will manifest itself in organization and attractiveness, and in the aptitude of employing appropriate methods for ends in view. to these must be added the power that comes through wealth; and thus, with the real advancement of condition and character will come, tardily and grudgingly perhaps, but nevertheless surely, improved social standing. once filled with the common national spirit, partaking of its thoughts, entering heartily into the common movements, having the same dress, language and manners as others, and being as able and as willing to help as to be helped, and withal being in fact the most intensely american element on the continent because constructed on this soil, we may hope that the afro-american will ultimately win and hold his proper place. the history made by the american negro has been so filled with suffering that we have overlooked the active side. the world has heard so much of the horrors of the "middle passage"; the awful sufferings of the slave; the barbarous outrages that have been perpetrated upon ex-slaves; the inhuman and senseless prejudices that meet colored americans almost everywhere on their native soil; that it has come to look upon this recital as the whole of the story. it needs to be told that these records constitute the dark side of the picture, dark and horrible enough, to be sure, but this is by no means the whole picture. if there are scenes whose representations would serve to ornament the infernal regions, pictures over which fiends might gloat, there are also others which angels might delight to gaze upon. there has been much of worthy action among the colored people of this country, wherever the bonds of oppression have been slackened enough to allow of free movement. there have been resistance to wrong by way of remonstrance and petition, sometimes even by force; laudable efforts toward self-education; benevolent and philanthropic movements; reform organizations, and commendable business enterprise both in individuals and associations. these show a toughness of fibre and steadiness of purpose sufficient to make the backbone of a real history. the present work deals with these elements of character as they are exhibited in the garb of the soldier. when men are willing to fight and die for what they hold dear, they have become a moving force, capable of disturbing the currents of history and of making a channel for the stream of their own actions. the american negro has evolved an active, aggressive element in the scientific fighting men he has produced. individual pugilists of that race have entered all classes, from featherweight to heavyweight, and have remained there; receiving blows and dealing blows; showing a sturdy, positive force; mastering and employing all the methods of attack and defence allowed in such encounters, and supporting themselves with that fortitude and courage so necessary to the ring. such combats are not to be commended, as they are usually mere tests of skill and endurance, entered into on the principles of the gambler, and they are introduced here for the sole purpose of showing the colored man as a positive force, yielding only to a superior degree of force of the same kind. the soldier stands for something far higher than the pugilist represents, although he has need of the same qualities of physical hardihood--contempt for suffering and coolness in the presence of danger, united with skill in the use of his weapons. the pugilist is his own general and never learns the high lessons of obedience; the soldier learns to subordinate himself to his commander, and to fight bravely and effectively under the direction of another. the evolution of the afro-american soldier was the work of a short period and suffered many interruptions. when the war of the revolution broke out the colored man was a slave, knowing nothing of the spirit or the training of the soldier; before it closed several thousand colored men had entered the army and some had won distinction for gallantry. less than forty years later, in the war of , the black man again appeared to take his stand under the flag of independence. the war of secession again witnessed the coming forth of the black soldier, this time in important numbers and performing heroic services on a grand scale, and under most discouraging circumstances, but with such success that he won a place in arms for all time. when the civil war closed, the american black man had secured his standing as a soldier--the evolution was complete. henceforth he was to be found an integral part of the army of the united states. the black man passed through the trying baptism of fire in the sixties and came out of it a full-fledged soldier. his was worse than an impartial trial; it was a trial before a jury strongly biased against him; in the service of a government willing to allow him but half pay; and in the face of a foe denying him the rights belonging to civilized warfare. yet against these odds, denied the dearest right of a soldier--the hope of promotion--scorned by his companions in arms, the negro on more than two hundred and fifty battle-fields, demonstrated his courage and skill, and wrung from the american nation the right to bear arms. the barons were no more successful in their struggle with king john when they obtained magna charta than were the american negroes with prejudice, when they secured the national recognition of their right and fitness to hold a place in the standing army of the united states. the afro-american soldier now takes his rank with america's best, and in appearance, skill, physique, manners, conduct and courage proves himself worthy of the position he holds. combining in his person the harvested influences of three great continents, europe, africa and america, he stands up as the typical soldier of the western world, the latest comer in the field of arms, but yielding his place in the line to none, and ever ready to defend his country and his flag against any and all foes. the mission of this book is to make clear this evolution, giving the historical facts with as much detail as possible, and setting forth finally the portrait of this new soldier. that this is a prodigious task is too evident to need assertion--a task worthy the most lofty talents; and in essaying it i humbly confess to a sense of unfitness; yet the work lies before me and duty orders me to enter upon it. a major general writes: "i wish you every success in producing a work important both historically and for the credit of a race far more deserving than the world has acknowledged." a brigadier general who commanded a colored regiment in cuba says to me most encouragingly: "you must allow me--for our intimate associations justify it--to write frankly. your education, habits of thought, fairness of judgment and comprehension of the work you are to undertake, better fit you for writing such a history than any person within my acquaintance. those noble men made the history at el caney and san juan; i believe you are the man to record it. may god help you to so set forth the deeds of that memorable first of july in front of santiago that the world may see in its true light what those brave, intelligent colored men did." both these men fought through the civil war and won distinction on fields of blood. to the devout prayer offered by one of them i heartily echo an amen, and can only wish that in it all my friends might join, and that god would answer it in granting me power to do the work in such a way as to bring great good to the race and reflect some glory to himself, in whose name the work is undertaken. chapter i. sketch of social history. the importation of the africans--character of the colored population in --colored population in british west indian possessions--free colored people of the south--free colored people of the north--notes. professor dubois, in his exhaustive work upon the "suppression of the african slave-trade," has brought within comparatively narrow limits the great mass of facts bearing upon his subject, and in synopses and indices has presented all of the more important literature it has induced. in his monograph, published as volume ii of the harvard historical series, he has traced the rise of this nefarious traffic, especially with reference to the american colonies, exhibited the proportions to which it expanded, and the tenacity with which it held on to its purpose until it met its death in the fate of the ill-starred southern confederacy. every step in his narrative is supported by references to unimpeachable authorities; and the scholarly monograph bears high testimony to the author's earnest labor, painstaking research and unswerving fidelity. should the present work stimulate inquiry beyond the scope herein set before the reader, he is most confidently referred to professor du bois' book as containing a complete exposition of the development and overthrow of that awful crime. it is from this work, however, that we shall obtain a nearer and clearer view of the african planted upon our shores. negro slavery began at an early day in the north american colonies; but up until the revolution of the demand for slaves was mainly supplied from england, the slaves being white.[ ] "it is probable," says professor dubois, "that about , slaves were brought to america each year between and , and after it rose to perhaps , annually. "before the revolution the total exportation to america is variously estimated as between , and , each year." something of the horrors of the "middle passage" may be shown by the records that out of , slaves shipped from africa during the years - , , , or nearly one-fourth of the entire number, perished at sea. in there were in the country nearly seven hundred thousand africans, these having been introduced by installments from various heathen tribes. the importation of slaves continued with more or less success up until , when the "wanderer" landed her cargo of in georgia. during the period from to the breaking out of the civil war, shortly after the landing of the last cargo of slaves, the colored population, both slave and free, had arisen to about four million, and had undergone great modifications. the cargo of the "wanderer" found themselves among strangers, even when trying to associate with those who in color and hair were like themselves. the slaves of differed greatly from the slaves of a hundred years earlier. they had lost the relics of that stern warlike spirit which prompted the stono insurrection, the denmark vesey insurrection, and the nat turner insurrection, and had accepted their lot as slaves, hoping that through god, freedom would come to them some time in the happy future. large numbers of them had become christians through the teaching of godly white women, and at length through the evangelistic efforts of men and women of their own race. independent religious organizations had been formed in the north, and large local churches with negro pastors were in existence in the south when the "wanderer" landed her cargo. there had been a steady increase in numbers, indicating that the physical well-being of the slave was not overlooked, and the slaves had greatly improved in character. sales made in south carolina between and show "boys," from to years of age, bringing from $ to $ ; and "large sales" are reported showing an "average of $ each," "negro men bringing from $ to $ ," and a "blacksmith" bringing $ . the averages generally obtained were above $ . a sale of negroes in families is reported in the "charleston courier" in which the writer says: "two or three families averaged from $ to $ for each individual." the same item states also that "c.g. whitney sold two likely female house servants, one for $ , the other for $ ." these cases are presented to illustrate the financial value of the american slave, and inferentially the progress he had made in acquiring the arts of modern civilization. slaves had become blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carriage-makers, carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, bootmakers, founders and moulders, not to mention all the common labor performed by them. slave women had become dressmakers, hairdressers, nurses and the best cooks to be found in the world. the slave-holders regarded themselves as the favored of mankind because of the competence and faithfulness of their slaves. the african spirit and character had disappeared, and in their place were coming into being the elements of a new character, existing in purely in a negative form. the slave had become an american. he was now a civilized slave, and had received his civilization from his masters. he had separated himself very far from his brother slave in st. domingo. the haytian negro fought and won his freedom before he had been civilized in slavery, and hence has never passed over the same ground that his american fellow-servant has been compelled to traverse. beside the slaves in the south, there were also several thousand "free persons of color," as they were called, dwelling in such cities as richmond, va., charleston, s.c., and new orleans, la. some of these had become quite wealthy and well-educated, forming a distinct class of the population. they were called creoles in louisiana, and were accorded certain privileges, although laws were carefully enacted to keep alive the distinction between them and the whites. in charleston the so-called colored people set themselves up as a class, prided themselves much upon their color and hair and in their sympathies joined almost wholly with the master class. representatives of their class became slave-holders and were in full accord with the social policy of the country. nevertheless their presence was an encouragement to the slave, and consequently was objected to by the slave-holder. the free colored man became more and more disliked in the south as the slave became more civilized. he was supposed by his example to contribute to the discontent of the slave, and laws were passed restricting his priveleges so as to induce him to leave. between and this question reached a crisis and free colored people from the south were to be seen taking up their homes in the northern states and in canada. (many of the people, especially from charleston, carried with them all their belittling prejudices, and after years of sojourn under the sway of enlightened and liberal ideas, proved themselves still incapable of learning the new way or forgetting the old.) there were, then, three very distinct classes of colored people in the country, to wit: the slave in the south, the free colored people of the south, and the free colored people of the north. these were also sub-divided into several smaller classes. slaves were divided into field hands, house servants and city slaves. the free colored people of the south had their classes based usually on color; the free colored people of the north had their divisions caused by differences in religion, differences as to place of birth, and numerous family conceits. so that surveyed as a whole, it is extremely difficult to get anything like a complete social map of these four millions as they existed at the outbreak of the civil war. for a quarter of a century there had been a steady concentration of the slave population within the cotton and cane-growing region, the grain-growing states of delaware, maryland and virginia having become to a considerable extent breeding farms. particularly was this the case with the more intelligent and higher developed individual slaves who appeared near the border line. the master felt that such persons would soon make their escape by way of the "underground railroad" or otherwise, and hence in order to prevent a total loss, would follow the dictates of business prudence and sell his bright slave man to georgia. the maryland or virginia slave who showed suspicious aspirations was usually checked by the threat, "i'll sell you to georgia;" and if the threat did not produce the desired reformation it was not long before the ambitious slave found himself in the gang of that most despised and most despicable of all creatures, the georgia slave-trader. georgia and canada were the two extremes of the slave's anticipation during the last decade of his experience. these stood as his earthly heaven and hell, the "underground railroad," with its agents, conducting to one, and the odious slave-trader, driving men, women and children, to the other. no netherlander ever hated and feared the devil more thoroughly than did the slaves of the border states hate and fear these outrages on mankind, the kidnapping slave-traders of the cotton and cane regions. i say kidnapping, for i have myself seen persons in georgia who had been kidnapped in maryland. if the devil was ever incarnate, i think it safe to look for him among those who engaged in the slave-trade, whether in a foreign or domestic form. nothing is more striking in connection with the history of american slavery than the conduct of great britain on the same subject. so inconsistent has this conduct been that it can be explained only by regarding england as a conglomerate of two elements nearly equal in strength, of directly opposite character, ruling alternately the affairs of the nation. as a slave-trader and slave-holder england was perhaps even worse than the united states. under her rule the slave decreased in numbers, and remained a savage. in jamaica, in st. vincent, in british guiana, in barbadoes, in trinidad and in grenada, british slavery was far worse than american slavery. in these colonies "the slave was generally a barbarian, speaking an unknown tongue, and working with men like himself, in gangs with scarcely a chance for improvement." an economist says, had the slaves of the british colonies been as well fed, clothed, lodged, and otherwise cared for as were those of the united states, their number at emancipation would have reached from seventeen to twenty millions, whereas the actual number emancipated was only , . had the blacks of the united states experienced the same treatment as did those of the british colonies, would have found among us less than , colored persons. in the united states were found ten colored persons for every slave imported, while in the british colonies only one was found for every three imported. hence the claim that the american negro is a new race, built up on this soil, rests upon an ample supply of facts. the american slave was born in our civilization, fed upon good american food, housed and clothed on a civilized plan, taught the arts and language of civilization, acquired necessarily ideas of law and liberty, and by was well on the road toward fitness for freedom. no lessons therefore drawn from the emancipation of british slaves in the west indies are of any direct value to us, inasmuch as british slavery was not like american slavery, the british freedman was in no sense the equal of the american freedman, and the circumstances surrounding the emancipation of the british slave had nothing of the inspiring and ennobling character with those connected with the breaking of the american negro's chains. yet, superior as the american negro was as a slave, he was very far below the standard of american citizenship as subsequent events conclusively proved. the best form of slavery, even though it may lead toward fitness for freedom, can never be regarded as a fit school in which to graduate citizens of so magnificent an empire as the united states. the slave of was perhaps, all things considered, the best slave the world had ever seen, if we except those who served the hebrews under the mosaic statutes. while there was no such thing among them as legal marriage or legitimate childhood, yet slave "families" were recognized even on the auction block, and after emancipation legal family life was erected generally upon relationships which had been formed in slavery. bishop gaines, himself born a slave of slave parents, says: "the negro had no civil rights under the codes of the southern states. it was often the case, it is true, that the marriage ceremony was performed, and thousands of couples regarded it, and observed it as of binding force, and were as true to each other as if they had been lawfully married." * * * "the colored people generally," he says, "held their marriage (if such unauthorized union may be called marriage) sacred, even while they were slaves. many instances will be recalled by the older people of the life-long fidelity which existed between the slave and his concubine" (wife, t.g.s.)" ... the mother of his children. my own father and mother lived together over sixty years. i am the fourteenth child of that union, and i can truthfully affirm that no marriage, however made sacred by the sanction of law, was ever more congenial and beautiful. thousands of like instances might be cited to the same effect. it will always be to the credit of the colored people that almost without exception, they adhered to their relations, illegal though they had been, and accepted gladly the new law which put the stamp of legitimacy upon their union and removed the brand of bastardy from the brows of their children." let us now sum up the qualifications that these people possessed in large degree, in order to determine their fitness for freedom, then so near at hand. they had acquired the english language, and the christian religion, including the christian idea of marriage, so entirely different in spirit and form from the african marriage. they had acquired the civilized methods of cooking their food, making and wearing clothes, sleeping in beds, and observing sunday. they had acquired many of the useful arts and trades of civilization and had imbibed the tastes and feelings, to some extent, at least, of the country in which they lived. becoming keen observers, shut out from books and newspapers, they listened attentively, learned more of law and politics than was generally supposed. they knew what the election of meant and were on tiptoe with expectation. although the days of insurrection had passed and the slave of ' was not ready to rise with the immortal john brown, he had not lost his desire for freedom. the steady march of escaping slaves guided by the north star, with the refrain: "i'm on my way to canada, that cold but happy land; the dire effects of slavery i can no longer stand," proved that the desire to be free was becoming more extensive and absorbing as the slave advanced in intelligence. it is necessary again to emphasize the fact that the american slaves were well formed and well developed physically, capable of enduring hard labor and of subsisting upon the plainest food. their diet for years had been of the simplest sort, and they had been subjected to a system of regulations very much like those which are employed in the management of armies. they had an hour to go to bed and an hour to rise; left their homes only upon written "passes," and when abroad at night were often halted by the wandering patrol. "run, nigger, run, the patrol get you," was a song of the slave children of south carolina. strangers who saw for the first time these people as they came out of slavery in were usually impressed with their robust appearance, and a conference of ex-slaves, assembled soon after the war, introduced a resolution with the following declaration: "whereas, slavery has left us in possession of strong and healthy bodies." it is probable that at least a half-million of men of proper age could then have been found among the newly liberated capable of bearing arms. they were inured to the plain ration, to labor and fatigue, and to subordination, and had long been accustomed to working together under the immediate direction of foremen. two questions of importance naturally arose at this period: first, did the american slave understand the issue that had been before the country for more than a half-century and that was now dividing the nation in twain and marshalling for deadly strife these two opposing armies? second, had he the courage necessary to take part in the struggle and help save the union? it would be a strange thing to say, but nevertheless a thing entirely true, that many of the negro slaves had a clearer perception of the real question at issue than did some of our most far-seeing statesmen, and a clearer vision of what would be the outcome of the war. while the great men of the north were striving to establish the doctrine that the coming war was merely to settle the question of secession, the slave knew better. god had hid certain things from the wise and prudent and had revealed them unto babes. lincoln, the wisest of all, was slow to see that the issue he himself had predicted was really at hand. as president, he declared for the preservation of the union, with or without slavery, or even upon the terms which he had previously declared irreconcilable, "half slave and half free." the negro slave saw in the outbreak of the war the death struggle of slavery. he knew that the real issue was slavery. the masters were careful to keep from the knowledge of the slave the events as well as the causes of the war, but in spite of these efforts the slave's keen perception enabled him to read defeat in the dejected mien of his master, and victory in his exultation. to prevent the master's knowing what was going on in their thoughts, the slaves constructed curious codes among themselves. in one neighborhood freedom was always spoken of as "new rice"; and many a poor slave woman sighed for the coming of new rice in the hearing of those who imagined they knew the inmost thoughts of their bondwomen. gleefully at times they would talk of the jollification they would make when the new rice came. it was this clear vision, this strong hope, that sustained them during the trying days of the war and kept them back from insurrection. bishop gaines says: "their prayers ascended for their deliverance, and their hearts yearned for the success of their friends. they fondly hoped for the hour of victory, when the night of slavery would end and the dawn of freedom appear. they often talked to each other of the progress of the war and conferred in secret as to what they might do to aid in the struggle. worn out with long bondage, yearning for the boon of freedom, longing for the sun of liberty to rise, they kept their peace and left the result to god." mr. douglass, whom this same bishop gaines speaks of very inappropriately as a "half-breed," seemed able to grasp the feelings both of the slave and the freeman and said: "from the first, i for one, saw in this war the end of slavery, and truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the north was largely due to this belief." mr. seward, the wise secretary of state, had thought that the war would come and go without producing any change in the relation of master and slave; but the humble slave on the georgia cotton plantation, or in the carolina rice fields, knew that the booming of the guns of rebellion in charleston was the opening note of the death knell of slavery. the slave undoubtedly understood the issue, and knew on which side liberty dwelt. although thoroughly bred to slavery, and as contented and happy as he could be in his lot, he acted according to the injunction of the apostle: "art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather." the slaves tried to be contented, but they preferred freedom and knew which side to take when the time came for them to act. enough has been said to show that out of the african slave had been developed a thoroughly american slave, so well imbued with modern civilization and so well versed in american politics, as to be partially ready for citizenship. he had become law-abiding and order-loving, and possessed of an intelligent desire to be free. whether he had within him the necessary moral elements to become a soldier the pages following will attempt to make known. he had the numbers, the physical strength and the intelligence. he could enter the strife with a sufficient comprehension of the issues involved to enable him to give to his own heart a reason for his action. fitness for the soldier does not necessarily involve fitness for citizenship, but the actual discharge of the duties of the soldier in defence of the nation, entitles one to all common rights, to the nation's gratitude, and to the highest honors for which he is qualified. in concluding this chapter i shall briefly return to the free colored people of the south that the reader may be able to properly estimate their importance as a separate element. their influence upon the slave population was very slight, inasmuch as law and custom forbade the intercourse of these two classes. according to the census of there were in the slave-holding states altogether , free colored persons, , being mulattoes. in charleston there were free blacks and , mulattoes; in mobile, free blacks and mulattoes; in new orleans, , blacks and , mulattoes. as will be seen, nearly one-half of the entire number of free colored persons were mulattoes, while in the leading southern cities seventy-five per cent. of the free colored people were put in this class. the percentage of mulatto slaves to the total slave population at that time was . , and in the same cities which showed seventy-five per cent, of all the free colored persons mulattoes, the percentage of mulatto slaves was but . . mulatto in this classification includes all colored persons who are not put down as black. in new orleans the free mulattoes were generally french, having come into the union with the louisiana purchase, and among them were to be found wealthy slave-holders. they much resembled the class of mulattoes which obtained in st. domingo at the beginning of the century, and had but little sympathy with the blacks, although they were the first to acquiesce in emancipation, some of them actually leading their own slaves into the army of liberation. it is possible, however, that they had not fully realized the trend of the war, inasmuch as new orleans was excepted from the effects of the proclamation. it is certain that the free colored people of that city made a tender of support to the confederacy, although they were among the first to welcome the conquering "yankees," and afterward fought with marked gallantry in the union cause. the free mulattoes, or _browns_, as they called themselves, of charleston, followed much the same course as their fellow classmen of new orleans. here, too, they had been exclusive and to some extent slave-holders, had tendered their services to the confederacy, and had hastily come forward to welcome the conquerors. they were foremost among the colored people in wealth and intelligence, but their field of social operations had been so circumscribed that they had exerted but little influence in the work of americanizing the slave. separated from the slave by law and custom they did all in their power to separate themselves from him in thought and feeling. they drew the line against all blacks as mercilessly and senselessly as the most prejudiced of the whites and were duplicates of the whites placed on an intermediate plane. it was not unusual to find a charleston brown filled with more prejudice toward the blacks than were the whites. [transcriber's note: this footnote appeared in the text without a footnote anchor: "census of ."] the colored people of the north in numbered , , pennsylvania having the largest number, , ; then came new york with , ; ohio, , ; new jersey, , ; indiana, , ; massachusetts, , ; connecticut, , ; illinois, , ; michigan, , ; rhode island, , ; maine, , ; wisconsin, , ; iowa, , ; vermont, ; kansas, ; new hampshire, ; minnesota, ; oregon, . considerably more than one-half of this population was located within the states along the atlantic coast, viz.; maine, new hampshire, massachusetts, vermont, connecticut, rhode island, new york, pennsylvania and new jersey. here were to be found , free colored people. pennsylvania, new york and new jersey took the lead in this population, with massachusetts and connecticut coming next, while maine, new hampshire and vermont had but few. the cities, boston, new york and philadelphia, were the largest cities of free colored people then in the north. in boston there were , ; new york city, , , while in philadelphia there were , as early as the free colored people of philadelphia, through two distinguished representatives, absalom jones and richard allen, "two men of the african race," as the chroniclers say, "saw the irreligious and uncivilized state" of the "people of their complexion," and finally concluded "that a society should be formed without regard to religious tenets, provided the persons lived an orderly and sober life," the purpose of the society being "to support one another in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children." accordingly a society was established, known as the free african society of philadelphia, and on the th, th-mo., , articles were published, including the following, which is inserted to show the breadth of the society's purpose: "and we apprehend it to be necessary that the children of our deceased members be under the care of the society, so far as to pay for the education of their children, if they cannot attend free school; also to put them out apprentices to suitable trades or places, if required."[ ] shortly after this we read of "the african school for the free instruction of the black people," and in , "the evening free school, held at the african methodist meeting house in philadelphia" was reported as being "kept very orderly, the scholars behaving in a becoming manner, and their improvement beyond the teachers' expectations, their intellects appearing in every branch of learning to be equal to those of the fairest complexion." the name african, as the reader will notice, is used with reference to school, church, and individuals; although not to the complete exclusion of "colored people" and "people of color." these phrases seem to have been coined in the west indies, and were there applied only to persons of mixed european and african descent. in the united states they never obtained such restricted use except in a very few localities. the practice of using african as a descriptive title of the free colored people of the north became very extensive and so continued up to the middle of the century. there were african societies, churches and schools in all the prominent centres of this population. in one, mr. p. loveridge, agent for colored schools of new york, wrote the editor of the african methodist magazine as follows:[ ] "as to the name of your periodical, act as we did with the name of our schools--away with africa. there are no africans in your connection. substitute colored for african and it will be, in my opinion, as it should be." the earnestness of the writer shows that the matter of parting with african was then a live question. the cool reply of the editor indicates how strong was the conservative element among the african people of ' . he says: "we are unable to see the reasonableness of the remarks. it is true we are not africans, or natives born upon the soil of africa, yet, as the descendants of that race, how can we better manifest that respect due to our fathers who begat us, than by the adoption of the term in our institutions, and inscribing it upon our public places of resort?" to this mr. loveridge rejoins in the following explanatory paragraph: "we who are engaged in the public schools in this city found upon examination of about children who attend our schools from year to year, not one african child among them. a suggestion was made that we petition the public school society to change the name african to colored schools. the gentlemen of that honorable body, perceiving our petition to be a logical one, acquiesced with us. hence the adjective african (which does not apply to us) was blotted out and colored substituted in its place. it is 'public schools for colored children.' we are americans and expect american sympathies." in the colored methodists conceived the idea of organizing and evangelizing their race, and to this end a convention was called and assembled in philadelphia of that year, composed of sixteen delegates, coming from pennsylvania, delaware, maryland and new jersey. the convention adopted a resolution that the people of philadelphia, baltimore and all other places who should unite with them, should become one body under the name and style of the african methodist episcopal church. similar action was taken by two other bodies of colored methodists, one in new york, the other in wilmington, delaware, about the same time. the people were coming together and beginning to understand the value of organization. this was manifested in their religious, beneficial and educational associations that were springing up among them. in the african methodist magazine appeared, the first organ of religious communication and thought issued by the american colored people. it was published in brooklyn, n.y., rev. george hogarth being its editor. there were papers published by the colored people prior to the appearance of the african methodist magazine, but these were individual enterprises. they were, however, indices of the thought of the race, and looking back upon them now, we may regard them as mile-stones set up along the line of march over which the people have come. new york, city and state, appears to have been the home of these early harbingers, and it was there that the earliest literary centre was established, corresponding to that centre of religious life and thought which had been earlier founded in philadelphia. in the first newspaper published on this continent by colored men issued from its office in new york. it was called "freedom's journal," and had for its motto "righteousness exalteth a nation." its editors and proprietors were messrs. cornish & russwurm. its name was subsequently changed to the "rights of all," mr. cornish probably retiring, and in it suspended, mr. russwurm going to africa. then followed "the weekly advocate," "the american," "the colored american," "the elevator," "the national watchman," "the clarion," "the ram's horn," "the north star," "frederick douglass' paper," and finally that crowning literary work of the race, "the anglo-african." "the anglo-african" appeared in , under the management of the strongest and most brilliant purely literary families the american negro up to that time had produced. it was edited and published by thomas hamilton, and like all the important literary ventures of the race in those days, had its birth in new york. it came out in and continued through the war, and in went out of existence honorably, having its work well done. its first volume, that of , contains the ablest papers ever given to the public by the american negro; and taken as a whole this volume is the proudest literary monument the race has as yet erected. reviewing the progress of the race in the north, we may say, the period of organized benevolence and united religious effort began before the close of the past century, philadelphia being its place of origin; that the religious movement reached much broader and clearer standing about , and in consequence there sprang up organizations comprehending the people of the whole country; that the religious movement advanced to a more intellectual stage when in the african methodist magazine appeared, since which time the organized religion of the american negro has never been for any considerable time without its organs of communication. the journalistic period began in , its centre being new york and the work of the journals almost wholly directed to two ends: the abolition of slavery, and the enfranchisement and political elevation of the free blacks. this work had reached its highest form in the anglo-african, as that epoch of our national history came to its close in the slave-holders' war. the titles of the newspapers indicate the opening and continuance of a period of anti-slavery agitation. their columns were filled with arguments and appeals furnished by men who gave their whole souls to the work. it was a period of great mental activity on the part of the free colored people. they were discussing all probable methods of bettering their condition. it was the period that produced both writers and orators. in the first convention called by colored men to consider the general condition of the race and devise means to improve that condition, met in the city of philadelphia. the history of this convention is so important that i append a full account of it as published in the anglo-african nearly thirty years after the convention met. it was called through the efforts of hezekiah grice, of baltimore, who afterwards emigrated to hayti, and for many years followed there the occupation of carver and gilder and finally became director of public works of the city of port-au-prince. while visiting that city years ago, i met a descendant of mr. grice, a lady of great personal beauty, charming manners, accomplished in the french language, but incapable of conversing at all in english. the conventions, begun in , continued to be held annually for a brief period, and then dropped into occasional and special gatherings. they did much good in the way of giving prominence to the colored orators and in stemming the tide of hostile sentiment by appealing to the country at large in language that reached many hearts. the physical condition, so far as the health and strength of the free colored people were concerned, was good. their mean age was the greatest of any element of our population, and their increase was about normal, or . per cent. annually. in the twenty years from to it had kept up this rate with hardly the slightest variation, while the increase of the free colored people of the south during the same period had been per cent, annually.[ ] the increase of persons of mixed blood in the north did not necessarily imply laxity of morals, as the census compilers always delighted to say, but could be easily accounted for by the marriages occurring between persons of this class. i have seen more than fifty persons, all of mixed blood, descend from one couple, and these with the persons joined to them by marriages as they have come to marriageable age, amounted to over seventy souls--all in about a half century. that the slaves had, despite their fearful death rate, the manumissions and the escapes, increased twice as fast as the free colored people of the north, three times as fast as the free colored people of the south, and faster than the white people with all the immigration of that period, can be accounted for only by the enormous birth rate of that people consequent upon their sad condition. their increase was abnormal, and when properly viewed, proves too much. there is no way of determining the general wealth of the colored people of the north at the period we are describing; but some light may be thrown upon their material condition from the consideration that they were supporting a few publications and building and supporting churches, and were holders of considerable real estate. in new york city, the thirteen thousand colored people paid taxes on nearly a million and a half in real estate, and had over a quarter million of dollars in the savings banks. it is probable that the twenty-five thousand in philadelphia owned more in proportion than their brethren in new york, for they were then well represented in business in that city. there were the fortens, bowers, casseys, gordons, and later stephen smith, william whipper and videl, all of whom were men of wealth and business. there were nineteen churches owned and supported by colored people of philadelphia, with a seating capacity of about , and valued at about $ , . [ ]the schools set apart for colored children were very inferior and were often kept alive by great sacrifices on the part of the colored people themselves. prior to the war and in many cases for some time afterward, the colored public schools were a disgrace to the country. a correspondent writing from hollidaysburg, pa., says, speaking of the school there: "the result of my inquiries here is that here, as in the majority of other places, the interest manifested for the colored man is more for political effect, and that those who prate the loudest about the moral elevation and political advancement of the colored man are the first to turn against him when he wants a friend." the correspondent then goes on to say that the school directors persist in employing teachers "totally incompetent." what the schools were in new york the report made by the new york society for the promotion of education among colored children to the honorable commissioners for examining into the condition of common schools in the city and county of new york, will show. reverend charles b. ray, who was president of this society, and philip a. white, its secretary, both continued to labor in the interest of education unto the close of their lives, mr. white dying as a member of the school board of the city of brooklyn, and mr. ray bequeathing his library to wilberforce university at his death. in summing up the conditions which they have detailed in their report they say: "from a comparison of the school houses occupied by the colored children with the splendid, almost palatial edifices, with manifold comforts, conveniences and elegancies which make up the school houses for white children in the city of new york, it is clearly evident that the colored children are painfully neglected and positively degraded. pent up in filthy neighborhoods, in old dilapidated buildings, they are held down to low associations and gloomy surroundings. * * * the undersigned enter their solemn protest against this unjust treatment of colored children. they believe with the experience of massachusetts, and especially the recent experience of boston before them, there is no sound reason why colored children shall be excluded from any of the common schools supported by taxes levied alike on whites and blacks, and governed by officers elected by the vote of colored as well as white voters." this petition and remonstrance had its effect, for mainly through its influence within two years very great improvements were made in the condition of the new york colored schools. for the especial benefit of those who erroneously think that the purpose of giving industrial education is a new thing in our land, as well as for general historical purposes, i call attention to the establishment of the institute for colored youth in philadelphia in . this institute was founded by the society of friends, and was supported in its early days and presumably still "by bequests and donations made by members of that society." the objects of the institute as set forth by its founders, fifty-seven years ago, are: "the education and improvement of colored youth of both sexes, to qualify them to act as teachers and instructors to their own people, either in the various branches of school learning or the mechanic arts and agriculture." two years later the african methodists purchased one hundred and eighty acres of land in eastern ohio and established what was called the union seminary, on the manual labor plan. it did not succeed, but it lingered along, keeping alive the idea, until it was eclipsed by wilberforce university, into which it was finally merged. the anti-slavery fight carried on in the north, into which the colored men entered and became powerful leaders, aroused the race to a deep study of the whole subject of liberty and brought them in sympathy with all people who had either gained or were struggling for their liberties, and prompted them to investigate all countries offering to them freedom. no country was so well studied by them as hayti, and from to there had been considerable emigration thither. liberia, central and south america and canada were all considered under the thought of emigration. thousands went to hayti and to canada, but the bulk preferred to remain here. they liked america, and had become so thoroughly in love with the doctrines of the republic, so imbued with the pride of the nation's history, so inspired with hope in the nation's future, that they resolved to live and die on her soil. when the troublous times of came and white men were fleeing to canada, colored men remained at their posts. they were ready to stand by the old flag and to take up arms for the union, trusting that before the close of the strife the flag might have to them a new meaning. an impassioned colored orator had said of the flag: "its stars were for the white man, and its stripes for the negro, and it was very appropriate that the stripes should be red." the free negro of the north was prepared in to support abraham lincoln with , as good american-born champions for universal liberty as the country could present. footnotes: [ ] slave trade--carey. [ ] outlines--tanner. [ ] a.m.e. magazine, . [ ] it is to be noted that in maryland and virginia an important number of white serving women married negro slave men in the early days of these colonies. [ ] in there were six high schools, or schools for higher education, in the united states that admitted colored students on equal footing with others. these were: oneida institute, new york; mount pleasant, amherst, mass.; canaan, n.h.; western reserve, ohio; gettysburg, pa.; and "one in the city of philadelphia of which miss buffam" was "principal." there was also one manual labor school in madison county, n.y., capable of accommodating eighteen students. it was founded by gerrit smith. notes. a. the first colored convention. on the fifteenth day of september, , there was held at bethel church, in the city of philadelphia, the first convention of the colored people of these united states. it was an event of historical importance; and, whether we regard the times or the men of whom this assemblage was composed, we find matter for interesting and profitable consideration. emancipation had just taken place in new york, and had just been arrested in virginia by the nat turner rebellion and walker's pamphlet. secret sessions of the legislatures of the several southern states had been held to deliberate upon the production of a colored man who had coolly recommended to his fellow blacks the only solution to the slave question, which, after twenty-five years of arduous labor of the most hopeful and noble-hearted of the abolitionists, seems the forlorn hope of freedom to-day--insurrection and bloodshed. great britain was in the midst of that bloodless revolution which, two years afterwards, culminated in the passage of the reform bill, and thus prepared the joyous and generous state of the british heart which dictated the west india emancipation act. france was rejoicing in the not bloodless _trois jours de juliet_. indeed, the whole world seemed stirred up with a universal excitement, which, when contrasted with the universal panics of and , leads one to regard as more than a philosophical speculation the doctrine of those who hold the life of mankind from the creation as but one life, beating with one heart, animated with one soul, tending to one destiny, although made up of millions upon millions of molecular lives, gifted with their infinite variety of attractions and repulsions, which regulate or crystallize them into evanescent substructures or organizations, which we call nationalities and empires and peoples and tribes, whose minute actions and reactions on each other are the histories which absorb our attention, whilst the grand universal life moves on beyond our ken, or only guessed at, as the astronomers shadow out movements of our solar system around or towards some distant unknown centre of attraction. if the times of were eventful, there were among our people, as well as among other peoples, men equal to the occasion. we had giants in those days! there were bishop allen, the founder of the great bethel connection of methodists, combining in his person the fiery zeal of st. francis xavier with the skill and power of organizing of a richelieu; the meek but equally efficient rush (who yet remains with us in fulfilment of the scripture), the father of the zion methodists; paul, whose splendid presence and stately eloquence in the pulpit, and whose grand baptisms in the waters of boston harbor are a living tradition in all new england; the saintly and sainted peter williams, whose views of the best means of our elevation are in triumphant activity to-day; william hamilton, the thinker and actor, whose sparse specimens of eloquence we will one day place in gilded frames as rare and beautiful specimens of etruscan art--william hamilton, who, four years afterwards, during the new york riots, when met in the street, loaded down with iron missiles, and asked where he was going, replied, "to die on my threshold"; watkins, of baltimore; frederick hinton, with his polished eloquence; james forten, the merchant prince; william whipper, just essaying his youthful powers; lewis woodson and john peck, of pittsburg; austin steward, then of rochester; samuel e. cornish, who had the distinguished honor of reasoning gerrit smith out of colonization, and of telling henry clay that he would never be president of anything higher than the american colonization society; philip a. bell, the born sabreur, who never feared the face of clay, and a hundred others, were the worthily leading spirits among the colored people. and yet the idea of the first colored convention did not originate with any of these distinguished men; it came from a young man of baltimore; then, and still, unknown to fame. born in that city in , he was in apprenticed to a man some two hundred miles off in the southeast. arriving at his field of labor, he worked hard nearly a week and received poor fare in return. one day, while at work near the house, the mistress came out and gave him a furious scolding, so furious, indeed, that her husband mildly interfered; she drove the latter away, and threatened to take the baltimore out of the lad with cowhide, etc., etc. at this moment, to use his own expression, the lad became converted, that is, he determined to be his own master as long as he lived. early nightfall found him on his way to baltimore which he reached after a severe journey which tested his energy and ingenuity to the utmost. at the age of twenty-three he was engaged in the summer time in supplying baltimore with ice from his cart, and in winter in cutting up pork for ellicotts' establishment. he must have been strong and swift with knife and cleaver, for in one day he cut up and dressed some four hundred and fifteen porkers. in our young friend fell in with benjamin lundy, and in - , with william lloyd garrison, editors and publishers of the "genius of universal emancipation," a radical anti-slavery paper, whose boldness would put the "national era" to shame, printed and published in the slave state of maryland. in - the colored people of the free states were much excited on the subject of emigration; there had been an emigration to hayti, and also to canada, and some had been driven to liberia by the severe laws and brutal conduct of the fermenters of colonization in virginia and maryland. in some districts of these states the disguised whites would enter the houses of free colored men at night, and take them out and give them from thirty to fifty lashes, to get them to consent to go to liberia. it was in the spring of that the young man we have sketched, hezekiah grice, conceived the plan of calling together a meeting or convention of colored men in some place north of the potomac, for the purpose of comparing views and of adopting a harmonious movement either of emigration or of determination to remain in the united states; convinced of the hopelessness of contending against the oppressions in the united states, living in the very depth of that oppression and wrong, his own views looked to canada; but he held them subject to the decision of the majority of the convention which might assemble. on the d of april, , he addressed a written circular to prominent colored men in the free states, requesting their opinions on the necessity and propriety of holding such convention, and stated that if the opinions of a sufficient number warranted it, he would give time and place at which duly elected delegates might assemble. four months passed away, and his spirit almost died within him, for he had not received a line from any one in reply. when he visited mr. garrison in his office, and stated his project, mr. garrison took up a copy of walker's appeal, and said, although it might be right, yet it was too early to have published such a book. on the th of august, however, he received a sudden and peremptory order from bishop allen to come instantly to philadelphia, about the emigration matter. he went, and found a meeting assembled to consider the conflicting reports on canada of messrs. lewis and dutton; at a subsequent meeting, held the next night, and near the adjournment, the bishop called mr. grice aside and gave to him to read a printed circular, issued from new york city, strongly approving of mr. grice's plan of a convention, and signed by peter williams, peter vogelsang and thomas l. jinnings. the bishop added, "my dear child, we must take some action immediately, or else these new yorkers will get ahead of us." the bishop left the meeting to attend a lecture on chemistry by dr. wells, of baltimore. mr. grice introduced the subject of the convention; and a committee consisting of bishop allen, benjamin pascal, cyrus black, james cornish and junius c. morel, were appointed to lay the matter before the colored people of philadelphia. this committee, led, doubtless, by bishop allen, at once issued a call for a convention of the colored men of the united states, to be held in the city of philadelphia on the th of september, . mr. grice returned to baltimore rejoicing at the success of his project; but, in the same boat which bore him down the chesapeake, he was accosted by mr. zollickoffer, a member of the society of friends, a philadelphian, and a warm and tried friend of the blacks. mr. zollickoffer used arguments, and even entreaties, to dissuade mr. grice from holding the convention, pointing out the dangers and difficulties of the same should it succeed, and the deep injury it would do the cause in case of failure. of course, it was reason and entreaty thrown away. on the fifteenth of september, mr. grice again landed in philadelphia, and in the fulness of his expectation asked every colored man he met about the convention; no one knew anything about it; the first man did not know the meaning of the word, and another man said, "who ever heard of colored people holding a convention--convention, indeed!" finally, reaching the place of meeting, he found, in solemn conclave, the five gentlemen who had constituted themselves delegates: with a warm welcome from bishop allen, mr. grice, who came with credentials from the people of baltimore, was admitted as delegate. a little while after, dr. burton, of philadelphia, dropped in, and demanded by what right the six gentlemen held their seats as members of the convention. on a hint from bishop allen, mr. pascal moved that dr. burton be elected an honorary member of the convention, which softened the doctor. in half an hour, five or six grave, stern-looking men, members of the zion methodist body in philadelphia, entered, and demanded to know by what right the members present held their seats and undertook to represent the colored people. another hint from the bishop, and it was moved that these gentlemen be elected honorary members. but the gentlemen would submit to no such thing, and would accept nothing short of full membership, which was granted them. among the delegates were abraham shadd, of delaware; j.w.c. pennington, of brooklyn; austin steward, of rochester; horace easton, of boston, and ---- adams, of utica. the main subject of discussion was emigration to canada; junius c. morel, chairman of a committee on that subject presented a report, on which there was a two days' discussion; the point discussed was that the report stated that "the lands in canada were synonymous with those of the northern states." the word synonymous was objected to, and the word similar proposed in its stead. mr. morel, with great vigor and ingenuity, defended the report, but was finally voted down, and the word similar adopted. the convention recommended emigration to canada, passed strong resolutions against the american colonization society, and at its adjournment appointed the next annual convention of the people of color to be held in philadelphia, on the first monday in june, . at the present day, when colored conventions are almost as frequent as church meetings, it is difficult to estimate the bold and daring spirit which inaugurated the colored convention of . it was the right move, originating in the right quarter and at the right time. glorious old maryland, or, as one speaking in the view that climate grows the men, would say,--maryland-virginia region,--which has produced benjamin banneker, nat. turner, frederick douglass, the parents of ira aldridge, henry highland garnett and sam. ringold ward, also produced the founder of colored conventions, hezekiah grice! at that time, in the prime of his young manhood, he must have presented the front of one equal to any fortune, able to achieve any undertaking. standing six feet high, well-proportioned, of a dark bronze complexion, broad brow, and that stamp of features out of which the greek sculptor would have delighted to mould the face of vulcan--he was, to the fullest extent, a working man of such sort and magnetism as would lead his fellows where he listed. in looking to the important results that grew out of this convention, the independence of thought and self-assertion of the black man are the most remarkable. then, the union of purpose and union of strength which grew out of the acquaintanceship and mutual pledges of colored men from different states. then, the subsequent conventions, where the great men we have already named, and others, appeared and took part in the discussions with manifestations of zeal, talent and ability, which attracted garrison, the tappans, jocelyn and others of that noble host, who, drawing no small portion of their inspiration from their black brethren in bonds, did manfully fight in the days of anti-slavery which tried men's souls, and when, to be an abolitionist, was, to a large extent, to be a martyr. we cannot help adding the thought that had these conventions of the colored people of the united states continued their annual sittings from until the present time, the result would doubtless have been greater general progress among our people themselves, a more united front to meet past and coming exigencies, and a profounder hold upon the public attention, and a deeper respect on the part of our enemies, than we now can boast of. looking at public opinion as it is, the living law of the land, and yet a malleable, ductile entity, which can be moulded, or at least affected, by the thoughts of any masses vigorously expressed, we should have become a power on earth, of greater strength and influence than in our present scattered and dwindled state we dare even dream of. the very announcement, "thirtieth annual convention of the colored people of the united states," would bear a majestic front. our great gathering at rochester in , commanded not only public attention, but respect and admiration. should we have such a gathering even now, once a year, not encumbered with elaborate plans of action, with too many wheels within wheels, we can yet regain much of the ground lost. the partial gathering at boston, the other day, has already assumed its place in the public mind, and won its way into the calculations of the politicians. our readers will doubtless be glad to learn the subsequent history of mr. grice. he did not attend the second convention, but in the interval between the second and third he formed, in the city of baltimore, a "legal rights association," for the purpose of ascertaining the legal status of the colored man in the united states. it was entirely composed of colored men, among whom were mr. watkins (the colored baltimorean), mr. deaver, and others. mr. grice called on william wirt, and asked him "what he charged for his opinion on a given subject." "fifty dollars." "then, sir, i will give you fifty dollars if you will give me your opinion on the legal condition of a free colored man in these united states." mr. wirt required the questions to be written out in proper form before he could answer them. mr. grice employed tyson, who drew up a series of questions, based upon the constitution of the united states, and relating to the rights and citizenship of the free black. he carried the questions to mr. wirt, who, glancing over them, said, "really, sir, my position as an officer under the government renders it a delicate matter for me to answer these questions as they should be answered, but i'll tell you what to do: they should be answered, and by the best legal talent in the land; do you go to philadelphia, and present my name to horace binney, and he will give you an answer satisfactory to you, and which will command the greatest respect throughout the land." mr. grice went to philadelphia, and presented the questions and request to horace binney. this gentleman pleaded age and poor eyesight, but told mr. grice that if he would call on john sargent he would get answers of requisite character and weight. he called on john sargent, who promptly agreed to answer the questions if mr. binney would allow his name to be associated as an authority in the replies. mr. binney again declined, and so the matter fell through. this is what mr. grice terms his "dred scott case" and so it was. he attended the convention of , but by some informality, or a want of credentials, was not permitted to sit as full member!--saul ejected from among the prophets!--yet he was heard on the subject of rights, and the doctrine of "our rights," as well as the first colored convention, are due to the same man. in , chagrined at the colored people of the united states, he migrated to hayti, where, until , he pursued the business of carver and gilder. in the latter year he was appointed director of public works in port-au-prince, which office he held until two years ago. he is also engaged in, and has wide knowledge of machinery and engineering. every two or three years he visits new york, and is welcomed to the arcana of such men as james j. mapes, the bensons, dunhams, and at the various works where steam and iron obey human ingenuity in our city. he is at present in this city, lodging at the house of the widow of his old friend and coadjutor, thomas l. jinnings, reade street. we have availed ourselves of his presence among us to glean from him the statements which we have imperfectly put together in this article. we cannot dismiss this subject without the remark, of peculiar pertinence at this moment, that it would have been better for our people had mr. grice never left these united states. the twenty-seven years he has passed in hayti, although not without their mark on the fortunes of that island, are yet with out such mark as he would have made in the land and upon the institutions among which he was born. so early as his thirty-second year, before he had reached his intellectual prime, he had inaugurated two of the leading ideas on which our people have since acted, conventions to consider and alleviate their grievances, and the struggle for legal rights. if he did such things in early youth, what might he not have done with the full force and bent of his matured intellect? and where, in the wide world, in what region, or under what sun, could he so effectually have labored to elevate the black man as on this soil and under american institutions? so profoundly are we opposed to the favorite doctrine of the puritans and their co-workers, the colonizationists--ubi libertas, ibi patria--that we could almost beseech divine providence to reverse some past events and to fling back into the heart of virginia and maryland their sam wards, highland garnets, j.w. penningtons, frederick douglasses, and the twenty thousand who now shout hosannas in canada--and we would soon see some stirring in the direction of ubi patria, ibi libertas.--anglo-african magazine, october, . b. communication from the new york society for the promotion of education among colored children. to the honorable the commissioners for examining into the condition of common schools in the city and county of new york. the following statement in relation to the colored schools in said city and county is respectfully presented by the new york society for the promotion of education among colored children: . the number of colored children in the city and county of new york (estimated in , from the census of ), between the ages of and years , a. average attendance of colored children at public schools in average attendance of colored children in corporate schools supported by school funds (colored orphan asylum) ---- , b. proportion of average attendance in public schools of colored children to whole number of same is as to . . . the number of white children in the city of new york in (estimated as above), between the ages of and years , a. average attendance of white children in public schools in , average attendance of white children in corporate schools supported by public funds , ------ , b. proportion of average attendance of white children in public schools to whole number of same is as to . . . from these facts it appears that colored children attend the public schools (and schools supported by public funds in the city of new york) in the proportion of to . , and that the white children attend similar schools in said city in the proportion of to . ; that is to say, nearly per cent. more of colored children than of white children attend the public schools, and schools supported by public funds in the city of new york. . the number of colored children attending private schools in the city of new york, . a. the number of white children attending private schools in , census gave , , which number has since been increased by the establishment of catholic parochial schools, estimated in , , . b. the proportion of colored children attending private schools to white children attending same, is as to . c. but the average attendance of colored children in all schools is about the same as that of the white in proportion, that is to say, as many colored children attend the public schools as do whites attend both public and private schools, in proportion to the whole number of each class of children. locality, capability, etc., of colored schools. . the board of education, since its organization, has expended in sites and buildings for white schools $ , , . b. the board of education has expended for sites and buildings for colored schools (addition to building leased thomas), $ , . c. the two schoolhouses in possession of the board now used for colored children were assigned to same by the old public school society. . the proportion of colored children to white children attending public schools is as to . a. the sum expended on school buildings and sites of colored and white schools by the board of education is as to , . . a. schoolhouse no. , for colored children, is an old building, erected in by the new york manumission society as a school for colored children, in mulberry street, in a poor but decent locality. it has two departments, one male and one female; it consists of two stories only, and has two small recitation rooms on each floor, but as primary as well as grammar children attend each department, much difficulty and confusion arises from the want of class room for the respective studies. the building covers only part of the lot, and as it is, the best attended and among the best taught of the colored schools, a new and ample school building, erected in this place, would prove a great attraction, and could be amply filled by children. b. schoolhouse no. , erected in laurens street more than twenty years ago for colored children by the public school society, is in one of the lowest and filthiest neighborhoods, and hence, although it has competent teachers in the male and female departments, and a separate primary department, the attendance has always been slender, and will be until the school is removed to a neighborhood where children may be sent without danger to their morals. c. school no. , for colored children, in yorkville, is an old building, is well attended, and deserves, in connection with schoolhouse no. , in harlem, a new building midway between the present localities. d. schoolhouse no. , for colored children, is an old building, leased at no. thomas street, a most degraded neighborhood, full of filth and vice; yet the attendance on this school, and the excellence of its teachers, earn for it the need of a new site and new building. e. schoolhouse no. , for colored children, is in broadway, near th street, in a dwelling house leased and fitted up for a school, in which there is always four feet of water in the cellar. the attendance good. some of the school officers have repeatedly promised a new building. f. primary school for colored children, no. , is in the basement of a church on th street, near th avenue, in a good location, but premises too small for the attendance; no recitation rooms, and is perforce both primary and grammar school, to the injury of the progress of all. g. primary schools for colored children, no. and , are in the rear of church, in d street, near th avenue; the rooms are dark and cheerless, and without the needful facilities of sufficient recitation rooms, etc. from a comparison of the schoolhouses with the splendid, almost palatial edifices, with manifold comforts, conveniences and elegancies which make up the schoolhouses for white children in the city of new york, it is evident that the colored children are painfully neglected and positively degraded. pent up in filthy neighborhoods, in old and dilapidated buildings, they are held down to low associations and gloomy surroundings. yet mr. superintendent kiddle, at a general examination of colored schools held in july last (for silver medals awarded by the society now addressing your honorable body) declared the reading and spelling equal to that of any schools in the city. the undersigned enter their solemn protest against this unjust treatment of colored children. they believe with the experience of massachusetts, and especially the recent experience of boston before them, there is no sound reason why colored children shall be excluded from any of the common schools supported by taxes levied alike on whites and blacks, and governed by officers elected by the vote of colored as well as white voters. but if in the judgment of your honorable body common schools are not thus common to all, then we earnestly pray you to recommend to the legislature such action as shall cause the board of education of this city to erect at least two well-appointed modern grammar schools for colored children on suitable sites, in respectable localities, so that the attendance of colored children may be increased and their minds be elevated in like manner as the happy experience of the honorable board of education has been in the matter of white children. in addition to the excellent impulse to colored youth which these new grammar schools would give, they will have the additional argument of actual economy; the children will be taught with far less expense in two such schoolhouses than in the half dozen hovels into which they are now driven. it is a costly piece of injustice which educates the white scholar in a palace at $ per year and the colored pupil in a hovel at $ or $ per annum. taxes, etc., of colored population of the city. no proposition can be more reasonable than that they who pay taxes for schools and schoolhouses should be provided with schools and schoolhouses. the colored population of this city, in proportion to their numbers, pay their full share of the general and therefore of the school taxes. there are about nine thousand adults of both sexes; of these over three thousand are householders, rent-payers, and therefore tax-payers, in that sense of the word in which owners make tax-payers of their poor tenants. the colored laboring man, with an income of $ a year, who pays $ per year for a room and bedroom, is really in proportion to his means a larger tax-payer than the millionaire whose tax rate is thousands of dollars. but directly, also, do the colored people pay taxes. from examinations carefully made, the undersigned affirm that there are in the city at least , colored persons who own and pay taxes on real estate. taxed real estate in the city of new york owned by colored persons $ , , untaxed by colored persons (churches) , personal estate , money in savings banks , , ----------- $ , , these figures indicate that in proportion to their numbers, the colored population of this city pay a fair share of the school taxes, and that they have been most unjustly dealt with. their money has been used to purchase sites and erect and fit up schoolhouses for white children, whilst their own children are driven into miserable edifices in disgraceful localities. surely, the white population of the city are too able, too generous, too just, any longer to suffer this miserable robbing of their colored fellow-citizens for the benefit of white children. praying that your honorable commission will take due notice of these facts, and recommend such remedy as shall seem to you best, we have the honor to be, in behalf of the new york society for the promotion of education among colored citizens, most respectfully yours, charles b. ray, president. philip a. white, secretary. new york city, december , . chapter ii. american negro and the military spirit. early literature of negro soldiers--negro soldiers in the war of the revolution--the war of --negro insurrections--negro troops in the civil war--notes. "do you think i'll make a soldier?" is the opening line of one of those delightful spirituals, originating among the slaves in the far south. i first heard it sung in the saint james methodist church, corner of spring and coming streets, charleston, south carolina, immediately after the close of the war. it was sung by a vast congregation to a gentle, swinging air, with nothing of the martial about it, and was accompanied by a swaying of the body to the time of the music. occasionally there would be the "curtesys" peculiar to the south carolina slave of the low country, which consists in a stooping of the body by bending the knees only, the head remaining erect, a movement which takes the place of the bow among equals. the older ladies, with heads adorned with the ever-present madras kerchief, often tied in the most becoming and tasteful manner, and faces aglow with an enthusiasm that bespoke a life within sustained by visions of spiritual things, would often be seen to shake hands and add a word of greeting and hope which would impart a charm and meaning to the singing far above what the humble words of the song without these accessories could convey. as the rich chorus of matchless voices poured out in perfect time and tune, "rise, shine, and give god the glory," the thoughts of earthly freedom, of freedom from sin, and finally of freedom from the toils, cares and sorrows of earth to be baptized into the joys of heaven, all seemed to blend into the many colored but harmonious strain. the singing of the simple hearted trustful, emancipated slave! shall we ever hear the like again on earth? alas, that the high hopes and glowing prophecies of that auspicious hour have been so deferred that the hearts of millions have been made sick! of the songs that came out of slavery with these long suffering people, colonel higginson, who perhaps got nearer to them in sentiment than any other literary man not really, of them, says: "almost all their songs were thoroughly religious in their tone, however quaint their expression, and were in a minor key both as to words and music. the attitude is always the same, and, as a commentary on the life of the race, is infinitely pathetic. nothing but patience for this life--nothing but triumph in the next. sometimes the present predominates, sometimes the future; but the combination is always implied." i do not know when this "soldier" song had its birth, but it may have sprung out of the perplexity of the slave's mind as he contemplated the raging conflict and saw himself drawn nearer and nearer to the field of strife. whether in this song the "present predominates," and the query, therefore, has a strong primary reference to carnal weapons and to garments dyed in blood; whether the singer invites an opinion as to his fitness to engage in the war for freedom--it may not be possible to determine. the "year of jubilee," coming in the same song in connection with the purpose for which the singer is to be made a soldier, gives clearer illustration of that combination of the present and future which mr. higginson says was always present in the spirituals of that period, if it shows no more. when it is remembered that at that time charleston was literally trodden under foot by black soldiers in bright uniforms, whose coming seemed to the colored people of that city like a dream too good to be true, it is not hard to believe that this song had much of the present in it, and owed its birth to the circumstances of war. singularly enough the song makes the negro ask the exact question which had been asked about him from the earliest days of our history as a nation, a question which in some form confronts him still. the question, as the song has it, is not one of fact, but one of opinion. it is not: will i make a soldier? but: do you think i will make a soldier? it is one thing to "make a soldier," another thing to have men think so. the question of fact was settled a century ago; the question of opinion is still unsettled. the negro soldier, hero of five hundred battlefields, with medals and honors resting upon his breast, with the endorsement of the highest military authority of the nation, with port hudson, el caney and san juan behind him, is still expected by too many to stand and await the verdict of thought, from persons who never did "think" he would make a soldier, and who never will think so. as well expect the excited animal of the ring to _think_ in the presence of the red rag of the toreador as to expect _them_ to think on the subject of the negro soldier. they can curse, and rant, when they see the stalwart negro in uniform, but it is too much to ask them to think. to them the negro can be a fiend, a brute, but never a soldier. to john g. whittier and to william c. nell are we indebted for the earliest recital of the heroic deeds of the colored american in the wars of the revolution and . whittier contributed an article on this subject to the "national era" in , and five or six years later nell published his pamphlet on "colored patriots," a booklet recently reprinted by the african methodist episcopal church. it is a useful contribution, showing as it does the rising and spreading abroad of that spirit which appreciates military effort and valor; and while recognizing the glory that came to american arms in the period described, honestly seeks to place some of that glory upon the deserving brow of a race then enslaved and despised. the book is unpretentious and aims to relate the facts in a straight-forward way, unaccompanied by any of the charms of tasteful presentation. its author, however, is deserving our thanks, and the book marks an important stage in the development of the colored american. his mind was turning toward the creation of the soldier--the formation of armies. there are other evidences that the mind of the colored man was at this time turning towards arms. in doctor pennington, one of the most learned colored men of his times, having received his degree in divinity from heidelberg, delivered an address before a mass convention of colored citizens of ohio, held in cleveland, in which he spoke principally of the colored soldier. during the convention the "cleveland light artillery" fired a salute, and on the platform were seated several veteran colored men, some of them, particularly mr. john julius, of pittsburg, pa., taking part in the speech-making. mr. nell says: "within recent period several companies of colored men in new york city have enrolled themselves a la militaire," and quotes from the new york tribune of august, , as follows: "colored soldiers.--among the many parades within a few days we noticed yesterday a soldierly-looking company of colored men, on their way homeward from a target or parade drill. they looked like men, handled their arms like men, and should occasion demand, we presume they would fight like men." in boston, new haven, new bedford and other places efforts were made during the decade from to to manifest this rising military spirit by appropriate organization, but the efforts were not always successful. in some cases the prejudices of the whites put every possible obstacle in the way of the colored young men who attempted to array themselves as soldiers. the martial spirit is not foreign to the negro character, as has been abundantly proved in both ancient and modern times. williams, in his admirable history of the negro as well as in his "negro troops in the rebellion," has shown at considerable length that the negro has been a soldier from earliest times, serving in large numbers in the egyptian army long before the beginning of the christian era. we know that without any great modification in character, runaway slaves developed excellent fighting qualities as maroons, in trinidad, british guiana, st. domingo and in florida. but it was in hayti that the unmixed negro rose to the full dignity of a modern soldier, creating and leading armies, conducting and carrying on war, treating with enemies and receiving surrenders, complying fully with the rules of civilized warfare, and evolving finally a toussaint, whose military genius his most bitter enemies were compelled to recognize--toussaint, who to the high qualities of the soldier added also the higher qualities of statesmanship. with napoleon, cromwell and washington, the three great commanders of modern times who have joined to high military talent eminent ability in the art of civil government, we must also class toussaint l'ouverteur, the black soldier of the antilles. thiers, the prejudiced attorney of napoleon, declares nevertheless that toussaint possessed wonderful talent for government, and the fact ever remains that under his benign rule all classes were pacified and san domingo was made to blossom as the rose. in the armies of menelek, in the armies of france, in the armies of england, as well as in the organization of the zulu and kaffir tribes the negro has shown himself a soldier. if the afro-american should fail in this particular it will not be because of any lack of the military element in the african side of his character, or for any lack of "remorseless military audacity" in the original negro, as the historian, williams, expresses it. in our own revolutionary war, the negro, then but partially civilized, and classed with "vagabonds," held everywhere as a slave, and everywhere distrusted, against protest and enactment, made his way into the patriot army, fighting side by side with his white compatriots from lexington to yorktown. on the morning of april th, , when the british re-enforcements were preparing to leave boston for lexington, a negro soldier who had served in the french war, commanded a small body of west cambridge "exempts" and captured lord percy's supply train with its military escort and the officer in command. as a rule the negro soldiers were distributed among the regiments, thirty or forty to a regiment, and did not serve in separate organizations. bishop j.p. campbell, of the african methodist church, was accustomed to say "both of my grandfathers served in the revolutionary war." in varnum's brigade, however, there was a negro regiment and of it scribner's history, , says, speaking of the battle of rhode island: "none behaved better than greene's colored regiment, which three times repulsed the furious charges of veteran hessians." williams says: "the black regiment was one of three that prevented the enemy from turning the flank of the american army. these black troops were doubtless regarded as the weak spot of the line, but they were not." the colony of massachusetts alone furnished , men for the revolutionary war, while all the colonies together south of pennsylvania furnished but , , hence the sentiment prevailing in massachusetts would naturally be very powerful in determining any question pertaining to the army. when the country sprang to arms in response to that shot fired at lexington, the echoes of which, poetically speaking, were heard around the world, the free negroes of every northern colony rallied with their white neighbors. they were in the fight at lexington and at bunker hill, but when washington came to take command of the army he soon gave orders that no negroes should be enlisted. he was sustained in this position by a council of war and by a committee of conference in which were representatives from rhode island, connecticut and massachusetts, and it was agreed that negroes be rejected altogether. the american negro's persistency in pressing himself where he is not _wanted_ but where he is _eminently needed_ began right there. within six weeks so many colored men applied for enlistment, and those that had been put out of the army raised such a clamor that washington changed his policy, and the negro, who of all america's population contended for the privilege of shouldering a gun to fight for american liberty, was allowed a place in the continental army, the first national army organized on this soil, ante-dating the national flag. the negro soldier helped to evolve the national standard and was in the ranks of the fighting men over whom it first unfolded its broad stripes and glittering stars. [transcriber's note: this footnote appeared in the text without a footnote anchor: "to the honorable general court of the massachusetts bay: "the subscribers beg leave to report to your honorable house, which we do in justice to the character of so brave a man, that, under our own observation, we declare that a negro man called salem poor, of col. frye's regiment, capt. ames' company, in the late battle at charlestown, behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier. we would only beg leave to say, in the person of this said negro centres a brave and gallant soldier. the reward due to so great and distinguished a character we submit to the congress. "cambridge, dec. , ." these black soldiers, fresh from heathen lands, not out of slavery, proved themselves as worthy as the best. in the battle of bunker hill, where all were brave, two negro soldiers so distinguished themselves that their names have come down to us garlanded with the tributes of their contemporaries. peter salem, until then a slave, a private in colonel nixon's regiment of continentals, without orders fired deliberately upon major pitcairn as he was leading the assault of the british to what appeared certain victory. everet in speaking "of prescott, putnam and warren, the chiefs of the day," mentions in immediate connection "the colored man, salem, who is reported to have shot the gallant pitcairn as he mounted the parapet." what salem poor did is not set forth, but the following is the wreath of praise that surrounds his name: jona. brewer, col. eliphalet bodwell, sgt. thomas nixon, lt.-col. josiah foster, lieut. wm. precott, col. ebenr. varnum, d lieut. ephm. corey, lieut. wm. hudson ballard, capt. joseph baker, lieut. william smith, capt. joshua row, lieut. john morton, sergt. (?) jonas richardson, capt. richard welsh, lieut.] it is in place here to mention a legion of free mulattoes and blacks from the island of st. domingo, a full account of whose services is appended to this section, who fought under d'estaing with great distinction in the siege of savannah, their bravery at that time saving the patriot army from annihilation. when the revolutionary war had closed the brave black soldier who had fought to give to the world a new flag whose every star should be a star of hope to the oppressed, and whose trinity of colors should symbolize liberty, equality and fraternity, found his race, and in some instances himself personally, encased in a cruel and stubborn slavery. for the soldier himself special provision had been made in both northern and southern colonies, but it was not always hearty or effective. in october, , the virginia legislature passed an act for the relief of certain slaves who had served in the army whose "former owners were trying to force to return to a state of servitude, contrary to the principles of justice and their solemn promise." the act provided that each and every slave who had enlisted "by the appointment and direction of his owner" and had "been received as a substitute for any free person whose duty or lot it was to serve" and who had served faithfully during the term of such enlistment, unless lawfully discharged earlier, should be fully and completely emancipated and should be held and deemed free in as full and ample manner as if each and every one of them were specially named in the act. the act, though apparently so fair on its face, and interlarded as it is with patriotic and moral phrases, is nevertheless very narrow and technical, liberating only those who enlisted by the appointment and direction of their owners, and who were accepted as substitutes, and who came out of the army with good discharges. it is not hard to see that even under this act many an ex-soldier might end his days in slavery. the negro had joined in the fight for freedom and when victory is won finds himself a slave. he was both a slave and a soldier, too often, during the war; and now at its close may be both a veteran and a slave. the second war with great britain broke out with an incident in which the negro in the navy was especially conspicuous. the chesapeake, an american war vessel was hailed, fired upon and forced to strike her colors, by the british. she was then boarded and searched and four persons taken from her decks, claimed as deserters from the english navy. three of these were negroes and one white. the negroes were finally dismissed with a reprimand and the white man hanged. five years later hostilities began on land and no opposition was manifested toward the employment of negro soldiers. laws were passed, especially in new york, authorizing the formation of regiments of blacks with white officers. it is remarkable that although the successful insurrection of st. domingo was so recent, and many refugees from that country at that time were in the united states, and our country had also but lately come into possession of a large french element by the louisiana purchase, there was no fear of a servile insurrection in this country. the free colored men of new orleans, under the proclamation of the narrow-minded jackson, rallied to the defence of that city and bore themselves with commendable valor in that useless battle. the war closed, however, and the glory of the negro soldier who fought in it soon expired in the dismal gloom of a race-slavery becoming daily more wide-spread and hopeless. john brown's movement was military in character and contemplated the creation of an army of liberated slaves; but its early suppression prevented any display of negro valor or genius. its leader must ever receive the homage due those who are so moved by the woes of others as to overlook all considerations of policy and personal risk. as a plot for the destruction of life it fell far short of the nat turner insurrection which swept off fifty-seven persons within a few hours. in purpose the two episodes agree. they both aim at the liberation of the slave; both were led by fanatics, the reflex production of the cruelty of slavery, and both ended in the melancholy death of their heroic leaders. turner's was the insurrection of the slave and was not free from the mad violence of revenge; brown's was the insurrection of the friend of the slave, and was governed by the high and noble purpose of freedom. the insurrections of denmark vesey in south carolina, in , and of nat turner, in virginia, in , show conclusively that the negro slave possessed the courage, the cunning, the secretiveness and the intelligence to fight for his freedom. these two attempts were sufficiently broad and intelligent, when taken into consideration with the enforced ignorance of the slave, to prove the negro even in his forlorn condition capable of daring great things. of the probable thousands who were engaged in the denmark vesey insurrection, only fifteen were convicted, and these died heroically without revealing anything connected with the plot. forty-three years later i met the son of denmark vesey, who rejoiced in the efforts of his noble father, and regarded his death on the gallows as a holy sacrifice to the cause of freedom. turner describes his fight as follows: "the white men, eighteen in number, approached us to about one hundred yards, when one of them fired, and i discovered about half of them retreating. i then ordered my men to fire and rush on them. the few remaining stood their ground until we approached within fifty yards, when they fired and retreated. we pursued and overtook some of them whom we thought we left dead. after pursuing them about two hundred yards, and rising a little hill, i discovered they were met by another party, and had halted and were reloading their guns. thinking that those who retreated first and the party who fired on us at fifty or sixty yards distant had all only fallen back to meet others with ammunition, as i saw them reloading their guns, and more coming up than i saw at first, and several of my bravest men being wounded, the others became panic struck and scattered over the field. the white men pursued and fired on us several times. hark had his horse shot under him, and i caught another for him that was running by me; five or six of my men were wounded, but none left on the field. finding myself defeated here, i instantly determined to go through a private way and cross the nottoway river at cypress bridge, three miles below jerusalem, and attack that place in the rear, as i expected they would look for me on the other road, and i had a great desire to get there to procure arms and ammunition. after going a short distance in this private way, accompanied by about twenty men, i overtook two or three who told me the others were dispersed in every direction. after trying in vain to collect a sufficient force to proceed to jerusalem, i determined to return, as i was sure they would make back to their old neighborhood, where they would rejoin me, make new recruits, and come down again. on my way back i called on mrs. thomas', mrs. spencer's and several other places. we stopped at major ridley's quarters for the night, and being joined by four of his men, with the recruits made since my defeat, we mustered now about forty strong. after placing out sentinels, i lay down to sleep, but was quickly aroused by a great racket. starting up i found some mounted and others in great confusion, one of the sentinels having given the alarm that we were about to be attacked. i ordered some to ride around and reconnoitre, and on their return the others being more alarmed, not knowing who they were, fled in different ways, so that i was reduced to about twenty again. with this i determined to attempt to recruit, and proceed on to rally in the neighborhood i had left."[ ] no one can read this account, which is thoroughly supported by contemporary testimony, without seeing in this poor misguided slave the elements of a vigorous captain. failing in his efforts he made his escape and remained for two months in hiding in the vicinity of his pursuers. one concerned in his prosecution says: "it has been said that he was ignorant and cowardly and that his object was to murder and rob for the purpose of obtaining money to make his escape. it is notorious that he was never known to have a dollar in his life, to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits. as to his ignorance, he certainly never had the advantages of education, but he can read and write (it was taught him by his parents) and for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, is surpassed by few men i have ever seen. as to his being a coward, his reason as given for not resisting mr. phipps shows the decision of his character."[ ] the war of the rebellion, now called the civil war, effected the last and tremendous step in the transition of the american negro from the position of a slave under the republic to that of a soldier in its armies. both under officers of his own race at port hudson and under white officers on a hundred battlefields, the negro in arms proved himself a worthy foeman against the bravest and sternest enemies that ever assailed our nation's flag, and a worthy comrade of the union's best defenders. thirty-six thousand eight hundred and forty-seven of them gave their lives in that awful conflict. the entire race on this continent and those of allied blood throughout the world are indebted to the soldier-historian, honorable george w. williams, for the eloquent story of their service in the union army, and for the presentation of the high testimonials to the valor and worthiness of the colored soldier as given by the highest military authority of the century. from chapter xvi of his book, "negro troops in the rebellion," the paragraphs appended at the close of this chapter are quoted. a. how the black st. domingo legion saved the patriot army in the siege of savannah, . the siege and attempted reduction of savannah by the combined french and american forces is one of the events of our revolutionary war, upon which our historians care little to dwell. because it reflects but little glory upon the american arms, and resulted so disastrously to the american cause, its important historic character and connections have been allowed to fade from general sight; and it stands in the ordinary school text-books, much as an affair of shame. the following, quoted from barnes' history, is a fair sample of the way in which it is treated: "french-american attack on savannah.--in september, d'estaing joined lincoln in besieging that city. after a severe bombardment, an unsuccessful assault was made, in which a thousand lives were lost. count pulaski was mortally wounded. the simple-hearted sergeant jasper died grasping the banner presented to his regiment at fort moultrie. d'estaing refused to give further aid; thus again deserting the americans when help was most needed." from this brief sketch the reader is at liberty to infer that the attack was unwise if not fool-hardy; that the battle was unimportant; and that the conduct of count d'estaing immediately after the battle was unkind, if not unjust, to the americans. while the paragraph does not pretend to tell the whole truth, what it does tell ought to be the truth; and this ought to be told in such a way as to give correct impressions. the attack upon savannah was well-planned and thoroughly well considered; and it failed only because the works were so ably defended, chiefly by british regulars, under brave and skillful officers. in a remote way, which it is the purpose of this paper to trace, that sanguinary struggle had a wider bearing upon the progress of liberty in the western world than any other one battle fought during the revolution. but first let us listen to the story of the battle itself. colonel campbell with a force of three thousand men, captured savannah in december, ; and in the january following, general prevost arrived, and by march had established a sort of civil government in georgia, savannah being the capital. in april, the american general, lincoln, feeble in more senses than one, perhaps, began a movement against savannah by way of augusta; but prevost, aware of his purpose, crossed into south carolina and attempted an attack upon charleston. finding the city too well defended, he contented himself with ravaging the plantations over a wide extent of adjacent country, and returned to savannah laden with rich spoils, among which were included three thousand slaves, of whose labor he made good use later. the patriots of the south now awaited in hope the coming of the french fleet; and on the first of september, count d'estaing appeared suddenly on the coast of georgia with thirty-three sail, surprised and captured four british warships, and announced to the government of south carolina his readiness to assist in the recapture of savannah. he urged as a condition, however, that his ships should not be detained long off so dangerous a coast, as is was now the hurricane season, and there was neither harbor, road, nor offing for their protection. by means of small vessels sent from charleston he effected a landing in ten days, and four days thereafter, on the th, he summoned the garrison to surrender to the arms of france. although this demand was made in the name of france for the plain reason that the american army was not yet upon the spot, the loyalists did not fail to make it a pretext for the accusation that the french were desirous of making conquests in the war on their own account. in the meantime lincoln with the regular troops, was hurrying toward savannah, and had issued orders for the militia to rendezvous at the same place; and the militia full of hope of a speedy, if not of a bloodless conquest, were entering upon this campaign with more than ordinary enthusiasm. during the time that the fleet had been off the coast, and especially since the landing, the british had been very busy in putting the city in a high state of defence, and in making efforts to strengthen the garrison. lieutenant-colonel cruger, who had a small force at sunbury, the last place in georgia that had been captured by the british, and lieutenant-colonel maitland who was commanding a considerable force at beaufort, were ordered to report in haste with their commands at savannah. on the th, when the summons to surrender was received by prevost, maitland had not arrived, but was hourly expected. prevost asked for a delay of twenty-four hours to consider the proposal, which delay was granted; and on that very evening, maitland with his force arrived at dawfuskie. finding the river in the possession of the french, his course for a time seemed effectually cut off. by the merest chance he fell in with some negro fishermen who informed him of a passage known as wall's cut, through scull's creek, navigable for small boats. a favoring tide and a dense fog enabled him to conduct his command unperceived by the french, through this route, and thus arrive in savannah on the afternoon of the th, before the expiration of the twenty-four hours. general prevost had gained his point; and now believing himself able to resist an assault, declined the summons to surrender. two armed ships and four transports were sunk in the channel of the river below the city, and a boom in the same place laid entirely across the river; while several small boats were sunk above the town, thus rendering it impossible for the city to be approached by water. on the day of the summons to surrender, although the works were otherwise well advanced, there were not ten cannon mounted in the lines of savannah; but from that time until the day of assault, the men of the garrison, with the slaves they had captured, worked day and night to get the defences of the city in the highest state of excellence. major moncrief, chief of the engineers, is credited with placing in position more than eighty cannons in a short time after the call to surrender had been received. the city itself at this time was but a mere village of frame buildings and unpaved streets. viewed as facing its assailants, it was protected in its rear, or upon its north side, by the savannah river; and on its west side by a thick swamp or morass, which communicated with the river above the city. the exposed sides were those of the east and south. these faced an open country which for several miles was entirely clear of woods. this exposed portion of the city was well protected by an unbroken line of defences extending from the river back to the swamp, the right and left extremes of the line consisting of strong redoubts, while the centre was made up of seamen's batteries in front, with impalements and traverses thrown up to protect the troops from the fire of the besiegers. the whole extent of the works was faced with an ample abattis. [illustration: savannah river.] to be still more particular: there were three redoubts on the right of the line, and on the right of them quite near the swamp, was a sailor's battery of nine pounders, covered by a company of the british legion. the left redoubt of these three, was known as the springhill redoubt; and proved to be the objective of the final assault. between it and the centre, was another sailor's battery behind which were posted the grenadiers of the th regiment, with the marines which had been landed from the warships. on the left of the line near the river were two redoubts, strongly constructed, with a massy frame of green spongy wood, filled in with sand, and mounted with heavy cannon. the centre, or space between these groups of redoubts, was composed, as has been said, of lighter but nevertheless very effective works, and was strongly garrisoned. having thus scanned the works, let us now take a glance at the men who are to defend them. as all of the assaulting forces are not made up of americans, so all of the defenders are not foreigners. the centre redoubt of the triplet on the right, was garrisoned by two companies of militia, with the north carolina regiment to support them; captains roworth and wylie, with the provincial corps of king's rangers, were posted in the redoubt on the right; and captain tawse with his corps of provincial dragons, dismounted, in the left or springhill redoubt, supported by the south caroline regiment. the whole of this force on the right of the line, was under the command of the gallant lieutenant-colonel maitland; and it was this force that made the charge that barely failed of annihilating the american army. on the left of the line, the georgia loyalists garrisoned one of those massy wooden sand-filled redoubts; while in the centre, cheek by jowl so to speak, with two battalions of the seventy-first regiment, and two regiments of hessians, stood the new york volunteers. all of these corps were ready to act as circumstances should require and to support any part of the line that might be attacked. the negroes who worked on these defences were under the direction of major moncrief. the french troops had landed below the city and were formed facing the british lines, with the river on their right. on their left, later, assembled the american troops. the final dispositions were concluded by september nd, and were as follows: the american troops under lincoln formed the left of the line, their left resting upon the swamp and the entire division facing the springhill redoubt and her two sister defences; then came the division of m. de noailles, composed of nine hundred men. d'estaing's division of one thousand men beside the artillery, came next, and formed the centre of the french army. on d'estaing's right was count dillon's division of nine hundred men; on the right of dillon were the powder magazine, cattle depot, and a small field hospital; on the right of the depot and a little in advance, were dejean's dragoons, numbering fifty men; upon the same alignment and to the right of the dragoons were rouvrais' volunteer chasseurs, numbering seven hundred and fifty men; still further on to the right and two hundred yards in advance of rouvrais, was framais, comanding the grenadier volunteers, and two hundred men besides, his right resting upon the swampy wood that bordered the river, thus completely closing in the city on the land side. the frigate, la truite, and two galleys, lay within cannon shot of the town, and with the aid of the armed store ship, la bricole, and the frigate, la chimere, effectually cut off all communication by water. on the rd, both the french and the americans opened their trenches; and on the th, a small detachment of the besieged made a sortie against the french. the attack was easily repulsed, but the french pursuing, approached so near the entrenchments of the enemy that they were fired upon and several were killed. on the night of the th another sortie was made which threw the besiegers into some confusion and caused the french and americans to fire upon each other. cannonading continued with but little result until october th. the engineers were now of the opinion that a speedy reduction of the city could not be accomplished by regular approaches; and the naval officers were very anxious about the fleet, both because of the dangers to which it was exposed from the sea, and also because with so many men ashore it was in especial danger of being attacked and captured by british men-of-war. these representations agreeing altogether with d'estaing's previously expressed wishes to leave the coast as soon as possible, induced that officer and general lincoln to decide upon an attempt to storm the british works at once. it is quite probable that this had been the purpose as a last resort from the first. the preservation of the fleet was, however, the powerful factor in determining the time and character of the assault upon savannah. on the night of the eighth, major l'enfant, with a detachment attempted to set fire to the abattis in order to clear the way for the assault, but failed to through the dampness of the wood. the plan of the assault may be quite accurately obtained from the orders given to the american troops on the evening of the th by general lincoln and from the inferences to be drawn from the events of the morning of the th as they are recorded in history. at least two of the historians who have left us accounts of the seige, ramsey and mccall, were present at the time, and their accounts may be regarded as original authority. general lincoln's orders were as follows: "evening orders. by general lincoln. watchword--lewis. "the soldiers will be immediately supplied with rounds of cartridges, a spare flint, and have their arms in good order. the infantry destined for the attack of savannah will be divided into two bodies; first composed of the light troops under the command of colonel laurens; the second, of the continental battalions and the first battalion of the charleston militia, except the grenadiers, who are to join the light troops. the whole will parade at o'clock, near the left of the line, and march by platoons. the guards of the camp will be formed of the invalids, and be charged to keep the fires as usual in camp. "the cavalry under the command of count pulaski, will parade at the same time with the infantry and follow the left column of the french troops, precede the column of the american light troops; they will endeavor to penetrate the enemy's lines between the battery on the left of springhill redoubt, and the next towards the river; having effected this, will pass to the left towards yamacraw and secure such parties of the enemy as may be lodged in that quarter. "the artillery will parade at the same time, follow the french artillery, and remain with the corps de reserve until they receive further orders. "the whole will be ready by the time appointed, with the utmost silence and punctuality; and be ready to march the instant count dillon and general lincoln shall order. "the light troops who are to follow the cavalry, will attempt to enter the redoubt on the left of the springhill, by escalade if possible; if not by entrance into it, they are to be supported if necessary by the first south carolina regiment; in the meantime the column will proceed with the lines to the left of the springhill battery. "the light troops having succeeded against the redoubt will proceed to the left and attempt the several works between that and the river. "the column will move to the left of the french troops, taking care not to interfere with them. "the light troops having carried the work towards the river will form on the left of the column. "it is especially forbidden to fire a single gun before the redoubts are carried; or for any soldier to quit his rank to plunder without an order for that purpose; any who shall presume to transgress in either of these respects shall be reputed a disobeyer of military orders which is punishable with death. "the militia of the first and second brigades, general williamson's and the second battalion of the charleston militia will parade immediately under the command of general huger; after draughting five hundred of them the remander of them will go into the trenches and put themselves under the commanding officer there; with the he will march to the left of the enemy's line, remain as near them as he possibly can without being seen, until four o'clock in the morning, at which time the troops in the trenches will begin an attack upon the enemy; he will then advance and make his attack as near the river as possible; though this is only meant as a feint, yet should a favorable opportunity offer, he will improve it and push into the town. "in case of a repulse after taking springhill redoubt, the troops will retreat and rally in the rear of redoubt; if it cannot be effected that way, it must be attempted by the same route at which they entered. "the second place of rallying (or the first if the redoubt should not be carried) will be at the jews' burying-ground, where the reserve will be placed; if these two halts should not be effected, they will retire towards camp. "the troops will carry in their hats a piece of white paper by which they will be distinguished." general huger with his five hundred militia, covered by the river swamp, crept quite close to the enemy's lines and delivered his attack as directed. its purpose was to draw attention to that quarter and if possible cause a weakening of the strength in the left centre of the line. what its real effect was, there is now no means of knowing. count dillon, who during the siege had been on d'estaing's right, and who appears to have been second in command in the french army, in this assault was placed in command of a second attacking column. his purpose was to move to the right of general huger, and keeping in the edge of the swamps along the river, steal past the enemy's batteries on the left, and attack him in the rear. bancroft describes the results of his efforts as follows: "the column under count dillon, which was to have attacked the rear of the british lines, became entangled in a swamp of which it should only have skirted the edge was helplessly exposed to the british batteries and could not even be formed." here were the two strong sand-filled redoubts, mounted with heavy cannon, and these may have been the batteries that stopped dillon's column. count pulaski with his two hundred brave cavalrymen, undertook his part in the deadly drama with ardor, and began that perilous ride which had for its object: "to penetrate the enemy's lines, between the battery on the left of the springhill redoubt, and the next towards the river." balch describes it as an attempt to "penetrate into the city by galloping between the redoubts." it was the anticipation of the crimean "charge of the light brigade;" only in this case, no one blundered; it was simply a desperate chance. cannon were to the right, left, and front, and the heroic charge proved in vain; the noble pole fell, banner[ ] in hand, pierced with a mortal wound--another foreign martyr to our dearly bought freedom. the cavalry dash having failed, that much of the general plan was blotted out. the feints may have been understood; it is said a sergeant of the charleston grenadiers deserted during the night of the th and gave the whole plan of the attack to general prevost, so that he knew just where to strengthen his lines. the feints were effectually checked by the garrison on the left, twenty-eight of the americans being killed: while dillon's column was stopped by the batteries near the river. this state of affairs allowed the whole of maitland's force to protect the springhill redoubt and that part of the line which was most threatened. the springhill redoubt, as has been stated, was occupied by the south carolina regiment and a corps of dragoons. this circumstance may account for the fact, that while the three hundred and fifty charleston militia occupied a most exposed position in the attacking column, only one man among them was killed and but six wounded. the battery on the left of this redoubt was garrisoned by grenadiers and marines. the attacking column now advanced boldly, under the command of d'estaing and lincoln, the americans consisting of six hundred continental troops and three hundred and fifty charleston militia, being on the left, while the centre and right were made up of the french forces. they were met with so severe and steady a fire that the head of the column was soon thrown into confusion. they endured this fire for fifty-five minutes, returning it as best they could, although many of the men had no opportunity to fire at all. two american standards and one french standard, were placed on the british works, but their bearers were instantly killed. it being found impossible to carry any part of the works, a general retreat was ordered. of the six hundred continental troops, more than one-third had fallen, and about one-fifth of the french. the charleston militia had not suffered, although they had bravely borne their part in the assault, and it had certainly been no fault of theirs if their brethren behind the embankments had not fired upon them. count d'estaing had received two wounds, one in the thigh, and being unable to move, was saved by the young naval lieutenant truguet. ramsey gives the losses of the battle as follows: french soldiers ; officers ; americans ; total . as the army began its retreat, lieutenant-colonel maitland with the grenadiers and marines, who were incorporated with the grenadiers, charged its rear with the purpose of accomplishing its annihilation. it was then that there occurred the most brilliant feat of the day, and one of the bravest ever performed by foreign troops in the american cause. in the army of d'estaing was a legion of black and mulatto freedmen, known as fontages legion, commanded by vicount de fontages, a brave and experienced officer. the strength of this legion is given variously from six hundred to over eight hundred men. this legion met the fierce charge of maitland and saved the retreating army. in an official record prepared in paris, now before me, are these words: "this legion saved the army at savannah by bravely covering its retreat. among the blacks who rendered signal services at that time were: andre, beauvais, rigaud, villatte, beauregard, lambert, who latterly became generals under the convention, including henri christophe, the future king of haiti." this quotation is taken from a paper secured by the honorable richard rush, our minister to paris in , and is preserved in the pennsylvania historical society. henri christophe received a dangerous gunshot wound in savannah. balch says in speaking of fontages at savannah: "he commanded there a legion of mulattoes, according to my manuscript, of more than eight hundred men, and saved the army after the useless assault on the fortifications, by bravely covering the retreat." it was this legion that formed the connecting link between the siege of savannah and the wide development of republican liberty on the western continent, which followed early in the present century. in order to show this connection and the sequences, it will be necessary to sketch in brief the history of this remarkable body of men, especially that of the prominent individuals who distinguished themselves at savannah. in the french colony of saint domingo was in a state of peace, the population then consisting of white slave-holders, mulatto and black freedmen (affranchis), and slaves. count d'estaing received orders to recruit men from saint domingo for the auxiliary army; and there being no question of color raised, received into the service a legion of colored freedmen. there had been for years a colored militia in saint domingo, and as early as , the marquis de chateau morant, then governor of the colony, made one vincent the captain-general of all the colored militia in the vicinity of the cape. this captain vincent died in at the reputed age of years. he was certainly of great age, for he had been in the siege of carthegenia in , was taken prisoner, afterwards liberated by exchange and presented to louis xiv, and fought in the german war under villars. moreau de st. mery, in his description of vincent, incidentally mentions the savannah expedition. he says: "i saw him (vincent) the year preceding his death, recalling his ancient prowess to the men of color who were enrolling themselves for the expedition to savannah; and showing in his descendants who were among the first to offer themselves, that he had transmitted his valor. vincent, the good captain vincent, had a most pleasing countenance; and the contrast of his black skin with his white hair produced an effect that always commanded respect." [illustration: hutchinson island.] the haytian historian, enclus robin, says when the call for volunteers reached saint domingo: "eight hundred young freedmen, blacks and mulattoes, offered themselves to take part in the expedition;" that they went and "fought valiantly; and returned to saint domingo covered with glory." madiou, another haytian historian of the highest respectability says: "a crowd of young men, black and colored, enlisted with the french troops and left for the continent. they covered themselves with glory in the siege of savannah, under the orders of count d'estaing." what effect this experience had upon these volunteers may be inferred from their subsequent history. robin says: "these men who contributed their mite toward american independence, had still their mothers and sisters in slavery; and they themselves were subject to humiliating discriminations. should not france have expected from that very moment, that they would soon use in their own cause, those very arms which they had learned so well to use in the interests of others?" madiou says: "on their return to saint domingo they demanded for their brothers the enjoyment of political rights." beauvais went to europe and served in the army of france; but returned to fight for liberty in hayti, and was captain-general in ; rigaud, lambert and christophe wrote their names--not in the sand. these are the men who dared to stir saint domingo, under whose influence hayti became the first country of the new world, after the united states, to throw off european rule. the connection between the siege of savannah and the independence of hayti is traced, both as to its spirit, and physically, through the black legion that on that occasion saved the american army. how this connection is traced to the republics of south america, i will allow a haytian statesman and man of letters, honored both at home and abroad, to relate. i translate from a work published in paris in : "the illustrious bolivar, liberator and founder of five republics in south america, undertook in his great work of shaking off the yoke of spain, and of securing the independence of those immense countries which swelled the pride of the catholic crown--but failed. stripped of all resources he took flight and repaired to jamaica, where he implored in vain of the governor of that island, the help of england. almost in despair, and without means, he resolved to visit hayti, and appeal to the generosity of the black republic for the help necessary to again undertake that work of liberation which had gone to pieces in his hands. never was there a more solemn hour for any man--and that man the representative of the destiny of south america! could he hope for success? after the english, who had every interest in the destruction of spanish colonial power, had treated him with so much indifference, could he hope that a new-born nation, weak, with microscopic territory, and still guarding anxiously its own ill-recognized independence, would risk itself in an enterprise hazardous as the one he represented? full of doubt he came; but petion gave him a most cordial welcome. "taking the precautions that a legitimate sentiment of prudence dictated at that delicate moment of our national existence, the government of port-au-prince put to the disposition of the hero of boyaca and carabobo, all the elements of which he had need--and bolivar needed everything. men, arms and money were generously given him. petion did not wish to act openly for fear of compromising himself with the spanish government; it was arranged that the men should embark secretly as volunteers; and that no mention of hayti should ever be made in any official act of venezuela." bolivar's first expedition with his haytian volunteers was a failure; returning to the island he procured reinforcements and made a second descent which was brilliantly successful. haytian arms, money and men turned bolivar's disasters to victory; and the spirit of western liberty marched on to the redemption of south america. the liberation of mexico and all central america, followed as a matter of course; and the ground was thus cleared for the practical application of that continentalism enunciated in the monroe doctrine. the black men of the antilles who fought in the siege of savannah, enjoy unquestionably the proud historical distinction of being the physical conductors that bore away from our altars the sacred fire of liberty to rekindle it in their own land; and also of becoming the humble but important link that served to unite the two americas in the bond of enlightened independence. t.g. steward, u.s.a. note:--in the preparation of the above paper i have been greatly assisted by the honorable l.j. janvier, charge d'affairs d' haiti, in london; by right reverend james theodore holly, bishop of hayti, and by messrs. charles and frank rudolph steward of harvard university. to all of these gentlemen my thanks are here expressed. t.g.s. paper read at the session of the negro academy, washington, d.c., . b. extracts from chapter xvi "negro troops in the rebellion"--williams. adjutant-general thomas in a letter to senator wilson, may , , says: "experience proves that they manage heavy guns very well. their fighting qualities have also been fully tested a number of times, and i am yet to hear of the first case where they did not fully stand up to their work." major-general james g. blunt writing of the battle of honey springs, arkansas, said of negro troops: "the negroes (first colored regiment) were too much for the enemy, and let me here say that i never saw such fighting as was done by that negro regiment. they fought like veterans, with a coolness and valor that is unsurpassed. they preserved their line perfect throughout the whole engagement, and although in the hottest of the fight, they never once faltered. too much praise cannot be awarded them for their gallantry. the question that negroes will fight is settled; besides, they make better soldiers in every respect than any troops i have ever had under my command." general thomas j. morgan, speaking of the courage of negro troops in the battle of nashville, and its effect upon major-general george h. thomas, says: "those who fell nearest the enemy's works were colored. general thomas spoke very feelingly of the sight which met his eye as he rode over the field, and he confessed that the negro had fully vindicated his bravery, and wiped from his mind the last vestige of prejudice and doubt." footnotes: [ ] confession of nat turner, anglo-african magazine, vol. , p. , . [ ] ibid. [ ] the presentation of this banner by the moravian nuns of bethlehem forms the text of the poem by longfellow beginning-- when the dying flame of day through the chancel shot its ray, far the glimmering tapers shed faint light on the cowled head; and the censer burning swung where, before the altar, hung the crimson banner, that with prayer had been consecrated there. and the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, sung low in the dint, mysterious aisle, "take thy banner! may it wave proudly o'er the good and brave; when the battle's distant wail breaks the sabbath of our vale, when the cannon's music thrills to the hearts of those lone hills. when the spear in conflict shakes, and the strong lance shivering breaks. * * * * * "take thy banner! and if e'er thou should'st press the soldier's bier and the muffled drum shall beat to the tread of mournful feet, then the crimson flag shall be martial cloak and shroud for thee." the warrior took that banner proud, and it was his martial cloak and shroud. chapter iii. the black regulars of the army of invasion in the spanish-american war. organization of negro regiments in the regular army--first move in the war--chickamauga and tampa--note. altogether the colored soldiers in the civil war took part and sustained casualties in two hundred and fifty-one different engagements and came out of the prolonged conflict with their character so well established that up to the present hour they have been able to hold an important place in the regular army of the united states. no regiment of colored troops in the service was more renowned at the close of the war or has secured a more advantageous position in the history of that period than the fifty-fourth massachusetts regiment of infantry. recruited among the free colored people of the north, many of them coming from ohio, it was remarkable for the intelligence and character of its men, and for the high purpose and noble bearing of its officers. being granted but half the pay per month given to white soldiers, the regiment to a man, for eighteen months refused to receive one cent from the government. this was a spectacle that the country could not longer stand. one thousand volunteers fighting the country's battles without any compensation rather than submit to a discrimination fatal to their manhood, aroused such a sentiment that congress was compelled to put them on the pay-roll on equal footing with all other soldiers. by them the question of the black soldier's pay and rations was settled in the army of the united states for all time. every soldier, indeed every man in the army, except the chaplain, now draws the pay of his grade without regard to color, hair or race. by the time these lines reach the public eye it is to be hoped that even the chaplain will be lifted from his exceptional position and given the pay belonging to his rank as captain. (february , , the bill became a law giving chaplains the full pay of their grade.) more than , blacks, all told, served in the army of the union during the war of the rebellion, and the losses from their ranks of men killed in battle were as heavy as from the white troops. their bravery was everywhere recognized, and in the short time in which they were employed, several rose to commissions. perhaps the most notable act performed by a colored american during the war was the capture and delivery to the united states forces of the rebel steamer planter, by robert smalls, of charleston. smalls was employed as pilot on the planter, a rebel transport, and was entirely familiar with the harbors and inlets, of which there are many, on the south atlantic coast. on may , , the planter came to her wharf in charleston, and at night all the white officers went ashore, leaving a colored crew of eight men on board in charge of smalls. smalls hastily got his wife and three children on board, and at o'clock on the morning of the th steamed out into the harbor, passing the confederate forts by giving the proper signals, and when fairly out of reach, as daylight came, he ran up the stars and stripes and headed his course directly toward the union fleet, into whose hands he soon surrendered himself and his ship. the act caused much favorable comment and robert smalls became quite a hero. his subsequent career has been in keeping with the high promise indicated by this bold dash for liberty, and his name has received additional lustre from gallant services performed in the war after, and in positions of distinguished honor and responsibility in civil life. the planter, after being accepted by the united states, became a despatch boat, and smalls demonstrating by skill and bravery his fitness for the position, was finally, as an act of imperative justice, made her commander. with the close of the revolutionary war the prejudice against a standing army was so great that the army was reduced to scarce six hundred men, and the negro as a soldier dropped out of existence. when the war of closed sentiment with regard to the army had made but little advancement, and consequently no place in the service was left for negro soldiers. in the navy the negro still lingered, doing service in the lower grades, and keeping up the succession from the black heroes of ' and . when the war of the rebellion closed the country had advanced so far as to see both the necessity of a standing army, and the fitness of the negro to form a part of the army; and from this position it has never receded, and if the lessons of the cuban campaign are rightly heeded, it is not likely to recede therefrom. the value of the regular army and of the black regular were both proven to an absolute demonstration in that thin line of blue that compelled the surrender of santiago. in july, , congress passed an act adding eight new regiments of infantry and four of calvary to the nineteen regiments of infantry and six of calvary of which those arms of the regular army were at that time composed, thus making the permanent establishment to consist of five regiments of artillery, twenty-seven of infantry, and ten of cavalry. of the eight new infantry regiments to be formed, four were to be composed of colored men; and of the four proposed for the calvary arm, two were to be of colored men. the president was empowered by the act also to appoint a chaplain for each of the six regiments of colored troops. under this law the ninth and tenth cavalry regiments were organized. in the infantry suffered further reduction, and the four colored regiments organized under the law of , numbered respectively the th, th, th and st, were consolidated into two regiments, and numbered the th and th--the th and st becoming the former, and the th and th the latter. previous to this consolidation the numbers between the old th and the th, which was the lowest number borne by the new colored regiments, were filled in by dividing the old three batallion regiments in the service, and making of the second and third batallions of these regiments new regiments. the whole infantry arm, by the law of , was compressed into twenty-five regiments, and in that condition the army remains to the present, to wit:[ ] ten regiments of cavalry, five of artillery and twenty-five of infantry. the number of men in a company and the number of companies in a regiment have varied greatly within the past few months. just previous to the breaking out of the war a regiment of infantry consisted of eight companies of about sixty men each, and two skeletonized companies and the band--the whole organization carrying about five hundred men; now a regiment of infantry consists of twelve companies of men each and with the non-commissioned staff numbers twelve hundred and seventy-four men. since , or for a period of thirty years, the colored american has been represented in the regular army by these four regiments and during this time these regiments have borne more than their proportionate share in hard frontier service, including all sorts of indian campaigning and much severe guard and fatigue duty. the men have conducted themselves so worthily as to receive from the highest military authority the credit of being among our best troops. general miles and general merritt,[ ] with others who were active leaders in the indian wars of the west, have been unstinting in their praise of the valor and skill of colored soldiers. they proved themselves not only good individual fighters, but in some instances non-commissioned officers exhibited marked coolness and ability in command.[ ] from to the beginning of the hispano-american war there were in the regular army at some time, as commissioned officers, the following colored men, all from west point, all serving with the cavalry, and none rising higher than first-lieutenant, viz: john h. alexander, h.o. flipper and charles young. h.o. flipper was dismissed; alexander died, and young became major in the volunteer service, and was placed in command of the ninth battalion of ohio volunteers, discharging the duties of his position in such a manner as to command general satisfaction from his superior officers.[ ] these colored men while cadets at west point endured hardships disgraceful to their country, and when entering the army were not given that cordial welcome by their brother officers, becoming an "officer and gentleman," both to give and to receive. of course there were some noble exceptions, and this class of officers seems to be steadily increasing, so that now it is no longer necessary, even on the ground of expediency, to strive to adhere to the rule of only white men for army officers. of alexander and young it can be said they have acquitted themselves well, the former enjoying the confidence and esteem of his associates up to the time of his early death--an event which caused deep regret--and the latter so impressing the governor of his state and the president as to secure for himself the responsible position which he, at the time of this writing, so worthily fills. besides these line officers, five colored chaplains have been appointed, all of whom have served successfully, one, however, being dismissed by court-martial after many years of really meritorious service, an event to be regretted, but by no means without parallel. brief sketches of the history of these four colored regiments, as well as of the others, have been recently made by members of them and published in the journal of the military service institution and subsequently in a large and beautiful volume edited by brigadier-general theo. f. rodenbough and major william l. haskin, published by the institution and designated "the army of the united states," a most valuable book of reference. from the sketches contained therein the following summary is given. the twenty-fourth infantry was organized, as we have seen, from the th and st regiments, these two regiments being at the time distributed in new mexico, louisiana and texas, and the regiment remained in texas from the time of its organization in until . its first lieutenant-colonel was william r. shafter. it was from this regiment and the tenth cavalry that the escort of paymaster wham was selected which made so brave a stand against a band of robbers that attacked the paymaster that several of them were given medals for distinguished gallantry, and others certificates of merit. the twenty-fifth infantry was organized in new orleans out of the th, that was brought from north carolina for that purpose, and the th, that was then in louisiana. it was organized during the month of april, , and early in moved to texas, where it remained ten years. in it moved to the department of dakota and remained in the northwest until it took the road for the cuban war. the ninth cavalry was organized in new orleans during the winter of - . its first colonel was edward hatch and its first lieutenant-colonel wesley merritt. from to it was in almost constant indian warfare, distinguishing itself by daring and hardihood. from to the opening of the cuban war it remained in utah and nebraska, engaging in but one important campaign, that against hostile sioux during the winter of - , in which, says the historian: "the regiment was the first in the field, in november, and the last to leave, late in the following march, after spending the winter, the latter part of which was terrible in its severity, under canvas." the tenth calvary was organized under the same law as was the ninth, and at the same time. its place of rendezvous was fort leavenworth, kansas, and its first colonel, benjamin h. grierson. this regiment was the backbone of the geronimo campaign force, and it finally succeeded in the capture of that wily warrior. the regiment remained in the southwest until , when it moved to montana, and remained there until ordered to chickamauga for the war. these four regiments were finely officered, well drilled and well experienced in camp and field, particularly the cavalry regiments, and it was of them that general merritt said: "i have always found them brave in battle." with such training and experience they were well fitted to take their place in that selected host of fighting men which afterwards became the fifth army corps, placed under command of major-general william r. shafter, the first lieutenant-colonel of the twenty-fourth infantry. when the news of the blowing up of our great battleship maine, in the harbor of havana, with the almost total loss of her crew, flashed over the country, carrying sadness to hundreds of homes, and arousing feelings of deepest indignation whether justly or unjustly, it was easy to predict that we should soon be involved in war with spain. the cuban question, already chronic, had by speeches of senators thurston and proctor been brought to such a stage of aggravation that it needed only an incident to set the war element in motion. that incident was furnished by the destruction of the maine. thenceforth there was no power in the land sufficient to curb the rapidly swelling tide of popular hate, which manifested itself in the un-christian but truly significant mottoes: "remember the maine," "avenge the maine," and "to hell with spain." these were the outbreathings of popular fury, and they represented a spirit quite like that of the mob, which was not to be yielded to implicitly, but which could not be directly opposed. the president did all in his power to stay this element of our population and to lead the country to a more befitting attitude. he and his advisers argued that spain was to be resisted, and fought if necessary, not on account of the maine, not in the spirit of revenge, but in the interest of humanity, and upon principles sanctioned even by our holy religion. on behalf of the starving reconcentrados, and in aid of the noble cuban patriot, we might justly arm and equip ourselves for the purpose of driving spanish rule from the western hemisphere. this view appealed to all lovers of freedom, to all true patriots, and to the christian and philanthropist. it also afforded a superb opportunity for the old leaders in the south, who were not entirely relieved from the taint of secession, to come out and reconsecrate themselves to the country and her flag. hence, southern statesmen, who were utterly opposed to negroes or colored men having any share in ruling at home, became very enthusiastic over the aspirations of the colored cuban patriots and soldiers. the supporters, followers, and in a sense, devotees of maceo and gomez, were worthy of our aid. the same men, actuated by the same principles, in the carolinas, in louisiana or in mississippi, would have been pronounced by the same authorities worthy of death. the nation was, however, led into war simply to liberate cuba from the iniquitous and cruel yoke of spain, and to save thousands of impoverished cubans from death by starvation. great care was taken not to recognize the cuban government in any form, and it seemed to be understood that we were to do the fighting both with our navy and our army, the cubans being invited to co-operate with us, rather than that we should co-operate with them. we were to be the liberators and saviors of a people crushed to the very gates of death. such was the platform upon which our nation stood before the world when the first orders went forth for the mobilization of its forces for war. it was a position worthy our history and character and gave to our national flag a prouder meaning than ever. its character as the emblem of freedom shone out with awe-inspiring brilliancy amid the concourse of nations. while there was such a clamor for war in the newspapers and in the public speeches of statesmen, both in and out of congress, it is remarkable that the utmost serenity prevailed in the army. officers and men were ready to fight if the stern necessity came, but they were not so eager for the death-game as were the numerous editors' whose papers were getting out extras every half-hour. it was argued by the officers of rank that the maine incident added nothing whatever to the cuban question; that it did not involve the spanish government; that the whole subject might well be left to arbitration, and full respect should be given to spain's disclaimer. it was also held that to rush into a war in order to prevent a few people from starving, might not relieve them, and at the same time would certainly cost the lives of many innocent men. spain was revising her policy, and the benevolence of the united states would soon bring bread to the door of every needy cuban. such remarks and arguments as these were used by men who had fought through one war and were ready to fight, through another if they must; but who were willing to go to any reasonable length to prevent it; and yet the men who used such arguments beforehand and manifested such a shrinking from carnage, are among those to whom the short spanish war brought distinction and promotion. to their honor be it said that the war which gave them fresh laurels was in no sense brought about through their instigation. as chaplain of the twenty-fifth infantry, stationed with the headquarters of the regiment at fort missoula, where we had been for ten years, the call for the war met me in the midst of my preparations for easter service. one young man, then private thomas c. butler, who was practicing a difficult solo for the occasion, before the year closed became a second lieutenant, having distinguished himself in battle; the janitor, who cared for my singing books, and who was my chief school teacher, private french payne, always polite and everywhere efficient, met his death from a spanish bullet while on the reserve before bloody el caney. it was on a bright day during the latter part of march and near the close of the day as i was looking out of the front window of my quarters that i saw the trumpeter of the guard come out of the adjutant's office with a dispatch in his hand and start on a brisk run toward the quarters of the commanding officer. i immediately divined what was in the wind, but kept quiet. in a few minutes "officers' call" was sounded, and all the officers of the post hastened to the administration building to learn the news. when all were assembled the commanding officer desired to know of each company officer how much time he would need to have his company ready to move from the post to go to a permanent station elsewhere, and from all officers how much time they would require to have their families ready to quit the station. the answers generally were that all could be ready within a week. it was finally agreed, however, to ask for ten days. immediately the work of preparation began, although none knew where the regiment was to go. at this time the order, so far as it was understood at the garrison, was, that two companies were to go to key west, florida, and the other companies of the regiment to dry tortugas. one officer, lieutenant v.a. caldell, early saw through the haze and said: "it means that we will all eventually land in cuba." while we were packing, rumors flew through the garrison, as indeed through the country, thick and fast, and our destination was changed three or four times a day. one hour we would be going to key west, the next to st. augustine, the next to tortugas. in this confusion i asked an old frontier officer where he thought we would really go. regarding himself as an indicator and always capable of seeing the amusing side of a subject, he replied: "i p'int toward texas." such was the state of uncertainty as to destination, and yet all the time the greatest activity prevailed in making ready for departure. finally definite orders came that we were to store our furniture in the large gymnasium hall at the post and prepare to go in camp at chickamauga park, georgia. our regiment was at the time stationed as follows: headquarters, four companies and the band at fort missoula; two companies at fort harrison, near helena, and two companies at fort assinniboine, all in montana. the arrangements contemplated moving the regiment in two sections, one composed of the missoula troops to go over the northern pacific railroad, the other of the fort harrison and fort assinniboine troops to go over the great northern railroad, all to arrive in st. paul about the same time. on the th of april, easter sunday, the battalion at fort missoula marched out of post quite early in the morning, and at bitter root station took the cars for their long journey. officers and men were all furnished sleeping accommodations on the train. arriving in the city of missoula, for the gratification of the citizens and perhaps to avoid strain on the bridge crossing the missoula river, the men were disembarked from the train and marched through the principal streets to the depot, the citizens generally turning out to see them off. many were the compliments paid officers and men by the good people of missoula, none perhaps more pleasing than that furnished by a written testimonial to the regret experienced at the departure of the regiment, signed by all the ministers of the city. as the twenty-fifth was the first regiment to move in the preparation for war, its progress from montana to chickamauga was a marked event, attracting the attention of both the daily and illustrated press. all along the route they were greeted with enthusiastic crowds, who fully believed the war with spain had begun. in st. paul, in chicago, in terre haute, in nashville, and in chattanooga the crowds assembled to greet the black regulars who were first to bear forward the starry banner of union and freedom against a foreign foe. what could be more significant, or more fitting, than that these black soldiers, drilled up to the highest standard of modern warfare, cool, brave and confident, themselves a proof of american liberty, should be called first to the front in a war against oppression? their martial tread and fearless bearing proclaimed what the better genius of our great government meant for all men dwelling beneath the protection of its honored flag. as the twenty-fifth infantry was the first regiment to leave its station, so six companies of it were first to go into camp on the historic grounds of chickamauga. two companies were separated from the regiment at chattanooga and forwarded to key west where they took station under the command of lieutenant-colonel a.s. daggett. the remaining six companies, under command of colonel a.s. burt, were conducted by general boynton to a choice spot on the grounds, where they pitched camp, their tents being the first erected in that mobilization of troops which preceded the cuban invasion, and theirs being really the first camp of the war. soon came the ninth cavalry, the tenth cavalry and the twenty-fourth infantry. while these were assembling there arrived on the ground also many white regiments, cavalry, artillery and infantry, and it was pleasing to see the fraternity that prevailed among black and white regulars. this was especially noticeable between the twenty-fifth and twelfth. in brigading the regiments no attention whatever was paid to the race or color of the men. the black infantry regiments were placed in two brigades, and the black cavalry likewise, and they can be followed through the fortunes of the war in the official records by their regimental numbers. during their stay in chickamauga, and at key west and tampa, the southern newspapers indulged in considerable malicious abuse of colored soldiers, and some people of this section made complaints of their conduct, but the previous good character of the regiments and the violent tone of the accusations, taken together with the well-known prejudices of the southern people, prevented their complaints from having very great weight. the black soldiers held their place in the army chosen for the invasion of cuba, and for that purpose were soon ordered to assemble in tampa. from the th of april, when the war movement began with the march of the twenty-fifth infantry out of its montana stations, until june th, when the army of invasion cleared tampa for cuba--not quite two months--the whole energy of the war department had been employed in preparing the army for the work before it. the beginning of the war is officially given as april st, from which time onward it was declared a state of war existed between spain and the united states, but warlike movements on our side were begun fully ten days earlier, and begun with a grim definiteness that presaged much more than a practice march or spring manoeuver. after arriving at chickamauga all heavy baggage was shipped away for storage, and all officers and men were required to reduce their field equipage to the minimum; the object being to have the least possible amount of luggage, in order that the greatest possible amount of fighting material might be carried. even with all this preparation going on some officers were indulging the hope that the troops might remain in camps, perfecting themselves in drill, until september, or october, before they should be called upon to embark for cuba. this, however, was not to be, and it is perhaps well that it was not, as the suffering and mortality in the home camps were almost equal to that endured by the troops in cuba. the suffering at home, also, seemed more disheartening, because it appeared to be useless, and could not be charged to any important changes in conditions or climate. it was perhaps in the interest of humanity that this war, waged for humanity's sake, should have been pushed forward from its first step to its last, with the greatest possible dispatch, and that just enough men on our side were sent to the front, and no more. it is still a good saying that all is well that ends well. the chickamauga and chattanooga national military park, the place where our troops assembled on their march to cuba, beautiful by nature, especially in the full season of spring when the black soldiers arrived there, and adorned also by art, has, next to gettysburg, the most prominent place among the historic battle-fields of the civil war. as a park it was established by an act of congress approved august , , and contains seven thousand acres of rolling land, partly cleared and partly covered with oak and pine timber. beautiful broad roads wind their way to all parts of the ground, along which are placed large tablets recording the events of those dreadful days in the autumn of , when americans faced americans in bloody, determined strife. monuments, judiciously placed, speak with a mute eloquence to the passer-by and tell of the valor displayed by some regiment or battery, or point to the spot where some lofty hero gave up his life. the whole park is a monument, however, and its definite purpose is to preserve and suitably mark "for historical and professional military study the fields of some of the most remarkable manoeuvres and most brilliant fighting in the war of the rebellion." the battles commemorated by this great park are those of chickamauga, fought on september - , and the battles around chattanooga, november - , . the battle of chickamauga was fought by the army of the cumberland, commanded by major-general w.s. rosecrans, on the union side, and the army of tennessee, commanded by general braxton bragg, on the side of the confederates. the total effective strength of the union forces in this battle was little less than , men, that of the confederates about , . the total union loss was , men, a number about equal to the army led by shatter against santiago. of the number reported as lost, , were killed, or as many as were lost in killed, wounded and missing in the cuban campaign. the confederate losses were , , , being killed, making on both sides a total killed of , , equivalent to the entire voting population of a city of over twenty thousand inhabitants. general grant, who commanded the union forces in the battles around chattanooga, thus sums up the results: "in this battle the union army numbered in round figures about , men; we lost killed, , wounded and captured or missing. the rebel loss was much greater in the aggregate, as we captured and sent north to be rationed there over , prisoners. forty pieces of artillery, over seven thousand stand of small arms, many caissons, artillery wagons and baggage wagons fell into our hands. the probabilities are that our loss in killed was the heavier as we were the attacking party. the enemy reported his loss in killed at , but as he reported his missing at , , while we held over , of them as prisoners, and there must have been hundreds, if not thousands, who deserted, but little reliance can be placed upon this report." in the battle of chickamauga, when "four-fifths of the union army had crumbled into wild confusion," and rosecrans was intent only on saving the fragments, general thomas, who had commanded the federal left during the two days' conflict, and had borne the brunt of the fight, still held his position. to him general james a. garfield reported. general gordon granger, without orders, brought up the reserves, and thomas, replacing his lines, held the ground until nightfall, when he was joined by sheridan. bragg won and held the field, but thomas effectually blocked his way to chattanooga, securing to himself immediately the title of the "rock of chickamauga." his wonderful resolution stayed the tide of a victory dearly bought and actually won, and prevented the victors from grasping the object for which they had fought. in honor of this stubborn valor, and in recognition of this high expression of american tenacity, the camp established in chickamauga park by the assembling army was called camp george h. thomas. the stay of the colored regulars at camp george h. thomas was short, but it was long enough for certain newspapers of chattanooga to give expression to their dislike to negro troops in general and to those in their proximity especially. the washington post, also, ever faithful to its unsavory trust, lent its influence to this work of defamation. the leading papers, however, both of chattanooga and the south generally, spoke out in rather conciliatory and patronizing tones, and "sought to restrain the people of their section from compromising their brilliant display of patriotism by contemptuous flings at the nation's true and tried soldiers. the th infantry and the th cavalry soon left for tampa, florida, whither they were followed by the th cavalry and the th infantry, thus bringing the entire colored element of the army together to prepare for embarkation. the work done at tampa is thus described officially by lieutenant-colonel daggett in general orders addressed to the th infantry, which he at that time commanded. on august th, with headquarters near santiago, after the great battles had been fought and won, he thus reviewed the work of the regiment: "gathered from three different stations, many of you strangers to each other, you assembled as a regiment for the first time in more than twenty-eight years, on may , , at tampa, florida. there you endeavored to solidify and prepare yourselves, as far as the oppressive weather would permit, for the work that appeared to be before you." what is here said of the th might have been said with equal propriety of all the regular troops assembled at tampa. in the meantime events were ripening with great rapidity. the historic "first gun" had been fired, and the united states made the first naval capture of the war on april , the coast trader buena ventura having surrendered to the american gunboat nashville. on the same day the blockade of cuban ports was declared and on the day following a call was issued for , volunteers. on may th the news that a spanish fleet under command of admiral cervera had arrived at santiago was officially confirmed, and a speedy movement to cuba was determined upon. almost the entire regular army with several volunteer regiments were organized into an army of invasion and placed under the command of major-general w.r. shafter with orders to prepare immediately for embarkation, and on the th and th of june this army went on board the transports. for seven days the troops lay cooped up on the vessels awaiting orders to sail, a rumor having gained circulation that certain spanish gunboats were hovering around in cuban waters awaiting to swoop down upon the crowded transports. while the army of invasion was sweltering in the ships lying at anchor off port tampa, a small body of american marines made a landing at guantanamo, and on june th fought the first battle between americans and spaniards on cuban soil. in this first battle four americans were killed. the next day, june th, general shafter's army containing the four colored regiments, excepting those left behind to guard property, sailed for cuba.[ ] the whole number of men and officers in the expedition, including those that came on transports from mobile, amounted to about seventeen thousand men, loaded on twenty-seven transports. the colored regiments were assigned to brigades as follows: the ninth cavalry was joined with the third and sixth cavalry and placed under command of colonel carrol; the tenth cavalry was joined with the rough riders and first regular cavalry and fell under the command of general young; the twenty-fourth infantry was joined with the ninth and thirteenth infantry and the brigade placed under command of colonel worth and assigned to the division commanded by general kent, who, until his promotion as brigadier-general of volunteers, had been colonel of the twenty-fourth; the twenty-fifth infantry was joined with the first and fourth infantry and the brigade placed under command of colonel evans miles, who had formerly been major of the twenty-fifth. all of the colored regiments were thus happily placed so that they should be in pleasant soldierly competition with the very best troops the country ever put in the field, and this arrangement at the start proves how strongly the black regular had entrenched himself in the confidence of our great commanders. thus sailed from port tampa the major part of our little army of trained and seasoned soldiers, representative of the skill and daring of the nation.[ ] in physique, almost every man was an athlete, and while but few had seen actual war beyond an occasional skirmish with indians, all excepting the few volunteers, had passed through a long process of training in the various details of marching, camping and fighting in their annual exercises in minor tactics. for the first time in history the nation is going abroad, by its army, to occupy the territory of a foreign foe, in a contest with a trans-atlantic power. the unsuccessful invasions of canada during the revolutionary war and the war of can hardly be brought in comparison with this movement over sea. the departure of decatur with his nine ships of war to the barbary states had in view only the establishment of proper civil relations between those petty, half-civilized countries and the united states. the sailing of general shafter's army was only one movement in a comprehensive war against the kingdom of spain. more than a month earlier commodore dewey, acting under orders, had destroyed a fleet of eleven war ships in the philippines. the purpose of the war was to relieve the cubans from an inhumane warfare with their mother country, and to restore to that unhappy island a stable government in harmony with the ideas of liberty and justice. up to the breaking out of the spanish war the american policy with respect to europe had been one of isolation. some efforts had been made to consolidate the sentiment of the western world, but it had never been successful. the fraternity of the american republics and the attempted construction of a pan-american policy had been thus far unfulfilled dreams. canada was much nearer to the united states, geographically and socially, than even mexico, although the latter is a republic. england, in europe, was nearer than brazil. the day came in , when the united states could no longer remain in political seclusion nor bury herself in an impossible federation. washington's advice against becoming involved in european affairs, as well as the direct corrollary of the monroe doctrine, were to be laid aside and the united states was to speak out to the world. the business of a european nation had become our business; in the face of all the world we resolved to invade her territory in the interest of humanity; to face about upon our own traditions and dare the opinions and arms of the trans-atlantic world by openly launching upon the new policy of armed intervention in another's quarrel. while the troops were mobilizing at tampa preparatory to embarking for cuba the question came up as to why there were no colored men in the artillery arm of the service, and the answer given by a regular army officer was, that the negro had not brains enough for the management of heavy guns. it was a trifling assertion, of course, but at this period of the negro's history it must not be allowed to pass unnoticed. we know that white men of all races and nationalities can serve big guns, and if the negro cannot, it must be because of some marked difference between him and them. the officer said it was a difference in "brains," i.e., a mental difference. just how the problem of aiming and firing a big gun differs from that of aiming and firing small arms is not so easily explained. in both, the questions of velocity, gravitation, wind and resistance are to be considered and these are largely settled by mechanism, the adjustment of which is readily learned; hence the assumption that a negro cannot learn it is purely gratuitous. several of the best rifle shots known on this continent are negroes; and it was a negro who summerized the whole philosophy of rifle shooting in the statement that it all consists in knowing _where_ to aim, and _how_ to pull--in knowing just what value to assign to gravitation, drift of the bullet and force of the wind, and then in being able to pull the trigger of the piece without disturbing the aim thus judiciously determined. this includes all there is in the final science and art of firing a rifle. if the negro can thus master the revolver, the carbine and the rifle, why may he not master the field piece or siege gun? but an ounce of fact in such things is worth more than many volumes of idle speculation, and it is remarkable that facts so recent, so numerous, and so near at hand, should escape the notice of those who question the negro's ability to serve the artillery organizations. negro artillery, both light and heavy, fought in fifteen battles in the civil war with average effectiveness; and some of those who fought against them must either admit the value of the negro artilleryman or acknowledge their own inefficiency. general fitz-hugh lee failed to capture a negro battery after making most vigorous attempts to that end. this attempt to raise a doubt as to the negro's ability to serve in the artillery arm is akin to, and less excusable, than that other groundless assertion, that negro officers cannot command troops, an assertion which in this country amounts to saying that the united states cannot command its army. both of these assertions have been emphatically answered in fact, the former as shown above, and the latter as will be shown later in this volume. these assertions are only temporary covers, behind which discomfitted and retreating prejudice is able to make a brief stand, while the black hero of five hundred battle-fields, marches proudly by, disdaining to lower his gun to fire a shot on a foe so unworthy. when the second massachusetts volunteers sent up their hearty cheers of welcome to the gallant old twenty-fifth, as that solid column fresh from el caney swung past its camp, i remarked to sergeant harris, of the twenty-fifth: "those men think you are soldiers." "they know we are soldiers," was his reply. when the people of this country, like the members of that massachusetts regiment, come to know that its black men in uniform are soldiers, plain soldiers, with the same interests and feelings as other soldiers, of as much value to the government and entitled from it to the same attention and rewards, then a great step toward the solution of the prodigious problem now confronting us will have been taken. * * * * * note.--"i had often heard that the physique of the men of our regular army was very remarkable, but the first time i saw any large body of them, which was at tampa, they surpassed my highest expectations. it is not, however, to be wondered at that, for every recruit who is accepted, on the average thirty-four are rejected, and that, of course, the men who present themselves to the recruiting officer already represent a physical 'elite'; but it was very pleasant to see and be assured, as i was at tampa, by the evidences of my own eyes and the tape measure, that there is not a guard regiment of either the russian, german or english army, of whose remarkable physique we have heard so much, that can compare physically, not with the best of our men, but simply with the average of the men of our regular army."--bonsal. footnotes: [ ] the army has been reorganized since. see register. [ ] "my experience in this direction since the war is beyond that of any officer of my rank in the army. for ten years i had the honor of being lieutenant-colonel of the ninth cavalry, and during most of that service i commanded garrisons composed in part of the ninth cavalry and other organizations of cavalry and infantry. i have always found the colored race represented in the army obedient, intelligent and zealous in the discharge of duty, brave in battle, easily disciplined, and most efficient in the care of their horses, arms and equipments. the non-commissioned officers have habitually shown the qualities for control in their position which marked them as faithful and sensible in the discharge of their duties. i take pleasure in bearing witness as above in the interest of the race you represent." wesley merritt. [ ] see chapter on colored officers. [ ] young is now captain in the ninth cavalry.--t.g.s. [ ] the colored regulars were embarked on the following named ships: the th cavalry on the miami, in company with the th infantry; the th cavalry on the leona, in company with the st cavalry; the th infantry on the city of washington, in company with one battalion of the st infantry; the th infantry on board the concho, in company with the th infantry. [ ] see note, at the close of this chapter. chapter iv. brief sketch of spanish history. the following brief sketch of spain, its era of greatness, the causes leading thereto, and the reasons for its rapid decline, will be of interest to the reader at this point in the narrative, as it will bring into view the other side of the impending conflict: spain, the first in rank among the second-rate powers of europe, by reason of her possessions in the west indies, especially cuba, may be regarded as quite a near neighbor, and because of her connection with the discovery and settlement of the continent, as well as the commanding part she at one time played in the world's politics, her history cannot but awaken within the breasts of americans a most lively interest. as a geographical and political fact, spain dates from the earliest times, and the spanish people gather within themselves the blood and the traditions of the three great continents of the old world--europe, asia and africa--united to produce the mighty spaniard of the th and th centuries. it would be an interesting subject for the anthropologist to trace the construction of that people who are so often spoken of as possessing the pure blood of castile, and as the facts should be brought to view, another proud fiction would dissipate in thin air, as we should see the spaniard arising to take his place among the most mixed of mankind. the spain that we are considering now is the spain that gradually emerged from a chaos of conflicting elements into the unity of a christian nation. the dismal war between creeds gave way to the greater conflict between religions, when cross and crescent contended for supremacy, and this too had passed. the four stalwart christian provinces of leon, castile, aragon and navarre had become the four pillars of support to a national throne and ferdinand and isabella were reigning. spain has now apparently passed the narrows and is crossing the bar with prow set toward the open sea. she ends her war with the moors at the same time that england ends her wars of the roses, and the battle of bosworth's field may be classed with the capitulation of granada. both nations confront a future of about equal promise and may be rated as on equal footing, as this new era of the world opens to view. what was this new era? printing had been invented, commerce had arisen, gunpowder had come into use, the feudal system was passing, royal authority had become paramount, and spain was giving to the world its first lessons in what was early stigmatized as the "knavish calling of diplomacy." now began the halcyon days of spain, and what a breed of men she produced! read the story of their conquests in mexico and peru, as told with so much skill and taste by our own prescott; or read of the grandeur of her national character, and the wonderful valor of her troops, and the almost marvelous skill of her alexander of parma, and her spinola, as described by our great motley, and you will see something of the moral and national glory of that spain which under charles v and philip ii awed the world into respectful silence. who but men of iron, under a commander of steel, could have conducted to a successful issue the awful siege of antwerp, and by a discipline more dreadful than death, kept for so many years, armed control of the country of the brave netherlanders? a farnese was there, who could support and command an army, carry philip and his puerile idiosyncrasies upon his back and meet the fury of an outraged people who were fighting on their own soil for all that man holds dear. never was wretched cause so ably led, never were such splendid talents so unworthily employed. alexander of parma, cortez, the pizarros, were representatives of that form of human character that spain especially developed. skill and daring were brought out in dazzling splendor, and success followed their movements. take a brief survey of the empire under charles v: himself emperor of germany; his son married to the queen of england; turkey repulsed; france humbled, and all europe practically within his grasp. and what was spain outside of europe? in america she possessed territory covering sixty degrees of latitude, owning mexico, central america, venezuela, new granada, peru and chili, with vast parts of north america, and the islands of cuba, jamaica and st. domingo. in africa and asia she had large possessions--in a word, the energies of the world were at her feet. the silver and gold of america, the manufactures and commerce of the netherlands, combined to make her the richest of nations. the limits of the present purpose do not permit an exhaustive presentation of her material strength in detail, nor are the means at hand for making such an exhibit. we must be content with a general picture, quoted directly from motley. he says: "look at the broad magnificent spanish peninsula, stretching across eight degrees of latitude and ten of longtitude, commanding the atlantic and the mediterranean, with a genial climate, warmed in winter by the vast furnace of africa, and protected from the scorching heats of summer by shady mountain and forest, and temperate breezes from either ocean. a generous southern territory, flowing with oil and wine, and all the richest gifts of a bountiful nature--splendid cities--the new and daily expanding madrid, rich in the trophies of the most artistic period of the modern world; cadiz, as populous at that day as london, seated by the straits where the ancient and modern systems of traffic were blending like the mingling of the two oceans; granada, the ancient, wealthy seat of the fallen moors; toledo, valladolid, and lisbon, chief city of the recently conquered kingdom of portugal, counting with its suburbs a larger population than any city excepting paris, in europe, the mother of distant colonies, and the capital of the rapidly-developing traffic with both the indies--these were some of the treasures of spain herself. but she possessed sicily also, the better portion of italy, and important dependencies in africa, while the famous maritime discoveries of the age had all enured to her aggrandizement. the world seemed suddenly to have expanded its wings from east to west, only to bear the fortunate spanish empire to the most dizzy heights of wealth and power. the most accomplished generals, the most disciplined and daring infantry the world has ever known, the best equipped and most extensive navy, royal and mercantile, of the age, were at the absolute command of the sovereign. such was spain." such is not spain to-day. a quite recent writer, speaking of spain before the war, said, that although spain in extent holds the sixth place in the european states, "it really now subsists merely by the sufferance of stronger nations." thus has that nation, which three centuries ago dominated the world, lost both its position and its energy. without attempting to sketch chronologically, either this rise or this decline, let us rather direct our efforts to an inquiry into the causes of both the one and the other. in attempting to explain the greatness of spain we must give first place to the vigor of the spanish race. the great spaniard was a mighty compound. he had the blood of rome mingled with the awful torrent that gave birth to the soulless goths and vandals. in him also flowed the hot blood of the moors. he was both sturdy and fiery; he had the fervor of the south with the tenacity of the north; the pride of the roman with the passion of the moor. the spanish race was emphatically a rich race. and then we must remember that this race had been forged in war. century after century, from the earliest times, they had lived with their arms in their hands. first came the long war between the arian vandals, and the trinitarian natives; then the seven-hundred-year war with the followers of mahomed. the whole mission of life to them was to fight. naturally there was developed in the people at large the most complete unification and subjection. individualism gave place almost entirely to the common weal, and the spectacle was presented of a nation with no political questions. maccaulay maintains that human nature is such that aggregations of men will always show the two principles of radicalism and conservatism, and that two parties will exist in consequence, one composed of those who are ever looking to a brighter future, the other of those who are ever seeking to restore a delightful past; but no such phenomena appear in the ascending period of spain's history. the whole nation moved as an organized army, steadily forward, until its zenith was reached. this solidity was a marked element of its strength. mr. buckle recognizes this, and accounts for the harmonious movements of the nation by the influence of two leading principles, which he is pleased to call superstition and loyalty. the arab invasion had pressed upon the christians with such force that it was only by the strictest discipline that the latter had managed to survive. to secure such discipline, and at the same time supply the people with the steady enthusiasm necessary to support a war from century to century, all the terrors and all the glories that could be derived from religion were employed. the church and the state, the prince and the priest, became as one, and loyalty and religion, devotion to the standard and to the cross, were but different names for the same principles and actions. hence spain emerged to greatness without the least dream of liberty of either person, conscience or thought. her rallying cry was: for the prince and the church; not, for god and liberty. she went up to greatness the most loyal and the most religious of nations; but liberty, justice and truth were not upon her banners. look over the territory settled and conquered by her, and what do we see? columbus, sailing under spain, names the first land he discovers san salvador; the first settlement made in this country is st. augustine; the second, sante fe. look down over the southern half of our continent and such names as espirito santo, corpus christi, san diego, san juan, san jose, san domingo attest the religious zeal of the conquerors. they were missionaries of the cross, robbing the people of their gold and paying them off with religion. steadfast in the faith and sturdy in her loyalty, spain resisted all innovations with respect to her religious beliefs, and all insurrections against her government. her alva and her torquemada but illustrated how strong was her conservatism, while her isabella and her philip ii show how grand and comprehensive and how persistent was her aggressiveness, under the idea of spreading and upholding the true faith. she not only meant to hold all she had of wealth and power, but she aspired to universal dominion; already chief, she desired to be sole, and this in the interest and name of the holy church. the reformation did not disturb spain; it was crushed out within twenty years. the spirit of liberty that had been growing in england since bosworth's field, and that was manifesting itself in germany and the netherlands, and that had begun to quiver even in france, did not dare stir itself in spain. spain was united, or rather, was solidity itself, and this solidity was both its strength and its death. england was not so united, and england went steadily onward and upward; but spain's unity destroyed her, because it practically destroyed individualism and presented the strange paradox of a strong nation of weak men. as a machine spain in the sixteenth century was a marvel of power; as an aggregation of thinking men, it was even then contemptible. ferdinand, charles v and philip ii were able and illustrious rulers, and they appeared at a time when their several characters could tell on the immediate fortunes of spain. they were warriors, and the nation was entirely warlike. during this period the spaniard overran the earth, not that he might till the soil, but that he might rob the man who did. with one hand he was raking in the gold and silver of mexico and peru; with the other confiscating the profits of the trade and manufactures of the low countries--and all in the name of the great god and saints! how was spain overthrown? the answer is a short one. spain, under philip ii staked her all upon a religious war against the awakening age. she met the reformation within her own borders and extinguished it; but thought had broken loose from its chains and was abroad in the earth. england had turned protestant, and elizabeth was on the throne; denmark, norway and sweden, indeed all countries except spain and italy had heard the echoes from luther's trumpet blast. italy furnished the religion, and spain the powder, in this unequal fight between the old and the new. spain was not merely the representative of the old, she was the old, and she armed her whole strength in its behalf. here was a religion separated from all moral principle and devoid of all softening sentiment--its most appropriate formula being, death to all heretics. death--not to tyrants, not to oppressors, not to robbers and men-stealers--but death to _heretics_. it was this that equipped her armada. the people were too loyal and too pious to think, and so were hurled in a solid mass against the armed thought of the coming age, and a mighty nation crumbled as in a day. with the destruction of her armada her warlike ascendancy passed and she had nothing to put in its place. she had not tillers of the soil, mechanics or skilled merchants. business was taking the place of war all over the world, but spain knew only religion and war, hence worsted in her only field, she was doomed. from the days of philip ii her decline was rapid. her territory slipped from her as rapidly as it had been acquired. her great domains on our soil are now the seat of thriving communities of english-speaking people. the whole continent of south america has thrown off her yoke, though still retaining her language, and our troops now embarked from port tampa are destined to wrest from her the two only remaining colonies subject to her sway in the western world,--cuba and porto rico. with all her losses hitherto, spain has not learned wisdom. antagonistic to truth and liberty, she seems to sit in the shadow of death, hugging the delusions that have betrayed her, while all other people of earth are pressing onward toward light and liberty. the struggle in cuba had been going on for years, and in that colony of less than two millions of inhabitants, many of whom were spaniards, there was now an army four times as large as the standing army of the united states. against this army and against the government of spain a revolt had been carried on previous to the present outbreak for a period of ten years, and which had been settled by concessions on the part of the home government. the present revolt was of two years' standing when our government decided to interfere. the cubans had maintained disorder, if they had not carried on war; and they had declined to be pacified. in their army they experienced no color difficulties. gomez, maceo and quintin banderas were generals honored and loved, maceo especially coming to be the hero and idol of the insurgents of all classes. and it can truthfully be said that no man in either the cuban or spanish army, in all the cuban struggle previous to our intervention, has earned a loftier fame as patriot, soldier and man of noble mould than antonio maceo. cuba, by far the most advanced of all the west indian colonies; cuba, essentially spanish, was destined to be the battle ground between our troops and the veterans of spain. the question to be settled was that of spain's sovereignty. spain's right to rule over the colonies of cuba and porto rico was disputed by the united states, and this question, and this alone, is to be settled by force of arms. further than this, the issue does not go. the dictum of america is: spain shall not rule. the questions of annexation, expansion and imperialism were not before us as we launched our forces to drive spain out of the west indies. the cuban flag was closely associated with our own standard popularly, and "cuba libre" was a wide-spread sentiment in june, . "we are ready to help the cubans gain their liberty" was the honest expression of thousands who felt they were going forward in a war for others. chapter v. passage, landing, and first battle in cuba. the tenth cavalry at guasimas--the "rescue of the rough riders"--was there an ambush?--notes. "the passage to santiago was generally smooth and uneventful," says general shafter in his official report. but when the fact is called to mind that the men had been on board a week before sailing, and were a week more on the passage, and that "the conveniences on many of the transports in the nature of sleeping accommodations, space for exercise, closet accommodations, etc., were not all that could have been desired," and that the opinion was general throughout the army that the travel ration was faulty, it cannot be doubted that the trip was a sore trial to the enlisted men at least. the monotonous days passed in the harbor at port tampa, while waiting for orders to sail, were unusually trying to the men. they were relieved somewhat by bathing, swimming, gaming and chatting on the coming events. a soldier who was in one of the colored regiments describes the inside life of one of the transports as follows: "after some miles of railroad travel and much hustling we were put on board the transport. i say _on board_, but it is simply because we cannot use the terms _under board_. we were huddled together below two other regiments and under the water line, in the dirtiest, closest, most sickening place imaginable. for about fifteen days we were on the water in this dirty hole, but being soldiers we were compelled to accept this without a murmur. we ate corn beef and canned tomatoes with our hard bread until we were anything but half way pleased. in the fifth or sixth day out to sea the water furnished us became muddy or dirty and well flavored with salt, and remained so during the rest of the journey. then, the ship's cooks, knowing well our condition made it convenient to themselves to sell us a glass of clean ice water and a small piece of bread and tainted meat for the sum of seventy-five cents, or one dollar, as the case might be." a passage from port tampa, around the eastern end of cuba, through the windward passage, even in june, is ordinarily pleasant. on the deck of a clean steamer, protected from the sun's rays by a friendly awning, it may be put down as nearly an ideal pleasure trip; but crowded into freight ships as these men were, many of them clad in thick and uncomfortable clothing, reduced to the uninviting travel ration, compelled to spend most of the time below decks, occupied with thoughts of home and friends, and beset with forebodings of coming events, it was very far from being to them a pastime. of the thousands who are going to cuba to magnify the american flag, not all will return. occasionally the gay music of the bands would relieve the dull routine and cause the spirits to rise under the effects of some enlivening waltz or stirring patriotic air; or entering a school of flying fish the men would be entertained to see these broad-finned creatures dart from the waves like arrows from the bow, and after a graceful flight of perhaps near two hundred yards drop again into the sea; but taken altogether it was a voyage that furnishes little for the historian. the transports were so arranged as to present an interesting and picturesque spectacle as they departed from our shores on their ocean march. forming in three columns, with a distance of about , yards between the columns, and the vessels in the columns being distanced from one another about yards, the fleet was convoyed from port tampa by small naval vessels until it reached a point between the dry tortugas and key west. here it was met by the noble battleship indiana and nine other war vessels, thus making a convoy altogether of fifteen fighting craft. transports and convoy now made an armada of more than forty ships, armed and manned by the audacious modern republic whose flag waved from every masthead. thus spreading out over miles of smooth sea, moving quietly along by steam, carrying in its arms the flower of the american army, every man of which was an athlete, this fleet announced to the world the grim purpose of a nation aroused. the weather from the time of leaving port tampa continued fine until the fleet entered the passage between the western coast of hayti and the eastern end of cuba, known as the windward passage, when the breeze freshened and a rough sea began, continuing more or less up to the time of landing. rounding this eastern coast of cuba the fleet headed its course westerly and on the morning of the th was able to determine its position as being off guantanamo bay, about fifty miles east of santiago. here, eight days before, the first battle on cuban soil, in which four american marines were killed, had been fought. about noon on the same day, the fleet came to a halt off santiago harbor, or a little to the west of the entrance to it, and admiral sampson came on board. he and general shafter soon after went ashore to consult the cuban general, garcia, who was known to be in that vicinity with about , well armed troops. the voyage over, and the men having been crowded together on shipboard for nearly two weeks, it was now expedient to get them on shore as soon as possible. but it was necessary to find out beforehand what defences were along the coast, and what forces of the enemy were likely to be encountered in landing. the fleet lay off from the shore about a mile, and it was no small undertaking to convey the , men on board with all their arms and equipments to the shore in small boats over a rough sea, especially should the landing be disputed. it was to arrange for the landing and also to map out a general plan of campaign that the three great leaders, shafter, sampson and garcia met at aserradores on the afternoon of june th as the american fleet stood guard over the harbor of santiago. general garcia was already aware of the coming of the fleet, having received a message from major-general miles two weeks previous. the letter of general miles ran as follows: headquarters of the army, in the field, tampa, fla., june , . dear general:--i am very glad to have received your officers, general enrique collazo and lieut.-col. carlos hernandez, the latter of whom returns to-night with our best wishes for your success. it would be a very great assistance if you could have as large a force as possible in the vicinity of the harbor of santiago de cuba, and communicate any information by signals which colonel hernandez will explain to you either to our navy or to our army on its arrival, which we hope will be before many days. it would also assist us very much if you could drive in and harass any spanish troops near or in santiago de cuba, threatening or attacking them at all points, and preventing, by every means, any possible re-enforcement coming to that garrison. while this is being done, and before the arrival of our army, if you can seize and hold any commanding position to the east or west of santiago de cuba, or both, that would be advantageous for the use of our artillery, it will be exceedingly gratifying to us." to this general garcia replied that he would "take measures at once to carry out your (miles') recommendation, but concentration of forces will require some time. roads bad and cubans scattered. will march without delay." admiral sampson also cabled the secretary of the navy that garcia "regards his (miles') wishes and suggestions as orders, and immediately will take measures to concentrate forces at the points indicated, but he is unable to do so as early as desired on account of his expedition at banes port, cuba, but will march without delay. all of his subordinates are ordered to assist to disembark the united states troops and to place themselves under orders." it was in compliance with these requests that general garcia had the five thousand troops so near santiago at the time he welcomed shafter and sampson to his camp, as mentioned above, and there is every necessary evidence that these cuban troops took part in the fight about santiago. says general miles of garcia: "he had troops in the rear as well as on both sides of the garrison at santiago before the arrival of our troops." it was agreed that the force of five hundred men under general castillo, posted near daiquiri, should be increased to , , and should be prepared to make an attack upon the rear of the spanish garrison at daiquiri on the morning of the nd, at which time the debarkation would begin. general rabi with about men was also to attack cabanas at the same time, in the same manner, the transports and war vessels so manoeuvring as to give the impression that a landing was to be made at that place. while these attacks in the rear were distracting the garrisons, the navy, by order of admiral sampson, was to start up a vigorous bombardment of all the villages along the coast, thus clearing the shore for the landing of the army. thus did the conference unite the hands of americans and cubans in the fight against spain on cuban soil, and each was pledged to the other by the expressions of good will. having accomplished its work the important conference closed, admiral sampson and general shafter to return to their ships, and general garcia to carry out the part of the work assigned to him, which he did with fidelity and success.[ ] according to orders published on the th, general lawton's division, known as the second division, fifth army corps, was to disembark first. this division contained the three following brigades: the first, general ludlow's, composed of the eighth and twenty-second infantry (regulars) and the second massachusetts volunteer infantry; the second brigade, general miles', composed of the fourth and twenty-fifth infantry (regulars); the third brigade, general chaffee's, containing the seventh, twelfth and seventeenth infantry (regulars). next to follow was general bates' brigade, which was to act as reserve to lawton's division. this brigade consisted of the third and twentieth infantry (regulars) and one squadron of the second cavalry, the only mounted troops in shafter's army. the cavalry, however, were not to disembark with the brigade, but were to be the last troops to leave the transports. after bates' brigade, was to follow wheeler's dismounted cavalry division, containing the two following brigades: the first, composed of the third, sixth and ninth cavalry (regulars); the second, composed of the first and tenth cavalry (regulars) and the first volunteer cavalry (rough riders). to follow the cavalry division was to come the first division, general kent's, containing the following troops: the first brigade, general hawkins', consisting of the sixth and sixteenth infantry (regulars) and the seventy-first new york volunteer infantry; the second brigade, general pearson's, consisting of the second, tenth and twenty-first infantry (regulars); the third brigade, colonel wikoffs, made up of the ninth, thirteenth and twenty-fourth infantry (regulars). then, lastly, was to depart the squadron of mounted cavalry. thus prepared, both on board the ships and on shore, the morning of the nd dawned to witness the beginning of mighty operations. the war vessels, drawn up in proper order, early began to hurl shot and shell upon the towns, forts, blockhouses and clumps of trees that could be discovered along the shore. the cannonading lasted between two and three hours and was furious throughout. meanwhile general lawton's division began the work of going ashore. the sea was rough and the passage to the shore was made in small boats furnished from the transports and from the naval vessels, towed by steam launches belonging to the navy. the larger of the boats were capable of carrying ten or twelve men each, while the smaller ones could carry but six or seven. during the passage to the shore several of the men who had escaped thus far, were taken with seasickness, greatly to the amusement of their more hardy companions. the landing was made at a pier which had been used formerly as a railroad pier, but was now abandoned and somewhat dilapidated. to get from the boats to the pier in this rough sea was the most perilous part of the whole trip from tampa to cuba. as the boats would rise on the waves almost level with the landing place it was necessary to leap quickly from the boat to the shore. in this way two cavalrymen of the tenth lost their lives, falling into the sea with their equipments on and sinking before help could reach them. some of the boats were rowed ashore and made a landing on the beach some distance from the pier. by this method some men of the twenty-fifth tried to be the first to land, but failed, that regiment landing, however, in the first body of troops to go ashore, and being the second in order, in the invasion of the island. by night of the nd more than one-third of the troops were on shore, and by the evening of the th the whole army was disembarked according to the program announced at the beginning, the squadron of cavalry coming in at the close of the march to the shore. the only national movement on our part deserving to be brought into comparison with the expedition against the spanish power in cuba, is that of fifty years earlier, when general scott sailed at the head of the army of invasion against mexico. some of the occurrences of that expedition, especially connected with its landing, should be carefully studied, and if the reports which have reached the public concerning it are truthful, we would do well to consider how far the methods then in use could be applied now. scribner's recent history, published just before the outbreak of the spanish war, tells the story of that expedition, so far as it tells it at all, in the following sentence: "on the th of march, the fleet with scott's army came to anchor a few miles south of vera cruz, and two days later he landed his whole force--nearly twelve thousand men--by means of surf-boats." a writer in a recent number of _the army and navy journal_ says general worth's division of , men were landed in one hour, and the whole force was landed in six hours, without accident or confusion. in the prosecution of that unholy war, which lasted about a year, nearly three thousand men were lost in battle and about as many more by disease, peace being finally made by the cession of territory on the part of mexico, the united states paying in return much more than the territory was worth. the twenty millions paid to texas probably in great part went into the coffers of the patriots who occupied that region, some of whom had not been known as desirable citizens in the parts from which they came, and had manifested their patriotism by leaving their country for their country's good. the fifteen millions handed over to mexico looks like a contribution to a conscience fund, and an atonement offered for an assault without provocation. the country gained arizona, new mexico, california and finally texas, but it lost six thousand good men, the cost of the war, and all told, in negotiations, about thirty million dollars, besides. however, it is not always profitable to look up the harvests of war. there are always two--the harvest of gain, and the harvest of loss. death and debt are reapers, as well as are honor and extent of territory. the feelings of the six thousand american troops who landed on cuban soil on june nd, , may well be imagined. although they felt the effects of the confinement to which they had been subjected while on shipboard, there was very little sickness among them. again possessed of the free use of their limbs they swarmed the beach and open space near the landing, making themselves at home, and confronting the difficulties and perils that lay before them with a courage born of national pride. before them were the mountains with their almost impassable roads, the jungles filled with poisonous plants and the terrible prickly underbrush and pointed grass, in which skulked the land crab and various reptiles whose bite or sting was dangerous; twenty miles of this inhospitable country lay between them and santiago, their true objective. and somewhere on the road to that city they knew they were destined to meet a well-trained foe, skilled in all the arts of modern warfare, who would contest their advance. the prospect, however, did not unnerve them, although they could well conjecture that all who landed would not re-embark. some in that six thousand were destined never again to set foot on shipboard. out of the twenty-fifth infantry and the tenth cavalry men were to fall both before spanish bullets and disease ere these organizations should assemble to return to their native shores. these thoughts did not prevent the men from taking advantage of what nature had to offer them. "we landed in rowboats, amid, and after the cessation of the bombardment of the little hamlet and coast by the men-of-war and battle-ships," writes a brave soldier of the twenty-fifth infantry, and adds immediately: "we then helped ourselves to cocoanuts which we found in abundance near the landing." ordinarily this statement, so trivial and apparently unimportant, would not merit repetition, but in its connection here it is significant as showing the immediate tendency of the men to resort to the fruits of the country, despite all warnings to the contrary. the two weeks' experience on board the transports had made the finding of cocoanuts an event to be noted, and the dry pulp and strongly flavored milk of this tropical fruit became extremely grateful to the palate, even if not altogether safe for the stomach. if ripe, however, the cocoanut could scarcely be more ungenial to many, than the raw, canned tomatoes upon which they had in part subsisted during the voyage. it is to be added that this report of the finding of the cocoanuts is not the report of an old soldier, but of a young and intelligent, first enlistment man. lawton's division soon after landing, was ordered to move forward in the direction of santiago, on the road leading past siboney. a staff officer, writing of that movement, says: "general lawton, with his division, in obedience to this order, pushed forward from daiquiri about five miles, when night overtook him and he bivouacked on the road." an old soldier of the twenty-fifth, writing me from the hospital in tampa, florida, july nd, says of the same event: "after the regiment landed we marched about four and a half miles through the mountains; then we made camp." the old soldier says nothing of cocoanuts, but makes his statement with as much accuracy as possible, and with no waste of words. the novice describing the same thing says: "a short distance ahead (from the shore) we bivouacked for the night. we were soon lying in dreamland, so far from friends and home, indeed, on a distant, distant shore." these two extracts show at once the difference between the soldier produced by years of trial and training on our plains, and the soldier who but yesterday was a civilian. with the one the march is a short distance; with the other it is about four and a half miles; one reports that they "made camp," the other talks of dreamland, friend, home and distant shore; one expresses his feelings, the other shows control of feeling and reserve in expression. that first night on cuban soil, the night following june nd, was one without events, but one of great concern to the commanders on shore and on the fleet. the work of disembarking had gone on successfully, and already about six thousand men were on shore. nearly the whole of lawton's division, with bates' independent brigade, were bivouacked, as we have seen, about five miles from daiquiri, exactly where the railroad crosses the wagon road leading to siboney. general wheeler's troops--one brigade--were encamped on the open ground near the landing, the remainder of his division being still on the transports. the twenty-fifth infantry was with lawton; the tenth cavalry was ashore with wheeler's troops. a detachment of the twenty-fifth was put on outpost duty on that night of their landing, and five miles within cuban territory they tramped their solitary beats, establishing and guarding the majestic authority of the united states. lawton's orders were to seize and hold the town of siboney at which place kent's division, containing the twenty-fourth, was to land. it was then intended that the whole army should advance as rapidly as would be consistent with supplying the men with rations toward santiago. siboney was to be the base of supplies, and from this point ammunition and food were to be conveyed to the front by wagons and pack trains. general shafter also intended that lawton with his division should lead the advance upon santiago, but circumstances beyond his control brought about a different result. on the morning of the rd lawton's division was in motion early, and before half-past ten o'clock he was able to report that the spaniards had evacuated siboney and were in full retreat, pursued by a body of cubans under direction of general castillo; that the town was in his hands, and he had also captured one locomotive and nearly one hundred cars loaded with coal. general young's brigade of general wheeler's cavalry division, got on shore on the afternoon of the rd and after landing received verbal orders to move out with three days' rations "to a good camping place between juraguacito and siboney, on the road leading to santiago de cuba." in obedience to these orders, at . in the afternoon young with the rough riders and a squadron from each of the first and tenth regular cavalry moved from the bivouack near the landing and arrived at siboney at about o'clock. when general young arrived at siboney he had with him the rough riders, the other troops having been delayed by the crowded condition of the trail and the difficulty of following after nightfall. although these troops are always spoken of as cavalry, the reader must not forget that they were dismounted and in marching and fighting were the same as infantry. general young on arriving at siboney reported to general wheeler, who had preceded him to the same place. the statements of the several commanders here appear somewhat conflicting, although not inexplicable. general lawton says: "yesterday afternoon, late, general wheeler and staff arrived and established his headquarters within the limits of my command. saw him after dark. late last night colonel wood's regiment of dismounted cavalry (rough riders) passed through my camp at division headquarters, and later general young, with some of the dismounted cavalry, and early this morning others of the dismounted cavalry." wheeler says that "in obedience to instructions from the major-general commanding," given to him in person, he proceeded, on june rd, to siboney, but does not say at what hour. he says he "rode out to the front and found that the enemy had halted and established themselves at a point about three miles from siboney." he then informs us that "at o'clock on that evening of the rd general young reached siboney with eight troops of colonel wood's regiment (a, b, d, e, f, g, k and l), strong; troops a, b, g and k, of the first cavalry, in all , and troops a, b, e and i, of the tenth cavalry, in all men, making a total force of men, which included nearly all of my command which had disembarked. these troops had marched from daiquiri, miles. with the assistance of general castillo a rough map of the country was prepared and the position of the enemy fully explained, and i determined to make an attack." lieutenant miley says that the whole brigade of wheeler's troops arrived in siboney about dark and were occupying the same ground as general lawton ("in cuba with shafter," p. .) general young says that after reporting to general wheeler he "asked and obtained from general wheeler authority to make a reconnoisance in force" for the purpose of obtaining "positive information * * * as to the position and movements of the enemy in front." the distance from daiquiri to siboney was but eleven miles, and as the troops left the former place at . it is probable that they were all bivouacked near siboney before o'clock, as they were all together, according to general wheeler's report, at . on the morning of the th. general young having discovered that there were two roads or trails leading from siboney northward toward the town of sevilla determined to make his reconnoisance by both these trails. he directed colonel wood to move by the western trail and to keep a careful lookout and to attack any spaniards he might encounter, being careful to join his right in the event of an engagement, with the left of the column advancing by the eastern trail. colonel wood's column was the left column and was composed of the rough riders only. the column marching by the eastern trail was composed of the first and tenth cavalry (regulars) and was under the command of general young. it was the intention of general young by this column to gain the enemy's left, and thus attack in front and left. as early as . a.m. captain mills discovered the enemy exactly as had been described by general castillo. when this was done word was sent to colonel wood, who was making his way to the front over a more difficult route than the one by which general young's column had marched. a delay was therefore made on the part of general young in order that the attack should begin on both flanks at the same time. during this delay general wheeler arrived and was informed of the plans and dispositions for the attack, and after examining the position gave his approval of what had been done, whereupon general young ordered the attack. general wheeler in speaking of the same event says: "general young and myself examined the position of the enemy. the lines were deployed and i directed him to open fire with the hotchkiss gun. the enemy replied and the firing immediately became general." there can be no question as to the planning of this fight nor as to the direction of the american force in the fight so far as any general direction was possible. colonel wood directed one column and general young another, while the plan of the attack undoubtedly originated with general young. general wheeler conveys as much when he says: "general young deserves special commendation for his cool deliberate and skillful management." general young, if only the commander of the right column consisting of two squadrons of regular cavalry, had not as large a command, nor as difficult and important a one as had colonel wood, and hence is not deserving of special commendation except upon the general ground that he had supervision over the whole battle. this position is taken by general shafter in his report, who though admitting the presence of the division commander, credits the battle to general young, the commander of the brigade. the reconnoissance in force for which young had obtained authority from general wheeler on the night of the rd had developed into a battle, and the plan had evolved itself from the facts discovered. this plan general wheeler approved, but in no such way as to take the credit from its originator; and it is doubtless with reference both to the plan and the execution that he bestows on general young the mead of praise. this statement of fact does not in the least detract from either the importance or the praiseworthiness of the part played by colonel wood. both he and the officers and men commanded by him received both from general young and from the division commander the most generous praise. the advance of wood's column was made with great difficulty owing to the nature of the ground, and according to general young's belief, he was in the rear when at . in the morning captain mills discovered the enemy, and a cuban guide was dispatched to warn wood, and a delay made to allow time for him to come up. colonel wood, on the other hand, claims to have discovered the enemy at . and to have begun action almost immediately, so that it turned out as young had planned, and "the attack of both wings was simultaneous." the spaniards were posted on a range of high hills in the form of a "v," the opening being toward siboney, from which direction the attack came. from colonel wood's report it appears that soon after the firing began he found it necessary to deploy five troops to the right, and left, leaving three troops in reserve. the enemy's lines being still beyond his, both on the right and on the left, he hastily deployed two more troops, which made the lines now about equal in length. the firing was now "exceedingly heavy," and much of it at short range, but on account of the thick underbrush it was not very effective; "comparatively few of our men were injured." captain capron at this time received his mortal wound and the firing became so terrific that the last remaining troop of the reserve was absorbed by the firing line, and the whole regiment ordered to advance very slowly. the spanish line yielded and the advance soon showed that in falling back the enemy had taken a new position, about three hundred yards in front of the advancing regiment. their lines extended from to , yards, and the firing from their front was "exceedingly heavy" and effective. a "good many men" were wounded, "and several officers," says colonel wood's report. still the advance was kept up, and the spanish line was steadily forced back. "we now began," says colonel wood, "to get a heavy fire from a ridge on our right, which enfiladed our line." the reader can at once see that although the rough riders were advancing heroically, they were now in a very serious situation, with an exceedingly heavy and effective fire striking them in front, and a heavy, enfilading fire raking them from the right. their whole strength was on the line, and these two fires must have reduced their effectiveness with great rapidity had it kept up, the spaniards having their range and firing by well-directed volleys. it was for the regiment a moment of the utmost peril. had they been alone they must have perished. it was from this perilous situation of colonel wood's command that one of the most popular stories of the war originated, a story that contained some truth, but which was often told in such a way as to cause irritation, and in some instances it was so exaggerated or mutilated in the telling as to be simply ridiculous. on the day after the battle the story was told in lawton's camp according to the testimony of an intelligent soldier of the twenty-fifth infantry. his words are: "the next day about noon we heard that the tenth cavalry had met the enemy and that the tenth cavalry had rescued the rough riders. we congratulated ourselves that although not of the same branch of service, we were of the same color, and that to the eye of the enemy we, troopers and footmen, all looked alike." according to artists and cheap newspaper stories this rescuing occurred again and again. a picture is extensively advertized as "an actual and authoritative presentation of this regiment (the tenth cavalry) as it participated in that great struggle, and their heroic rescue of the rough riders on that memorable _july_ day." this especial rescuing took place on _san juan hill_. the editor of a religious paper declares that it was the _twenty-fifth infantry_ that rescued the rough riders and that it was done at _el caney_![ ] before we go any farther let us see just what the tenth cavalry did do in this fight. that their action was highly meritorious admits of no doubt, and the laurels they won were never allowed to fade during the whole campaign. general wheeler speaks of them with the first cavalry. he says: "i was immediately with the troops of the first and tenth regular cavalry, dismounted, and personally noticed their brave and good conduct." there were four troops of the tenth engaged, composing the first squadron of that regiment, under command of major norval. troop a was commanded by captain w.h. beck, who was specially commended by general wheeler for good conduct. second lieutenant f.r. mccoy was captain beck's assistant. this troop moved over to the left, receiving the fire of the enemy, but making no response, the distance being too great for effective carbine firing. this troop reached colonel wood's right and made the line continuous so that there was now a force in front of that ridge where the spaniards were securely entrenched and from which they were pouring their enfilading fire upon colonel wood's line. troop a, although coming into the line, did not fire. their presence, however, gave the rough riders the assurance that their flank was saved. troop e was commanded by captain c.g. ayres with second lieutenant george vidmar. this troop was placed by general young in support of captain watson's two hotchkiss guns, and also of the troops in their front. the troop was under fire one hour and a quarter, during which they were in plain view of the spaniards, who also had their exact range. one man was killed and one wounded. their courage, coolness and discipline in this trying hour and a quarter were of the very highest order. the troop commander says: "their coolness and fine discipline were superb." this troop did not fire a shot. thus one-half of the squadron moved to its positions and held them without being able to do any damage to the enemy, as they were carrying out to the letter their instructions, which were to fire only when they could see the enemy. troop b was commanded by captain j.w. watson with h.o. willard as second lieutenant. a detachment of this troop was placed in charge of four hotchkiss mountain guns. this detachment opened fire upon the enemy, using the ammunition sparingly, as they had but fifty rounds with them. twenty-two shots were fired, apparently with effect. the remainder of the troop under lieutenant williard was ordered to move out to the extreme right, which would place it beyond the line of the first cavalry, thus bringing that regiment between troop a of the tenth, which connected it with the rough riders and troop b, which was to be on its extreme right. lieutenant williard's report of this movement is as follows: "i ordered the troop forward at once, telling them to take advantage of all cover available. in the meantime the volleys from the spanish were coming in quite frequently and striking the ground on all sides near where we were. i found it very difficult to move the men forward after having found cover, and ran back to a portion of the troop near an old brick wall, and ordered them forward at once. they then made a dash forward, and in doing so three or four men were wounded, private russell severely. who the others were i do not know. we encountered a severe fire directly after this move forward; and private wheeler was wounded in the left leg. there was a wire fence on our right, and such thick underbrush that we were unable to get through right there, so had to follow along the fence for some distance before being able to penetrate. finally, was able to get the greater proportion of my men through, and about this time i met lieutenants fleming and miller, tenth cavalry, moving through the thicket at my left. i there heard the order passed on 'not to fire ahead,' as there was danger of firing into our own forces. in the meantime there was shouting from the first cavalry in our front, 'don't fire on us in rear.' my troop had not fired a shot to my knowledge, nor the knowledge of any non-commissioned officers in the troop. about this time i found i was unable to keep the troop deployed, as they would huddle up behind one rock or tree, so i gave all sergeants orders to move out on the extreme right and to keep in touch with those on their left. then, with a squad of about five men, i moved to the right front, and was unfortunate enough to lose the troop, i.e., i could see nothing of them except the men with me. "but as i had given explicit instructions to my sergeant, in case i was lost from them, to continue to advance until halted by some one in authority, i moved ahead myself, hoping to find them later on. in making a rush forward three men of my squad were lost from me in some way. i still had two men with me, privates combs and jackson, and in the next advance made i picked up a first cavalry sergeant who had fallen out from exhaustion. after a terrific climb up the ridge in front of me, and a very regular though ineffective fire from the enemy kept up until we were about sixty yards from the summit of hill, we reached the advance line of the first united states cavalry, under command of captain wainwright. i then reported to him for orders, and moved forward when he next advanced. the firing had ceased, and no more shots were fired, to my knowledge, after this time. with the first cavalry, troop g, we followed along the right of the ridge and came down to the right front, encountering no opposition or fire from the enemy, but finding the enemy's breastworks in confusion, ammunition and articles of clothing scattered around; also one dead spaniard and two mauser rifles. at the foot of the ridge we met some of the first volunteer cavalry, and being utterly exhausted, i was obliged to lie down. soon after, captain mills, adjutant-general of second brigade, cavalry division, came up to where i was and placed me in command of troop k, first united states cavalry, whose officers were wounded. i then marched them forward on the road to where general wheeler was sitting, and received orders from colonel wood, first volunteer cavalry, to remain until further orders and make no further advance. directly afterwards, learning the action was over, i reported back to general young, and received orders to remain camped with the first cavalry squadron, where the action had closed. in the meantime, i should have stated that i found the principal part of my troop and collected them and left them under the first sergeant, when i went back to receive orders. so far as i know, and to the best of my knowledge, the men of my troop acted with the greatest bravery, advancing on an enemy who could not be seen, and subjected to a severe and heavy fire at each step, which was only rendered ineffective to a great degree by the poor marksmanship of the enemy, as many times we were in sight of them (i discovered this by observation after the engagement) while we could see nothing. we were also subjected to a severe reverse fire from the hills in our right rear, several men being wounded by this fire. throughout the fight the men acted with exceptional coolness, in my judgment. the casualties were: privates russell, braxton and morris, severely wounded; privates f.a. miller, grice, wheeler and gaines, slightly wounded, i.e., less severely. none killed. very respectfully, henry o. williard. june , . troop b, tenth cavalry, during action near la guasima, second lieutenant, tenth united states cavalry, commanding. troop i of the tenth cavalry was commanded by first lieutenant r.j. fleming with second lieutenant a.m. miller. this troop moved to the right and wedged in between b troop and the right of the first cavalry. lieutenant fleming discovered the enemy posted on the high ridge immediately in front of his troop, and also extending to his right, in front of b troop. moving his troop a little to the right so as to secure room to advance without coming in contact with the first cavalry, he then directed his course straight toward the hill on which he had located the enemy. the advance was made with great caution, the men seeking cover wherever possible, and dashing across the open spaces at full run. thus they moved until the base of the steep part of the hill was reached. this was found very difficult of ascent, not only because of the rugged steepness, but also on account of the underbrush, and the sharp-leaved grass, the cacti and spanish bayonet, that grow on all these hillsides. paths had to be cut through these prickly obstructions with knives and sabres. consequently the advance up that hill, though free from peril, was very slow and trying. twice during the advance the men obtained a view of their enemies and were permitted to fire. the instructions were rigidly adhered to: no firing only at the visible foe. lieutenant fleming says: "owing to the underbrush it was impossible for me to see but a very few men at a time, but as they all arrived on the crest about the time i did, or shortly after, they certainly advanced steadily." he says: "the entire troop behaved with great coolness and obeyed every order." farrier sherman harris, wagoner john boland and private elsie jones especially distinguished themselves for coolness and gallantry. the aggressive work of the tenth cavalry, therefore, appears to have been done by troops b and i, a detachment of the former troop serving the hotchkiss gun battery. troop i was commanded by lieutenant fleming and by him conducted to the front, although he admits that in their advance up the slope of the hill he could see but very few of the men at a time, and declares that their advance was certainly steady, because all arrived at the crest of the hill simultaneously or nearly so. lieutenant fleming does not show that his troop of excellent men were in any sense _peculiarly_ dependent upon their white officers as some have asserted. they advanced steadily, just as the regulars always do, advanced noiselessly and without any reckless firing, and reached the crest of the hill in order, although he could not see them as they were making their advance. they kept their line despite all the obstructions. lieutenant fleming also says that in moving to his position he passed troop b, which then "inclined to the right, and during the remainder of the action was on my right." troop b, therefore, went through about the same experience as troop i, and being on the extreme right of the line may have been more directly in front of that foe which fleming says was in his front and to the right. why did not the officer who directed or led b troop in its advance upon the enemy report the action of his troop as vividly and generously as did lieutenant fleming the men of troop i? with not the slightest reflection upon the gallant officer, he himself has the manliness to say he was so unfortunate as to lose the troop. the troop, however, did not become demoralized, but went into action under command of its first sergeant, _john buck,[ ] and remained on lieutenant fleming's right during the action_. it has been proven more than once that should the commissioned officers of a company or troop of colored regulars be killed or incapacitated, the non-commissioned officers can carry on the fight. speaking of this same regiment it is equally true that at san juan the officers of troops d and g were all shot and the commands of these troops fell to their first sergeants, the first to sergeant william h. given, the second to sergeant saint foster, and it is generally understood that these two men were appointed lieutenants of volunteers because of their success in handling their troops in battle. the entire attacking force at this end of the line, if we count only those engaged in actual firing, consisted of two troops of the tenth cavalry and two of the first cavalry--four troops--while to the left the entire eight troops were on the firing line. the action of the troops of the first cavalry was quite similar to that of the troops of the tenth cavalry, and equally deserving of commendation. of them all general young says: "the ground over which the right column advanced was a mass of jungle growth, with wire fences, not to be seen until encountered, and precipitous heights as the ridge was approached. it was impossible for the troops to keep in touch along the front, and they could only judge of the enemy from the sound and direction of his fire. however, had it not been for this dense jungle, the attack would not have been made against an overwhelming force in such a position. headway was so difficult that advance and support became merged and moved forward under a continuous volley firing, supplemented by that of two rapid-fire guns. return firing by my force was only made as here and there a small clear spot gave a sight of the enemy. the fire discipline of these particular troops was almost perfect. the ammunition expended by the two squadrons engaged in an incessant advance for one hour and fifteen minutes averaged less than ten rounds per man. the fine quality of these troops is also shown by the fact that there was not a single straggler, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any soldier to fall out in the advance to assist the wounded or carry back the dead. the fighting on the left flank was equally creditable and was remarkable, and i believe unprecedented, in volunter troops so quickly raised, armed and equipped." the five hundred men of colonel wood's regiment were stretched over a space of to , yards, and were entirely without support or reserve, and appear to have advanced to a point where this very strong force on the right swept a good part of their line both with rifle fire and the fire of their two machine guns. men and officers were falling under both the front and flank fire of the enemy, and had not the squadrons of the first and tenth made their successful assault upon that ridge, which, according to general wood's report, was "very strongly held," the situation of the rough riders would have been extreme. because this successful assault was participated in by the tenth cavalry the story arose that the rough riders were rescued by that regiment. the fair statement would be: that the regular cavalry, consisting of a squadron of the first and a squadron of the tenth, made their advance on the right at the precise moment to deliver the rough riders from a fire that threatened their annihilation. the marksmanship and coolness of the men of the tenth have been specially commented upon and their fire was described as very effective, but the same remarks could be made of the men of the first, who fought side by side with them. it is probable that the volunteers advanced more rapidly than did the regulars, using more ammunition, and manifesting a very high degree of courage and enthusiasm as well as deliberation; but the regulars reached their objective at the proper time to turn the battle's tide. each advancing column was worthy to be companion to the other. general wheeler said the fire was very hot for about an hour, and "at . sent a courier to general lawton informing him that he was engaged with a larger force of the enemy than was anticipated, and asked that his force be sent forward on the sevilla road as quickly as possible." ("in cuba with shafter," p. .) general lawton, however, with the true instinct of a soldier had already sent orders to general chaffee to move forward with the first brigade. the second brigade was also in readiness to move and the men of the twenty-fifth were expecting to go forward to take a position on the right and if possible a little to the rear of the spanish entrenchments in order to cut off their retreat. the rapid movements of the cavalry division, however, rendered this unnecessary, and the routing of the foe gave to the americans an open country and cleared the field for the advance on santiago. the first battle had been fought, and the americans had been victorious, but not without cost. sixteen men had been killed and fifty-two wounded. in colonel wood's regiment eight had been killed and thirty-four wounded; in the first cavalry, seven killed and eight wounded; in the tenth cavalry, one killed and ten wounded. the percentage of losses to the whole strength of the several organizations engaged was as follows: rough riders, over per cent.; first cavalry, over per cent.; tenth cavalry, per cent. but if we take those on the firing line as the base the rate per cent. of losses among the regulars would be doubled, while that of the volunteers would remain the same. the strength of the enemy in this battle is given in the spanish official reports, according to lieutenant miley, at about five hundred, and their losses are put at nine killed and twenty-seven wounded. at the time of the fight it was supposed to be much larger. general young's report places the estimates at , , and adds "that it has since been learned from spanish sources to have been , . the cuban military authorities claim the spanish strength was , ." these figures are doubtless too high. the force overtaken at las guasimas was the same force that evacuated siboney at the approach of lawton and the force with which the cubans had fought on the morning of the rd. it may have consisted solely of the garrison from siboney, although it is more probable that it included also those from daiquiri and jutici, as it is quite certain that all these troops proceeded toward santiago over the same road. the force at siboney had been given by the cubans at , at daiquiri at , and at jutici at . if these had concentrated and the figures were correct, the spanish force at guasimas was upwards of , . if, however, it was the force from siboney alone, it was about as the spanish official report gives it. on this latter basis, however, the losses are out of proportion, for while the attacking party lost a little less than per cent. of its entire strength in killed and wounded, the losses of the entrenched, defending party, were even a little greater, or over per cent. of its strength. it is, therefore, probable that the spanish force was greater than officially reported and included the troops from the other posts as well as those from siboney. the engagement was classed by general shafter as unimportant, although its effect upon our army was inspiring. it did not cut off the retreat of the spanish force, and the men who faced our army at guasimas met them again in the trenches before santiago. general shafter desired to advance with his whole force, and cautioned strongly against any further forward movement until the troops were well in hand. the two battles between the cubans and spaniards, fought on the rd, in which the cubans had sixteen men wounded and two killed, were engagements of some consequence, although we have no reports of them. there is no evidence that the cubans took part in the battle of guasimas, although they arrived on the grounds immediately after the firing ceased. the story thus far told is, as the reader cannot fail to see, directly from official records, and the conclusions arrived at are those which result naturally from the facts as therein detailed. not one word is quoted from any but military men--actors in the affair. we may now go briefly over the same ground, giving the views and conclusions of able civilian correspondents who followed the army to see what was done, and who were trained observers and skilled writers. how have these able war journalists told the story of las guasimas? to quote from stephen bonsal in substance, not in words, is to contradict what general shafter says officially in one particular, but in no such way as to discredit the general, or to weaken bonsal. it is not a case of bringing two universal, antagonistic propositions face to face, but a case where two men of different training look upon an action from different standpoints and through different field-glasses. general shafter says of the collision of the rough riders with the spanish force: "there was no ambush as reported." as a military man, he says there was no more concealment on the part of the spanish force than what an attacking party should expect, no more than what is usual in modern warfare, hence he does not regard it as an ambush, and does not officially take notice of any surprise or unexpected encounter on the part of his force. to do so would be to reflect, however slightly, upon the professional skill of the commander of the left column. general shafter thus says officially in a manly way: "there was no ambush." beyond this his duty does not call him to go, and he halts his expressions exactly at this line, maintaining in his attitude all the attributes of the true soldier, placing himself beyond criticism by thus securing from attack the character of his subordinate. mr. bonsal is a writer and author, accustomed to view actions in the broader light of popular judgment, entirely free from professional bias, and having no class-feeling or obligations to serve. his pen is not official; his statements are not from the military standpoint; not influenced in any way by considerations of personal weal or woe with respect to others or himself. he says that one troop of the rough riders, troop l, commanded by captain capron, was leading the advance of the regiment, and was in solid formation and within twenty-five yards of its scouting line when it received the enemy's fire. this troop was so far in the advance that it took the other troops of the regiment more than a half hour to get up to it. the writer speaks of the advance of that troop as having been made "in the fool-hardy formation of a solid column along a narrow trail, which brought them, in the way i have described, within point-blank range of the spanish rifles, and within the unobstructed sweep of their machine guns." he sums up as follows: "and if it is to be ambushed when you receive the enemy's fire perhaps a quarter of an hour before it was expected, and when the troop was in a formation, and the only one in which, in view of the nature of the ground it was possible to advance quickly, then most certainly l troop of the rough riders was ambushed by the spaniards on the morning of june th." mr. bonsal also brings into clear view the part taken in this battle by lawton's infantry. he shows by means of a simple map the trail by which miles' brigade, in which was the twenty-fifth infantry, moved in order to flank the spanish position, while chaffee's brigade was hurrying forward on the royal road to reinforce the line in front. a letter from a soldier of the twenty-fifth written soon after these events fully confirms mr. bonsal in what he says concerning the movement of miles' brigade. the soldier says: "on the morning of the th the rough riders, tenth and first cavalry were to make an attack on a little place where the spanish were fortified. the second brigade was to come on the right flank of these troops and a little in rear of the fortifications; but by some misunderstanding, the former troops, led by the rough riders, made an attack before we got our position, and the result was a great many lives lost in the first cavalry and rough riders--only one in tenth cavalry, but many wounded. they captured the fortification." this letter by a humble soldier, written with no thought of its importance, shows how gallantly lawton had sprung to the rescue of wheeler's division. according to bonsal, who says he obtained his information from spanish officers who were present in this fight, it was the information of the approach of this brigade and of chaffee's up the main road that caused the spaniards to withdraw rapidly from the position. the whole force was in imminent danger of being captured. another soldier of the twenty-fifth wrote: "the report came that the twenty-fifth infantry was to cut off the spanish retreat from a stronghold, toward santiago." these glimpses from soldiers' letters illustrate how clearly they comprehended the work upon which they were sent, and show also how hearty and cordial was the support which the infantry at that time was hurrying forward to the advancing cavalry. the official reports show that the strength of the spanish position was before the right of our line. mr. bonsal says: "directly in front of the tenth cavalry rose undoubtedly the strongest point in the spanish position--two lines of shallow trenches, strengthened by heavy stone parapets." we must remember that so far as we can get the disposition of these troops from official records, troop a connected the rough riders with the first cavalry, and troops i and b were on the right of the first cavalry. troop a did not fire a shot; the fighting, therefore, was done by troops i and b on the extreme right of the line, and it was on their front that "undoubtedly the strongest point in the spanish position" lay--nor should the reader forget that at this very important moment troop b was commanded by its first sergeant, buck, lieutenant williard having by his own report been "unfortunate enough to lose the troop." this is said with no disparagement to lieutenant williard. it was merely one of the accidents of battle. says mr. bonsal: "the moment the advance was ordered the black troopers of the tenth cavalry forged ahead. they were no braver certainly than any other men in the line, but their better training enabled them to render more valuable services than the other troops engaged. they had with them and ready for action their machine guns, and shoved them right up to the front on the firing line, from where they poured very effective fire into the spanish trenches, which not only did considerable execution, but was particularly effective in keeping down the return fire of the spaniards. the machine guns of the rough riders were mislaid, or the mules upon which they had been loaded could not be found at this juncture. it was said they had bolted. it is certain, however, that the guns were not brought into action, and consequently the spaniards suffered less, and the rough riders more, in the gallant charge they made up the hill in front of them, after the tenth cavalry had advanced and driven the spaniards from their position on the right." corporal w.f. johnson, b troop, was the non-commissioned officer in charge of the machine guns during the brief fight at las guasimas, and his action was such as to call forth from the troop commander special mention "for his efficiency and perfect coolness under fire." here i may be pardoned for calling attention to a notion too prevalent concerning the negro soldier in time of battle. he is too often represented as going into action singing like a zany or yelling like a demon, rather than as a man calculating the chances for life and victory. the official reports from the black regulars in cuba ought to correct this notion. every troop and company commander, who has reported upon colored soldiers in that war, speaks of the coolness of the men of his command. captain beck, of troop a, tenth cavalry, in the guasimas fight, says: "i will add that the enlisted men of troop a, tenth cavalry, behaved well, silently and alertly obeying orders, and without becoming excited when the fire of the enemy reached them." the yell, in the charge of the regulars, is a part of the action, and is no more peculiar to negro troops than to the whites, only as they may differ in the general timbre of voice. black american soldiers when not on duty may sing more than white troops, but in quite a long experience among them i have not found the difference so very noticeable. in all garrisons one will find some men more musically inclined than others; some who love to sing and some who do not; some who have voices adapted to the production of musical tones, and some who have not, and it is doubtless owing to these constitutional differences that we find differences in habits and expressions. lieutenant miley, of general shafter's staff, in his description of the departure of general shatter from general garcia's tent, gives us a glimpse of the character of the men that composed the cuban army in that vicinity. "while the interview was going on, the troops were being assembled to do honor to the general on his departure. several companies were drawn up in front of the tent to present arms as he came out, and a regiment escorted him to the beach down the winding path, which was now lined on both sides by cuban soldiers standing about a yard apart and presenting arms. the scene made a strong impression on all in the party, there seemed to be such an earnestness and fixedness of purpose displayed that all felt these soldiers to be a power. about fifty per cent. were blacks, and the rest mulattoes, with a small number of whites. they were very poorly clad, many without shirts or shoes, but every man had his gun and a belt full of ammunition." b. extract from a letter from a soldier of the th cavalry, troop b, concerning the battle of las guasimas: "... the platoon which escaped this ditch got on the right of the st cavalry on the firing line, and pushed steadily forward under first sergeant buck, being then in two squads--one under sergeant thompson. on account of the nature of the ground and other natural obstacles, there were men not connected with any squads, but who advanced with the line. both squads fired by volley and at will, at the command of the sergeants named; and their shots reached the enemy and were effective, as it is generally believed. private w.m. bunn, of sergeant thompson's squad, is reported to have shot a sharpshooter from a tree just in front of the enemy's work. private wheeler was shot twice in the advance. sergeant thompson's squad was once stopped from firing by general wheeler's adjutant-general for fear of hitting the rough riders. it seems that two distinct battles were fought that day. colonel wood's command struck the enemy at about the tame time, or probably a little before, ours did, and all unknown to the men in our ranks; and got themselves into a pretty tight squeeze. about the same time our force engaged the enemy and drew part of the attention they were giving the rough riders. this, the latter claimed, enabled them to continue the movement on the enemy's works. but as our command had an equal number of st and th cavalrymen, i am of the opinion that the story of our saving the rough riders arose from the fact that as soon as the fight was over, the st regular cavalry was opening its arms to us, declaring that we, especially b troop, had saved them; for the st regular cavalry was first in the attack in general young's command; and when the enemy began to make it pretty warm, he ordered b and i troops of the th forward on the right. troop b was in the lead; and the alacrity with which these two troops moved to the front has always been praised by the st cavalry; and they declare that that movement helped them wonderfully. in making this movement my troop had three or four men wounded; and later, when sergeant thompson's squad was fighting far to the front, it had in it several members of the st cavalry, who are always glad to praise him. so, i think that by the rough riders first attributing their success, or their rescue from inevitable defeat, to the attack made by our command; and by the st regular cavalry's very generously, in the heat of success, bestowing upon us the honors of the day, it finally became a settled thing that we saved the whole battle. that evening, after the battle, i was met by lieutenant shipp, later killed at san juan hill, who, on inquiring and being told that i belonged to troop b, congratulated me on its conduct, and said it had made a name for the regiment. lieutenant shipp was not in that fight, but had come up after it was over and had heard of us through the st cavalry." c. sergeant john buck was born september th, , at chapel hill, texas; enlisted in th cavalry, november , , and passed over ten years in active indian service. he is a man of strong character, an experienced horseman and packer, and so commanded a portion of the firing line in the battle of june as to elicit remarks of praise from officers of other troops "for his gallantry, coolness and good judgment under fire." sergeant thompson's good conduct in the same battle was noticeable also. sergeant buck was made second lieutenant in the th u.s. volunteer infantry and subsequently captain in the th united states volunteers. footnotes: [ ] see note a at the end of this chapter. [ ] the twenty-fifth at el-caney. american valor never shone with greater luster than when the twenty-fifth infantry swept up the sizzling hill of el-caney to the rescue of the rough riders. two other regiments came into view of the rough riders. but the bullets were flying like driving hail; the enemy were in trees and ambushes with smokeless powder, and the rough riders were biting the dust and were threatened with annihilation. a rough rider described the feelings of his brigade when they saw the other regiments appear and retreat. finally this rough rider, a southerner, heard a well-known yell. and out of the distance moved a regiment as if on dress parade, faces set like steel, keeping step like a machine, their comrades falling here, there, everywhere, moving into the storm of invisible death without one faltering step, passing the rough riders, conquering up the hill, and never stopping until with the rough riders el-caney was won. this was the twenty-fifth regiment (colored), united states infantry, now quartered at fort logan, denver. we have asked the chaplain, t.g. steward, to recite the events at el-caney. his modesty confines him to the barest recital of "semi-official" records. but the charge of the twenty-fifth is deserving of comparison with that of "the light brigade" in the crimean war, or of custer at the massacre of the big horn. (editorial in religious paper.) [ ] see note c at the end of this chapter. chapter vi. the battle of el caney. the capture of the stone fort by the twenty-fifth infantry. while the battle of guasimas was going on, in which the tenth cavalry took so conspicuous a part, the twenty-fourth infantry still remained on board the city of washington awaiting orders to land. during the night of the th such orders were received by the authorities of the transport, and they were directed to land their troops, but the general commanding, brigadier-general kent, did not hear of the matter until some time the next morning. he relates the following circumstances in his official report of the debarkation: "at a.m. of the th lieutenant cardin, of the revenue marine, came aboard with orders for me to proceed to and disembark at altares (siboney). this officer also handed me a letter from the corps commander expressing his astonishment that i had remained away three days." general kent also states in his report that his travel rations had been exhausted seven days before and that but one meal of field rations remained, and that the ship's supply both of water and provisions was running low, and that in consequence of these facts as well as for higher considerations he was very anxious to get on shore. the debarkation followed as rapidly as possible, and that afternoon general kent reported in person to major-general wheeler, the troops bivouacking for the night near the landing. the next day colonel pearson, who commanded the second brigade of kent's division, took the second infantry and reconnoitred along the railroad toward the morro, going a distance of about six miles and returning in the evening, having found no enemy in that vicinity, although evidences were found that a force had recently retreated from a blockhouse situated on the railroad about two miles from aguadores. on the day following, june th, the entire division moved out on the road toward santiago and encamped on the same ground that lawton had occupied the night previous. the second brigade took its place near savilla, while the third brigade, which included the twenty-fourth infantry, went into camp at las guasimas, where the affair of the th had occurred. the order of march had now partially fallen back to the original plan: lawton in advance, with whom was the twenty-fifth infantry; wheeler next, with whom was the ninth and tenth cavalry, and kent in the rear, who had, as we have just related, the twenty-fourth infantry in his third brigade. in this order the army moved, so far as it moved at all, until the morning of the th, when dispositions for the general attack began. the story of the great battle, or as it turned out, of the two great battles, begins on this day, and the careers of the four colored regiments are to be followed through the divisions of lawton, kent and wheeler. let us begin, however, with general shafter's official report and his "story of santiago," as told in the "century" of february, . from these sources it is learned that on june th general shafter reconnoitered the country about santiago and determined upon a plan of attack. ascending a hill from which he could obtain a good view of the city, and could also see san juan hill and the country about el caney, he observed afresh what had impressed itself upon all immediately upon landing, to wit: that in all this country there were no good roads along which to move troops or transport supplies. the general says: "i had never seen a good road in a spanish country, and santiago did not disappoint my expectations." the roads as he saw them from the summit of the hill on june th were very poor, and indeed, little better than bridle paths, except between el caney and san juan river and the city. within this region, a distance of from four to four and a half miles, the roads were passable. el caney lay about four miles northeast of santiago, and was strongly fortified, and, as events proved, strongly garrisoned. this position was of great importance to the enemy, because from it a force might come to attack the right flank and rear of the american army as it should make its attempt on san juan hill. el caney held the road from guantanamo, at which point an important spanish force was posted. while general shafter was surveying the country from the hill at el pozo and making what special examination he could of the country toward san juan hills, generals lawton and chaffee were making a reconnoisance around el caney. from general lawton's report it would appear that the work of reconnoitering around el caney was done chiefly by general chaffee. he says: "to general adna r. chaffee i am indebted for a thorough and intelligent reconnoissance of the town of el caney and vicinity prior to the battle and the submission of a plan of attack which was adopted. i consider general chaffee one of the best practical soldiers in the army and recommend him for special distinction for successfully charging the stone fort mentioned in this report, the capture of which practically closed the battle." the general plan of attack as explained by general shafter himself in his "century" article was "to put a brigade on the road between santiago and el caney, to keep the spaniards at the latter place from retreating on the city, and then with the rest of lawton's division and the divisions of wheeler and kent, and bates' brigade to attack the spanish position in front of santiago." before that he had said that he wished to put a division in on the right of el caney and assault the town on that road. to admiral sampson on june th he said: "i shall, if i can, put a large force in caney, and one perhaps still farther west, near the pipe-line conveying water to the city, making my main attack from the northeast and east." his desire at this time was to "get the enemy in my front and the city at my back." on june th he had modified this plan so as to decide to place one brigade on the road between el caney and santiago, with a view merely to keeping the el caney garrison from retreating into santiago. as he was explaining his plan to the division officers and others on the afternoon of the th at his own headquarters, lawton and chaffee were of the opinion that they could dispose of the spaniards at el caney in two hours time. "therefore," says the general, "i modified my plan, assigning lawton's whole division for the attack of el caney and directed bates' independent brigade to his support." this last modification of general shafter's plan was made in deference to the opinion of subordinates, and was based upon observations made especially by general chaffee. the force assigned for the reduction of el caney was to begin its work early in the morning, and by ten or eleven o'clock at the outside it was expected that the task would be accomplished and lawton would join kent and sumner in the assault upon san juan. early on the morning of july st capron's battery was got into position on a line running directly north from marianage on a hill about five hundred yards east of las guasimas creek. lawton's division began its move on the afternoon of the th, as did in fact the whole army, and bivouacked that night near el pozo. the twenty-fifth infantry, which belonged to the second brigade, commanded by colonel miles, a former major of the twenty-fifth, left el pozo at daylight by way of the road leading almost due north, and marched about one mile to the little town of marianage. here a halt was made for an hour, from . to . , during which time reconnoitering parties were sent out to examine the ground toward the ducoureau house, which lay about one mile to the northward of marianage, and which had been designated by general lawton as a general rendezvous after the engagement should terminate. reconnoissance was made also to the front for the purpose of discovering the enemy, and to ascertain the left of ludlow's brigade. this was the first brigade of lawton's division and consisted of the eighth and twenty-second infantry and the second massachusetts, the last named regiment being on the right. the second brigade was to connect with this on its right and succeeded in finding the position of the second massachusetts during this halt. at . miles' brigade was ordered to take position on the right of ludlow's brigade, which it did in the following order: the fourth infantry on the left, joining with the second massachusetts on ludlow's right; the twenty-fifth on the right, with its left joining on the fourth infantry. we must now review the progress of the battle so far as it is possible to do so, from the firing of the first shot by capron's battery up to . , an hour long after the time at which it had been supposed that el caney would fall. capron's reports are very brief. he says: "july --fired shell and shrappnel into el caney (ranged , ) . a.m. to . a.m." in another report he says: "opened fire july , with shell and shrappnel at . on caney; range, , yards; continued until . a.m." he says that the battery "continued its fire against specified objectives intermittently throughout the day under the personal direction of the division commander." the forces we have so far considered, consisting of ludlow's and miles' brigades, and of capron's battery, lay to the south of caney, between it and santiago, ludlow's brigade having been placed there to "cut off the retreat of the garrison should it attempt to escape." up to . there had been no call for employing it for that purpose. the garrison had made no attempt to escape. we must now go around to the east and north of caney. here the third brigade, consisting of the seventh, twelfth and seventeenth infantry, was posted, and early in the morning joined in the attack, the brigade getting under fire before eight o'clock. colonel carpenter, of the seventh regiment, says that one company of his regiment, by general chaffee's direction, was detached and sent forward to reduce a blockhouse, well up on the hill, which commanded the approach of his regiment to the field of action. after several ineffectual attempts by the company, the captain (van orsdale) was directed to abandon the undertaking and rejoin the regiment, which then took up a position on the crest of a hill running nearly parallel with the spanish lines. from this position the men crawled forward about fifty yards and opened a deliberate fire upon the enemy, keeping it up for about an hour, but as the losses of the regiment at this time were considerable and the fire seemed to be without material effect, the command was withdrawn to its position on the hill where it found protection in a sunken road. in this condition this regiment lay when capron's battery made its lull at . . the fearful fire this regiment met can be estimated by the losses it sustained, which during the day were as follows: killed, officer and enlisted men; wounded, officers and enlisted men; missing, enlisted men. the seventeenth regiment went into action on the right of the seventh, doing but little firing, as their orders were not to open fire unless they could make the fire effective. companies c and g fired a few volleys; the remainder of the regiment did not fire at all. four enlisted men were killed and two officers severely wounded, one, lieutenant dickinson, dying from his wounds within a few hours. several enlisted men were also wounded. at . this regiment was lying on the right of the seventh. the twelfth regiment began firing between and in the morning and advanced to take its position on the left of the seventh infantry. this regiment early reached a position within yards of the enemy, in which it found shelter in the sunken road, "free from the enemy's fire." the regiment remained in this position until about o'clock in the afternoon, and, hence, was there at . a.m. the losses of this regiment during the day were, killed, enlisted men; wounded, officers and enlisted men. from these brief sketches the reader will now be able to grasp the position of lawton's entire division. beginning on the south, from the west, with ludlow's brigade, consisting of the twenty-second, eighth and second massachusetts, the line was continued by miles' brigade of the fourth and twenty-fifth infantry; then passing over a considerable space, we strike chaffee's brigade, posted as has just been described. general bates' brigade probably arrived upon the field about noon. this brigade consisted of the third and twentieth infantry, and is known as "bates' independent brigade." the brigade is reported as going into action about o'clock and continuing in action until o'clock. it took a position on the right, partially filling up the gap between miles and chaffee. the first battalion of the twentieth infantry went into action on the left of the twenty-fifth infantry's firing line, and one company, a, took part in the latter part of the charge by which the stone house was taken. between . , when capron's firing stopped, and when miles' brigade was moved forward to join the right of ludlow's, and . , when the battery recommenced, the troops, including bates' brigade, were either in the positions described above or were moving to them. noon had arrived and el caney is not taken; the garrison has not attempted to escape, but is sending out upon its assailants a continuous and deadly fire. "throughout the heaviest din of our fire," says colonel carpenter, "could be heard the peculiar high-keyed ring of the defiant enemy's shots." twelve o'clock on july st, , was a most anxious hour for our army in cuba. the battle at el caney was at a standstill and the divisions of kent and sumner were in a most perilous situation. bonsal's description of the state of the battle at that time is pathetic. speaking of the artillery at el caney--capron's battery--he says it was now apparent that this artillery, firing from its position of twenty-four hundred yards, could do very little damage to the great stone fort and earthworks north of the village. the shots were too few and the metal used too light to be effectual. three hours of the morning had worn away and the advance of our men had been slowly made and at great cost; all the approaches were commanded by spanish entrenchments and the fighting was very unequal. a soldier of the twenty-fifth says that when he came in sight of the battle at el caney, "the americans were gaining no ground, and the flashes of the spanish mausers told us that the forces engaged were unequally matched, the difference of position favoring the spaniards." this view was had about noon, or soon after. at that time "a succession of aides and staff officers came galloping from headquarters with messages which plainly showed that confusion, if not disaster, had befallen the two divisions which, by the heavy firing, we had learned to our great surprise, had become warmly engaged in the centre. the orders to general lawton from headquarters were at first peremptory in character--he was to pull out of his fight and to move his division to the support of the centre" (bonsal). this call for lawton arose from the fact that about noon general shafter received several dispatches from sumner, of the cavalry division, requiring assistance. general sumner felt the need of the assistance of every available man in the centre of the line where he was carrying on his fight with the spaniards on blue house hill. this situation so impressed the general, shafter, that he finally wrote to lawton, "you must proceed with the remainder of your force and join on immediately upon sumner's right. if you do not the battle is lost." shafter's idea then was to fall back to his original plan of just leaving enough troops at el caney to prevent the garrison from going to the assistance of any other part of the line. shafter himself says: "as the fight progressed i was impressed with the fact that we were meeting with a very stubborn resistance at el caney and i began to fear that i had made a mistake in making two fights in one day, and sent major noble with orders to lawton to hasten with his troops along the caney road, placing himself on the right of wheeler" (sumner). lawton now made a general advance, and it is important to see just what troops did advance. the seventh infantry did not move, for lieutenant-colonel carpenter says that after withdrawing "to the partial cover furnished by the road, the regiment occupied this position from o'clock a.m. until about . p.m." the seventeenth did not move, for captain o'brien, commanding, says the regiment took a position joining "its left with the right of the seventh infantry" and that the regiment "remained in this position until the battle was over." the twelfth infantry remained in its shelter within yards of the stone fort until about p.m. then we have chaffee's brigade on the north of the fort remaining stationary and by their own reports doing but little firing. the seventeenth fired "for about fifty minutes" about noon, with remarkable precision, but "it seemingly had no effect upon reducing the spanish fire delivered in our (their) front." the seventh did not fire to any extent. the twelfth infantry lay in its refuge "free from the enemy's fire" and may have kept up an irregular fire. about this time bates' brigade entered the field and one battalion of the twentieth infantry is reported to have joined the left of the firing line of the twenty-fifth. general ludlow says there was a lull from to p.m., "when the action again became violent, and at p.m. the third brigade captured the stone fort with a rush and hoisted the american flag." from ludlow's brigade, captain van horne, commanding the twenty-second infantry, after the wounding of lieutenant-colonel patterson, says that the first battalion of his regiment took a position about yards from the town and kept up firing until the place surrendered. he does not say positively that the firing was upon the town, but he had said just before that the second battalion slowly moved forward, firing into the town from the left, so that we may readily conclude from the context as well as from the position that the first battalion fired into the town also. hence it seems fair to exclude from the fort all of ludlow's brigade, and it is observable that ludlow himself claims no part in the capture of that stronghold. general bates says his brigade took position to the right of colonel miles' brigade and pushed rapidly to the front. he then says that after remaining sometime in the crossroad to the right of miles' brigade, under a heavy fire from the enemy, the brigade moved farther "to the right to the assault of a small hill, occupied upon the top by a stone fort and well protected by rifle pits. general chaffee's brigade charged them from the right, and the two brigades joining upon the crest, opened fire from this point of vantage, lately occupied by the spanish, upon the village of el caney." general chaffee says it was in consequence of the fire of general bates' troops upon the fort that the assault by the twelfth infantry was postponed. in general chaffee's report this statement occurs: "the action lasted nearly throughout the day, terminating at about . p.m., at which time the stone blockhouse was assaulted by captain haskell's battalion of the twelfth infantry, under the personal direction of lieutenant-colonel comba, commanding the regiment. the resistance at this point had been greatly affected by the fire of capron's battery. a few moments after the seizure of this point--the key to the situation--my left was joined by general bates with a portion of his command." it is to be noted in connection with all of the above statements that major mccaskey, who commanded the twentieth infantry (bates brigade), says: "the first battalion was moved to the right and put into action on the left of the twenty-fifth infantry's firing line, and one company, a, took part in the latter part of the charge by which the stone house was taken." the two points to be noted here are ( ) that this battalion was on the left of the twenty-fifth's firing line, and ( ) that one company took part in the charge upon the stone house. when chaffee's brigade charged the stone house from the right some of bates' troops, at least this company a, from the battalion near the firing line of the twenty-fifth infantry, took part in the latter part of the charge. the two brigades, bates' and chaffee's, joined immediately after the capture of the stone fort and opened fire upon the town. we have now traced the actions and the fortunes of the three following brigades: ludlow's chaffee's and bates'. but what has become of miles' brigade? unfortunately, the second brigade has not been so well reported as were the others engaged in the action at el caney. we have seen that it was ordered to take position on the right of ludlow's brigade at . , when capron's battery ceased its firing for the fifty minutes. "we were detained in reaching our position by troops in our front blocking the road," says the brigade commander. "we came into action directly in front of the stone blockhouse at . , and from that hour until about . , when the command 'cease firing' was given, the blockhouse having been captured, my command was continuously under fire." the reader will note in this report that the brigade went into action at . , several hours before the charge was ordered by general chaffee, and at least an hour and a half before, according to the report of the commander of the third brigade, "this fort was practically in the possession of the twelfth infantry." major baker, who commanded the fourth infantry, says: "about m. we received orders directing us to take our place in the line of battle, and arriving at the proper point the regiment was placed in line in the following order: the first battalion in the fighting line; the second battalion in support and regimental reserve. in this order the first battalion, under my command, took up the advance toward the blockhouse, to our right, south east of caney." this battalion advanced until it reached a position about yards from the village, where it remained, assisted by the second battalion until the capture of the fort. two companies of this first battalion "fired into the town and also into the blockhouse until its fall." a good part of the fire of this regiment was directed upon the fort. colonel miles says: "the brigade advanced steadily, with such scanty cover as the ground afforded, maintaining a heavy fire on the stone fort from the time the fight began until it ended." the reader is asked to note particularly that this fire was continuous throughout the fight; that it was characterized by the brigade commander as "heavy," and that it was "on the stone fort". he says: "as the brigade advanced across a plowed field in front of the enemy's position the latter's sharpshooters in the houses in caney enfiladed the left of our line with a murderous fire. to silence it major baker, fourth infantry, in command of the battalion of that regiment on the left of our line of battle, directed it to turn its fire upon the town. in so doing this battalion lost heavily, but its steady front and accurate volleys greatly assisted the advance of the remainder of the brigade upon the stone fort." we have now these facts clearly brought out or suggested: that the brigade took its place in line of battle soon after o'clock; that the fourth infantry was on the left; that the advance of the first battalion of the fourth infantry was "toward the blockhouse;" that aside from the companies of the fourth infantry that fired into town, "the remainder of the brigade advanced upon the stone fort." the fourth infantry, holding the left of the line, however, reached a position from which it could not advance, its commander having "quickly perceived that an advance meant annihilation, as it would involve not only a frontal, but also a flank fire from the town." here the fourth infantry remained, but continued to maintain a fire upon both the blockhouse and the town. there is but one more regiment in all of lawton's division to be accounted for, and that is the twenty-fifth infantry, holding the right of miles' brigade in this advance. this regiment was in place in the line under its gallant and experienced commander, lieutenant-colonel a.s. daggett, and contributed its full share of that "heavy fire on the stone fort from the time the fight began until it ended." major mccaskey says the first battalion of his regiment took a position on the left of the twenty-fifth's firing line. the statement seems erroneous, and one is inclined to believe that it was originally written "on the right," instead of "on the left"; but it is enough for our purpose now, that the firing line of the twenty-fifth is recognized well in advance. major baker, who commanded on the left of the brigade line, and whose advance was stopped by the flank fire from the village and a frontal fire from the fort, says: "as a matter of fact the village of el caney was not charged by any troops. those of bates' brigade and the twenty-fifth infantry, after having carried the stone fort (on a hill some feet higher, and to the east of the town,) fired into the village, and the fourth infantry continued its fire. nor was it charged by any of the troops to our left. such a charge would necessarily have been seen by us." major baker, who was on the field and had the blockhouse in clear view, declares that some of bates' brigade and the twenty-fifth infantry carried the stone fort. major mccaskey says that one battalion of the twentieth infantry (bates' brigade) was on the left of the twenty-fifth's firing line, and that one company (a) took part in the latter part of the charge by which the fort was taken. this battalion may be referred to by major baker when he says: "those of bates' brigade and the twenty-fifth infantry, after having carried, etc." as there are some matters of dispute concerning the events which i am now going to relate, i will present a soldier's statement before i go to the official records. the soldier in writing to me after the battle says: "i was left-guide of company g ( th infantry), and i received orders from lieutenant mccorkle to guide on fourth infantry, which held the left flank. 'forward, march! guide left. don't fire until you see somebody; then fire to hit!' came the orders. tramp! tramp! crash! crash! on we walked and stopped. we fired into the underbrush for safety; then in another moment we were under spanish fire. balls flew like bees, humming as they went. soon we found ourselves up against a network of spanish trickery. barbed-wire fences, ditches and creeks, too numerous to think of. the only thing left was to go ahead or die; or else retreat like cowards. we preferred to go ahead. at this first fence lieutenant mccorkle was taken to earth by a spanish bullet. lieutenant moss spoke out, 'come ahead! let's get at these spaniards!' a few moments more and he, too, was almost dead with exertion, loud speaking, running and jumping, as onward we swept toward the spanish stronghold. the sun was exceedingly hot, as on the slope of a little mound we rested for a few moments. we lay here about five minutes, looking into the spanish fort or blockhouse; we measured the distance by our eyesight, then with our rifles; we began to cheer and storm, and in a moment more, up the hill like a bevy of blue birds did the twenty-fifth fly. g and h companies were the first to reach the summit and to make the spaniards fly into the city of el caney, which lay just behind the hill. when we reached the summit others soon began to _mount our ladder_. we fired down into the city until nearly dusk." the brigade made its advance under fire almost from the beginning. the commander says it was continuously under fire from . to . p.m. "the attack was begun by two companies in each regiment on the firing line, strengthened by supports and reserves from the remaining companies until the brigade had but two companies in reserve. at one time in this hotly engaged contest the commanding officer of the twenty-fifth infantry sent me word that he needed troops on his right. i then sent forward cubans, under command of captains jose' varges and avelens bravo, with lieutenants nicholas franco and tomas repelao, to form on the right of the twenty-fifth, which was also the right of the brigade. with these cubans i ordered private henry downey, company h, first infantry, on duty as interpreter at the headquarters. these men advanced on the stone fort with our line, fighting gallantly, during which lieutenant nicholas franco was mortally wounded and died soon afterwards." (col. miles' report.) from the soldier's story, as well as from the official report of the brigade commander, it is conclusive that the real objective of the second brigade was the stone fort, and that the twenty-fifth infantry, which occupied the right of the line, had no other objective whatever.* [transcriber's note: no footnote text present for this footnote anchor.] it also appears that bates' brigade, although somewhere on the right, was not so near but that the commanding officer of the twenty-fifth could see the need of troops at his right; and to meet this need the brigade commander "sent forward cubans, who advanced on the stone fort with our lines." the fire from this fort continued severe during the whole of the advance, and until the last halt made by the twenty-fifth. at the first fence met by the twenty-fifth lieutenant mccorkle was killed; and, to use the words of a soldier, "as the regiment swept toward the spanish stronghold" to reach the slope of a little mound for cover, many more fell. behind this little mound, after resting about five minutes, they began their last fire upon the enemy. this must have been as late as o'clock, and perhaps considerably later, and the fire from the stone fort was vigorous up until their last halt, as their casualties prove. the battery had begun to fire on the fort again at . and continued from the same position until . , the range being as has been already stated, , yards. hence the artillery firing at long range had ceased, and it is generally conceded that this long range firing had been ineffective. captain capron says he moved his battery at . p.m. to , yards from caney and opened fire on two blockhouses. he does not say at what hour he opened fire on these two blockhouses, or how long he continued to fire, or what was the effect of his fire upon the two block houses. lieutenant-colonel bisbee, who was acting as support of capron's battery, says of himself that he "moved with the battery at . p.m. by the dubroix (ducureaux) road." general lawton says the battery was moved to a new position about . , "about , yards from certain blockhouses in the town, where a few shots, all taking effect, were fired." from these reports it would appear that after moving to the second station the battery fired upon two blockhouses in the town, and not upon the stone fort. general ludlow, speaking of the battle, says: "in the present case, the artillery fire was too distant to reduce the blockhouses or destroy the entrenchments, so that the attack was practically by infantry alone." on the other hand, general chaffee says: "the resistance at this point," meaning the stone fort at the time of assault, "had been greatly affected by the fire of capron's battery." colonel comba, of the twelfth infantry, says: "the artillery made the breach through which our men entered the stone work." bonsal says that captain capron, "under the concentrated fire of his four guns at a point blank range of a thousand yards, had converted the fort into a shapeless ruin," when the infantry charged it. it is probable that in this case, as in most cases of similar nature, the truth divides equally between the apparently opposing views. of general ludlow, who is the authority for this statement, that the stone fort at el caney was taken by infantry alone, general lawton says: "general ludlow's professional accomplishments are well known and his assignment to command a brigade in my division i consider a high compliment to myself." "the fighting was all done with small arms" were the words written me by an infantryman soon after the battle. the question, whether capron fired upon the stone fort after taking his new position, or fired on two blockhouses, entirely distinct from the fort, remains undetermined. the author of this work inclines to the conclusion that the fire of capron after moving to his new position was directed for a brief period, at least, upon the stone fort. inasmuch as we are now to trace the career of the twenty-fifth infantry through an unfortunate dispute, on both sides of which are officers of high rank and unimpeachable honor, it is important to note, first, to what extent the several statements, both unofficial and official, can be harmonized and made to corroborate one another. major baker says: "those of bates' brigade and the twenty-fifth infantry, after having carried the stone fort," which he explains was some feet higher than the town, then fired _down_ into the village. the soldier who acted as left-guide of company g, twenty-fifth infantry, says, after getting up on the hill, "we fired _down_ into the city until near dusk." the experience of the soldier agrees exactly with the report of the officer. the fact that the twenty-fifth went up the hill cannot be questioned, and that up to their last halt, they went under fire, no one will deny. bonsal, in speaking of chaffee's brigade, which was "more immediately charged with the reduction of caney" (ludlow's report), says: "and it was nearly five o'clock when his most advanced regiment, the gallant twelfth infantry, deployed into the valley and charged up the steep hillside, which was lined with spanish trenches, rising in irregular tiers and crowned with a great stone fort." the stone fort at this time, however, was, as he says, "a shapeless ruin." where was the twenty-fifth infantry at this time? mr. bonsal continues: "almost at the same moment the twenty-fifth colored infantry, the leading regiment of miles' brigade, which had been advancing in the centre, started up the hill also." general lawton says that after moving the battery to its new position, , yards from certain blockhouses in the town, capron fired a few shots, all of which took effect, and he adds: "this firing terminated the action, as the spanish garrison were attempting to escape." colonel comba says there was a breach in the stonework large enough for his men to enter, and that this had been made by the artillery; general chaffee says resistance had been greatly affected by the artillery, and bonsal adds, the garrison resisted the last advance made by the infantry but for a moment. general chaffee declares: "the troops arriving at the fort were there in the following order: twelfth infantry, which took the place; the command of general bates some moments later; the twenty-fifth infantry." the facts therefore stand, that the twenty-fifth infantry was on the ground with the first troops that reached the fort and that there was a captain of that regiment who then and there claimed the capture of the place, even against the claims of a major-general. he was told that his proposition was absurd, and so it may have been from one standpoint; and yet there may be a ground upon which the captain's claim was fair and just. that the twelfth infantry arrived on the ground first is not disputed; but it is questioned whether the fort was belligerent at that time. general chaffee says the resistance had been greatly reduced by the artillery; general lawton says the action had been finished by capron's shots and the garrison was trying to escape; a soldier from the twenty-fifth says the spaniards flew out of the fort to the town; bonsal says, they stoutly resisted "for a moment and then fled precipitately down the ravine and up the other side, and into the town." if first occupancy is the only ground upon which the capture of a place can be claimed, then the title to the honor of capturing the stone fort lies, according to official report as so far presented, with the twelfth infantry. but even upon this ground it will be shown that the twenty-fifth's action will relieve the claim of its captain from absurdity. we are now prepared to read the official report of the commanding officer of the twenty-fifth regiment, lieutenant-colonel daggett, who was with the regiment all through the fight, and who bore himself so well that the division commander said: "lieutenant-colonel daggett deserves special mention for skillful handling of his regiment, and would have received it before had the fact been reported by his brigade commander." july , . intrenchments twenty-fifth united states infantry, adjutant-general, second brigade, second division, fifth corps. sir:--i have the honor to submit the following report of the part taken by the twenty-fifth infantry in the battle of the st instant. the regiment formed firing line on the right of the fourth infantry, facing a spanish fort or blockhouse about half a mile distant. on moving forward, the battalion, composed of companies c, d, e, g and h, and commanded by capt. w.s. scott, received the fire of the enemy, and after advancing about yards was subjected to a galling fire on their left. finding cover, the battalion prepared for an advance up the hill to the fort. this advance was made rapidly and conducted with great skill by company officers. "on arriving within a short distance of the fort the white flag was waved to our companies, but a cross fire prevented the enemy from advancing with it or our officers from receiving it. about twenty minutes later a battalion of some other regiment advanced to the rear of the fort, completely covered from fire, and received the flag; but the men of the twenty-fifth infantry entered the fort at the same time. all officers and men behaved gallantly. one officer was killed and three wounded; eight men were killed and twenty wounded. "about men and ten officers were in the firing line. i attribute the comparatively small losses to the skill and bravery of the company officers, viz.: first lieutenant caldwell and second lieutenants moss and hunt. second lieutenant french, adjutant of the battalion, was among those who gallantly entered the fort. "the battle lasted about two hours and was a hotly contested combat. very respectfully, "a.s. daggett, "lieutenant-colonel, twenty-fifth infantry, commanding." here it is shown by the testimony of the regimental commander, that a battalion of the twenty-fifth ascended the hill and arrived at a short distance from the fort about twenty minutes before any other troops are mentioned as coming in sight; and that a white flag was waved to the companies of the twenty-fifth. it was doubtless upon this ground that a captain of the twenty-fifth had the temerity to claim the capture of the place, even from a major-general. i do not know who the captain was, but it is evident that he had what he believed ample grounds for his claim. colonel daggett says, also, that when the men of the other regiment advanced to this fort after it had waved the white flag to the companies of the twenty-fifth, the men of the twenty-fifth advanced and entered the fort at the same time. bonsal says: "almost at the same moment that the twelfth started up the hill the twenty-fifth started up the hill also;" while according to colonel daggett's testimony the twenty-fifth was well up the hill already and the fort had waved to it the white flag. colonel daggett makes this further report: headquarters twenty-fifth infantry, near santiago, cuba, july , . the adjutant-general, second division, fifth corps, near santiago, cuba. sir:--feeling that the twenty-fifth infantry has not received credit for the part it took in the battle of el caney on the first instant, i have the honor to submit the following facts: i was ordered by the brigade commander to put two companies (h, lieutenant caldwell, and g, lieutenant mccorkle) on the firing line in extended order. the right being uncovered and exposed to the enemy, i ordered d company (captain edwards) to deploy as flankers. the battalion was commanded by capt. w.s. scott. the battalion advanced about yards under fire, the fourth infantry on its left, where the line found cover, halted, and opened fire on the blockhouse and intrenchments in front of it. after the line had been steadied and had delivered an effective fire, i ordered a further advance, which was promptly made. as the fourth infantry did not advance, my left was exposed to a very severe fire from the village on the left. i immediately ordered company c (lieutenant murdock), which was in support, to the front, and e. company (lieutenant kinnison) from regimental reserve to take its place. thus strengthened, the four companies moved up the hill rapidly, being skilfully handled by company officers. on arriving near the fort the white flag was waved toward our men, but the fire from the village on our left was so severe that neither our officers nor spanish could pass over the intervening ground. after about twenty minutes some of the twelfth infantry arrived in rear of the fort, completely sheltered from the fire from the village, and received the white flag; but privates j.h. jones, of company d, and t.c. butler, h. company, twenty-fifth infantry, entered the fort at the same time and took possession of the spanish flag. they were ordered to give it up by an officer of the twelfth united states infantry, but before doing so they each tore a piece from it, which they now have. so much for the facts. i attribute the success attained by our line largely to the bravery and skill of the company officers who conducted the line to the fort. these officers are: first lieutenants v.a. caldwell and j.a. moss, and second lieutenant j.e. hunt. it is my opinion that the two companies first deployed could not have reached the fort alone, and that it was the two companies i ordered to their support that gave them the power to reach it. i further believe that had we failed to move beyond the fourth infantry the fort would not have been taken that night. the twenty-fifth infantry lost one officer killed[ ] and three wounded, and seven men killed and twenty-eight wounded. second lieutenant h.w. french, adjutant of captain scott's battalion, arrived at the fort near the same time as the other officers. i request that this report be forwarded to corps headquarters. very respectfully, a.s. daggett, lieutenant-colonel, twenty-fifth infantry, commanding. general chaffee's statement is not to be questioned for a moment. there is not the least doubt that the troops, as organizations arrived at the fort in the order he describes. general lawton says: "general chaffee's brigade was especially charged with the duty of assaulting the stone fort, and successfully executed that duty, after which a portion of the twenty-fifth, and a portion of bates' brigade, assisted in the work, all of which is commendable." he says also, that the "twenty-fifth infantry did excellent service, as reported, though not better than the others engaged.' this seems to confirm lieutenant-colonel daggett's report, for he says he is sure the regiment did excellent work, "as reported;" and at that time he is commenting on lieutenant-colonel daggett's report, the report printed above. the broad statements of general lawton do not touch the exact question at issue between the reports of the subordinate commanders; nor do they throw any light on the circumstances of the final charge. miles' brigade had been advancing on the stone fort for some hours, and the twenty-fifth was so near when the charge of the twelfth was made that portions of it were on the hill and near the fort at the same time. the commander of the third brigade saw the fight from one side and reported events as he learned them. his official statement requires no support. the commanding officer of the twenty-fifth infantry saw the fight from another standpoint, and his official reports are entitled to equal respect. both the general's and the lieutenant-colonel's must be accepted as recitals of facts, made with all the accuracy that high personal integrity armed with thorough military training can command. happily the statements, which at first appear so widely at variance, are entirely reconcilable. the following supplementary report of the regimental commander, when taken in connection with the final complimentary orders published in the regiment before leaving cuba, will place the whole subject before the reader and put the question at rest, and at the same time leave undisturbed all the reports of superior officers. headquarters twenty-fifth infantry, montauk point, long island, august , . the adjutant-general, u.s. army, washington, d.c. sir:--i have the honor to submit a supplementary report to the original one made on the th ( th) of july, , of the battle of el caney de cuba, so far as relates to the part taken therein by the twenty-fifth infantry: . i stated in the original report that the twenty-fifth infantry, in advancing, broke away from and left the fourth infantry behind. this may inferentially reflect on the latter regiment. it was not so intended, and a subsequent visit to the battle-field convinces me that it would have been impossible for the regiment to advance to the fort, and, although it might have advanced a short distance farther, it would have resulted in a useless slaughter, and that the battalion commander exercised excellent judgment in remaining where he did and by his fire aiding the twenty-fifth infantry in its advance. . colonel miles, the then brigade commander, informed me that his first report of the battle would be brief and that a later and full report would be made. in his former report i think he failed to give credit to myself and regiment. as he was soon after relieved of the command of the brigade i assume that no further report will be made. i have reported what the regiment did, but said nothing about my own action. i must, therefore, report it myself or let it go unrecorded. distasteful as it is to me, i deem it duty to my children to state the facts and my claims based thereon, as follows: . i was ordered to put two companies in the firing line. before this line advanced the brigade commander informed me, and personal examination verified, that my right was in the air and exposed. on my own judgment i ordered a company, as flankers, to that part of the line. . as soon as the line had rested and become steadied at its first halt i ordered it to advance, and it continued to advance, although it broke away from the rest of the brigade. . as this exposed the left to a galling and dangerous fire, i ordered, on my own judgment, a company to re-enforce that part of the line and a company from the regimental reserve also to the fighting line. these are the facts, and as my orders were to keep my left joined to the right of the fourth infantry, and received no further orders, my claims are as follows: . that it was necessary to place a company on the right as flankers. . that the conditions offered an opportunity to advance after the first halt, and i took advantage of it. . that the left being exposed by this advance of the line beyond the rest of the brigade, it was proper and necessary to re-enforce it by two companies. . that the two companies first deployed could not have reached the stone fort. . that the three companies added to the firing line gave it the power to reach the fort. . that the advance beyond the rest of the brigade was a bold and, without support, dangerous movement, but that the result justified the act. had it failed i would have been held responsible. . that i saw at each stage of the battle what ought to be done, and did it. results show that it was done at the right moment. . that the twenty-fifth infantry caused the surrender of the stone fort. i desire to repeat that it is with great reluctance that i make so much of this report as relates to myself, and nothing but a sense of duty would impel me to do it. very respectfully, a.s. daggett, lieutenant-colonel, twenty-fifth infantry, commanding. losses of the twenty-fifth infantry. killed.--lieutenant h.l. mccorkle, company g; private albert strother, h; private john w. steele, d; corporal benj. cousins, h; private john b. phelps, d; private french payne, b; private aaron leftwich, g; private tom howe, d. wounded.--company a: private william h. clarke, sergeant stephen a. browne. company b: private tom brown. company c: lieutenant john s. murdock, private joseph l. johnson, private samuel w. harley, private john a. boyd. company d; captain eaton a. edwards, sergeant hayden richards, private robert goodwin. company e: lieutenant h.l. kinnison, private james howard, private john saddler, private david c. gillam, private hugh swann. company f: first sergeant frank coleman. company g: corporal james o. hunter, private henry brightwell, private david buckner, private alvin daniels, private boney douglas, private george p. cooper, private john thomas, corporal gov. staton, private eugene jones. company h: private james bevill, private henry gilbert. wounded july .--private elwood a. forman, h; private smith, d; private william lafayette, f. complimentary order. headquarters th infantry, near santiago de cuba, august , . general orders no. . the regimental commander congratulates the regiment on the prospect of its speedy return to the united states. gathered from three different stations, many of you strangers to each other, you assembled as a regiment for the first time in more than twenty-eight years on may , , at tampa, florida. there you endeavored to solidify and prepare yourselves, as far as the oppressive weather would permit, for the work that appeared to be before you; but, who could have fortold the severity of that work? you endured the severe hardships of a long sea voyage, which no one who has not experienced it can appreciate. you then disembarked, amidst dangerous surroundings; and on landing were for the first time on hostile ground. you marched, under a tropical sun, carrying blanket-roll, three days' rations, and one hundred rounds of ammunition, through rain and mud, part of the time at night, sleeping on the wet ground without shelter, living part of the time on scant rations, even, of bacon, hard bread and coffee, until on july you arrived at el caney. here you took the battle formation and advanced to the stone fort, more like veterans than troops who had never been under fire. you again marched, day and night, halting only to dig four lines of intrenchments, the last being the nearest point to the enemy reached by any organization, when, still holding your rifles, within these intrenchments, notice was received that santiago and the spanish army had surrendered. but commendable as the record cited may be, the brightest hours of your lives were on the afternoon of july . formed in battle array, you advanced to the stone fort against volleys therefrom, and rifle-pits in front, and against a galling fire from blockhouses, the church tower and the village on your left. you continued to advance, skilfully and bravely directed by the officers in immediate command, halting and delivering such a cool and well-directed fire that the enemy was compelled to wave the white flag in token of surrender. seldom have troops been called upon to face a severer fire, and never have they acquitted themselves better. the regimental reserve was called upon to try its nerve, by lying quiet under a galling fire, without the privilege of returning it, where men were killed and wounded. this is a test of nerve which the firing line cannot realize, and requires the highest qualities of bravery and endurance. you may well return to the united states proud of your accomplishments; and if any one asks you what you have done, point him to el caney. but in the midst of the joy of going home, we mourn the loss of those we leave behind. the genial, generous-hearted mccorkle fell at his post of duty, bravely directing his men in the advance on the stone fort. he died as the soldier dies, and received a soldier's burial. he was beloved by all who knew him, and his name will always be fondly remembered by his regiment--especially by those who participated in the santiago campaign. the officers of the regiment will wear the prescribed badge of mourning for lieutenant mccorkle for thirty days. and corporal benjamin cousins, privates payne, lewis, strother, taliaferro, phelps, howell, steel and leftwitch, sacrificed their lives on their country's altar. being of a race which only thirty-five years ago emerged through a long and bloody war, from a condition of servitude, they in turn engaged in a war which was officially announced to be in the interest of humanity and gave all they had--their lives--that the oppressed might be free, and enjoy the blessings of liberty guaranteed by a stable government. they also died like true soldiers and received a soldier's burial. by order of lieutenant-colonel daggett. m.d. cronin, first lieutenant and adjutant, th infantry. major general aaron s. daggett. general aaron s. daggett is a native of maine, born at greene corner, in that state, june , . he is descended from a paternal ancestry which can be traced, with an honorable record, as far back as a.d. his mother was dorcas c., daughter of simon dearborn, a collateral descendant of general henry dearborn. his more immediate ancestors came from old to new england about , and both his grandparents served in the continental army during the revolutionary war. he was educated in his native town, at monmouth academy, maine wesleyan seminary and bates college. at the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted as a private, april th, , in the th maine infantry; was appointed second lieutenant may , and promoted first lieutenant may , . he commanded his company at the first bull run battle, and was promoted captain august , . [illustration: lieutenant-colonel a.s. daggett] from the first engagement of the regiment to the end of its three years' memorable service, captain daggett proved a faithful and gallant soldier. he was promoted major, january th, ; on january th, , was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the th regiment, united states veteran volunteers, hancock corps, and was brevetted colonel and brigadier-general of volunteers, march , , for "gallant and meritorious services during the war." he also received the brevets of major in the united states army for "gallant and meritorious services at the battle of rappahannock station, va.," november , , and lieutenant-colonel for "gallant and meritorious services in the battle of the wilderness, va." immediately after the battle of rappahannock station, the captured trophies, flags, cannons, etc., were escorted, by those who had been most conspicuous in the action, to general meade's headquarters, colonel daggett being in command of the battalion of his brigade. general upton to whom he owed this distinction, wrote of him as follows: "in the assault at rappahannock station, colonel daggett's regiment captured over five hundred prisoners. in the assault at spottsylvania court house, may , his regiment lost six out of seven captains, the seventh being killed on the th of may, at the "angle," or the point where the tree was shot down by musketry, on which ground the regiment fought from . a.m. to . p.m., when it was relieved. on all these occasions colonel daggett was under my immediate command, and fought with distinguished bravery. "throughout his military career in the army of the potomac, he maintained the character of a good soldier and an upright man, and his promotion would be commended by all those who desire to see courage rewarded." general upton also wrote to the governor of maine as follows: "i would respectfully recommend to your excellency, major a.s. daggett, formerly th maine volunteers, as an officer highly qualified to command a regiment. major daggett served his full term in this brigade with honor both to himself and state, and won for himself the reputation of being a brave, reliable and efficient officer. his promotion to a colonelcy would be a great benefit to the service, while the honor of his state could scarcely be entrusted to safer hands." he was subsequently recommended for promotion by generals meade, hancock, wright and d.a. russell. he was in every battle and campaign in which the sixth corps, army of the potomac, was engaged, from the first bull run to petersburg, and was twice slightly wounded. on july , , without his knowledge or solicitation, he was appointed a captain in the u.s. regular army, on recommendation of general grant, and has since been promoted colonel in this service. during his subsequent career he has won the reputation of being a fine tactician and of being thoroughly versed in military law, as is indicated by major hancock's commendatory words in : "i look upon him as by far the best tactician in the regiment, and as for a thorough, clear knowledge of tactics his superior is not in the army. as regards military and civil law, i know of no one so well informed." his ability and soldierly qualities have also been highly commended by general crook, colonel hughes--inspector-general in --and colonel ----, inspector-general in . not only as a soldier, but in many other ways, has general daggett distinguished himself. as a public speaker the following was said of him by the rev. s.s. cummings, of boston: "it was my privilege and pleasure to listen to an address delivered by general a.s. daggett on memorial day of . i had anticipated something able and instructive, but it far exceeded my fondest expectations. the address was dignified, yet affable, delivered in choice language without manuscript, instructive and impressive, and highly appreciated by an intelligent audience." general daggett is noted for his courteous and genial manner, and his sterling integrity of character. he is a member of the presbyterian church. war department, inspector-general's office, washington, jan. th, . to the adjutant-general, u.s.a., washington, d.c. sir:--i desire to recommend to your favorable consideration and for advancement in case of the reorganization of the regular army, lieutenant-colonel a.s. daggett, th u.s. infantry. i have known colonel daggett for a long time; he served in the war of the rebellion with the th maine volunteers and acquitted himself with much honor; he served in cuba in the war with spain, commanding the th u.s. infantry, and was conspicuous for gallantry at the battle of el caney. he is an officer of the highest character, intelligent, courageous and energetic. i sincerely trust that he may receive all the consideration he deserves. very respectfully, (sd) h.w. lawton, major-general, u.s.v. a true copy: m.d. cronin, first lieutenant and adjutant th infantry. headquarters department of the east, governor's island, new york city, december , . honorable r.a. alger, secretary of war, washington, d.c. sir:--i recommend to the favorable consideration of the secretary of war for promotion to brigadier-general, colonel a.s. daggett, th infantry. this officer has an excellent war record; his service has been faithful since then, and in the recent spanish-american war he distinguished himself by his good judgment and faithful attention to duty, as well as for gallant service in action. an appointment of this character will be very highly appreciated throughout the army as a recognition of faithful, meritorious and gallant service. from my observation of colonel daggett he is well qualified for the position. very respectfully, (sd) wm. r. shafter, major-general, u.s. volunteers. m.d. cronin, a true copy: first lieutenant and adjutant th infantry. to this very brilliant official record it is necessary to add but a word personal. colonel daggett is a typical new englander; tall, well-formed, nervous and sinewy, a centre of energy, making himself felt wherever he may be. precise and forceful of speech, correct and sincere in manners, a safe counsellor and a loyal friend, his character approaches the ideal. stern and commanding as an officer he is nevertheless tender and sympathetic. his very sensitiveness concerning the feelings of others embarrasses him in giving expression to his own feelings on seeing suffering, unless it should be urgent, but those who know him best know him to be just, humane and tender. no man could have taken more care than he did for his regiment in cuba. hating oppression and wrong with a vehemency suited to his intense nature, he nevertheless deplores war and bloodshed. the president of the united states never did a more worthy act than when he gave to lieutenant-colonel a.s. daggett of the twenty-fifth infantry his commission as brigadier-general of volunteers in recognition of his valor and skill at el caney and of his general efficiency as an officer in our army. testimonies concerning the work of the twenty-fifth infantry before el caney. headquarters first district, southern luzon, el deposito, p.i., april , . my dear general daggett:--some time ago i received a letter from you asking me to make an official statement as to where and at what objective the energies and fire of the th infantry were directed during the battle of el caney, cuba, july , . in reply i have the honor to officially state that about noon july , , the regiment moved from the mango grove, near the ducro house, toward a stone fort located on a hill, near the town of el caney. it arrived at about one of the afternoon at a point about eight hundred yards to the south and east of the fort; immediately deployed, and the first battalion, under command of captain walter s. scott, and of which i was adjutant, designated as the attacking line. presently, after advancing a few yards, we were subjected to a galling fire from the stone fort, the trenches in its front and from a blockhouse on its right. the line steadily moved forward, directing its fire at the stone fort and the trenches surrounding it. when within about one hundred and fifty yards from the fort the line was halted, and several sharpshooters, directed by their company officers to fire at the loopholes. finally, when the men had regained their wind, a rush was made, part of the line going through a cornfield. at the foot the line was again halted, and after a few moments' rest charged up the hill, and the fort surrendered. i went to the fort and found a spanish lieutenant and seven enlisted men whom i passed out and were taken charge of by an officer of the th infantry. this was about . p.m. * * * * * note.--since the above was written, general daggett served with great distinction in the philippines and in china, and was retired as a brigadier-general--a hero of four wars. a bill is now before congress to make him a major-general, an honor to which he is most justly entitled. * * * * * as soon as the line reached the top of the hill it was fired on from the town, which had before been masked by the hill; the fire was of course returned, and this was the first fire from the battalion directed at the town. about five o'clock firing had ceased, the battalion was assembled and marched away. (sd) h.w. french, first lieutenant, th infantry (late second lieutenant th infantry). a true copy: h.g. learnard, capt. and adj. th infantry. manila, p.i., march , . i certify that in the action of el caney, cuba, july , , the company i commanded, i.e., h, th infantry, directed its fire almost exclusively on the stone fort and the trench a few yards from its base. that very little of this company's fire was directed on the town and none before the fort was carried. (sd) vernon a. caldwell, first lieutenant, th infantry. a true copy: h.g. learnard, capt. and adj. th infantry. tayug, luzon, philippine islands, april th, . to those in military authority. regarding the battle of el caney, cuba, july , , i hereby certify: . from about . o'clock p.m. to the time of the capture of the town of el caney, i was in command of two companies--c and g--forming part of the th u.s. infantry firing line. . from about . o'clock p.m. to the time of the capture of the town, very nearly the entire th infantry firing line was under my observation. . from about . o'clock p. m. to about . , the time of the surrender of the stone fort to the east of the town, the fire of the entire th infantry firing line within my sight was directed against the fort. . during this period of the battle the th infantry firing line was about yards from the stone fort. . from the time the firing line began firing--about o'clock p.m.--to the time of the surrender of the stone fort--about . p.m.--the companies under my command and all others under my observation concentrated their fire on the fort. . about . p.m., i was standing about yards from the stone fort, and i plainly and distinctly saw a spaniard appear in the door of the fort, and, for two or three seconds, wave a white flag at the th infantry firing line, and upon being shot down, another spaniard picked up the flag and likewise waved it at the th infantry firing line. . after the white flag had twice been presented to the th infantry firing line, and after all fire from the stone fort had ceased, the firing line rushed forward, took up a position facing to their left--that is, facing the town--and began a vigorous fire on a small blockhouse and on the town. respectfully, james a. moss, first lieutenant, th u.s. infantry. recollections of the santiago campaign, by captain r.h.r. loughborough, th u.s. infantry. the th u.s. infantry left its stations in montana on the th of april, ; six companies (b, c, d, e, f and h) went in camp at chickamauga national park; the other two companies (a and g) went to key west, fla. on may th the six companies at the chickamauga national park moved by rail to tampa, fla., arriving the night of the th, where they were joined by the two companies from key west. with the exception of three days in , the regiment had never been together since its organization in . it necessarily followed that many of the officers, as well as men, were strangers to each other. our camp at tampa was fair; the ground is sandy and flat, but as the rainy season had not set in, it was dry and the health was good. drills and parades were held daily (sundays excepted), but on account of the intense heat the hours for it were limited to the early mornings and after sunset. the clothing of the men was the same they had worn in montana, and did not add to their comfort. supplies of all kinds (except rations) came by piecemeal, and we finally sailed for the tropics with the same clothing used in the northwest. at o'clock p.m. june th the regiment received orders to strike tents and be ready to move within an hour; the order was immediately complied with, though the necessary transportation to move the baggage did not report until the forenoon of the following day; it was not far from noon when the last of it left the camp for the railroad station, en route to port tampa, where we were to embark on transports for the seat of war. as soon as the camp equipage was started, the regiment was formed and marched to west tampa (about three miles), where we took a train for port tampa, distant nine miles. on arrival, the regiment boarded the steamer "concho," one of the vessels to carry the expedition to its destination. the th u.s. infantry had preceded us, and the next day a battalion of the d massachusetts volunteers was put on, but owing to the crowded condition of the ship, a few days later they were transferred to another vessel. the "concho" is a large ship, but without the comforts i have seen since then on the u.s. army transports plying between san francisco and manila. the ships used were hastily fitted up for the occasion, and it could not be expected that they would be all that was required, but some of the appointments could and should have been better. after a tedious wait until june th, we sailed down tampa bay and out on the gulf of mexico, still in ignorance of our destination. the evening of the th the light at dry tortugas was seen to our right. june th, th and th our course was a little south of east, and part of the time the north coast of cuba was visible. the weather (except the intense heat) was fine. on sunday morning, june th, we entered the windward passage, and it seemed certain, from our course, that santiago was our objective. early the next morning the high mountains of santiago de cuba were in plain sight to our north. june th and st, remained off the coast; the sea was rough and the vessel rolled considerably, adding to the discomfort of every one, especially those subject to seasickness. during the evening of the st, orders were received to be ready to disembark the following morning. about a.m. on the d our warships began shelling the coast, and two hours later the troops started in small boats from the transports to the shore. by evening most of the second division and part of the cavalry division were on cuban soil. there was no opposition to our landing; i believe that a small force well handled could have made it very difficult, if, indeed, it could not have prevented it. as soon as the regiment had landed it was marched out about four miles and bivouacked for the night. the country is rugged and covered with a dense tropical vegetation. a few "cuban patriots" had joined us and formed the extreme advance, saving us some disagreeable outpost duty. this was the only service that i know of them doing throughout the campaign, though they were always on hand ration day. later developments showed that the service rendered was not so important, as any spanish force had retired to a safe place, something our friends looked out for whenever there was any danger. june d, the regiment started shortly after daylight towards the city of santiago. about o'clock there was a report that the enemy were in our front. the regiment was immediately formed for battle, and reconnoitering parties sent forward; after about thirty minutes' delay the supposed enemy proved to be the large leaves of some tropical trees being moved by the wind, giving them the appearance of persons in motion. our route was over a narrow trail, through a dense wilderness; water was scarce and the heat was intense. about noon we arrived at siboney, where we bivouacked for the night. before daylight next morning the troops in our rear were heard passing on the trail by our camp. shortly after daylight captain capron's battery of four guns passed, and the men lined up along the road and cheered lustily. about an hour later, musketry fire and the occasional discharge of a hotchkiss gun could be plainly heard towards santiago. about three-quarters of an hour later we received orders to march. by mistake, the wrong trail was taken, and after marching fourteen hours we returned to our camp of the previous night, all fagged out. a great many men of the brigade were overcome with heat during this long, tiresome and fruitless ramble. i cannot say how many of these were of the th infantry, but in my own company (b) there was not a man out of the ranks when the camp was reached. (i have called the above-mentioned place "siboney." there is probably some other name for it, as the cubans have one for every hamlet. it is not far from siboney, and not knowing the name, have called it siboney.) on the morning of the th we got rations from the transport and all enjoyed a hearty breakfast. at p.m. we broke camp and marched to sevilla, about six miles. here we remained until the morning of the th, part of the regiment being out on picket duty. june th, the regiment marched three miles towards santiago and bivouacked on the banks of a small creek. bathing was forbidden, as the creek was the only water supply for the army. the troops remained at this place until the afternoon of june th. the camp was in the valley of the creek, the ground is low and flat, and with the heavy rainfall every one was uncomfortable. rations had to be brought from siboney over a trail and did not arrive regularly. about o'clock in the afternoon on the th, the officers of the regiment were assembled at headquarters and were notified that there would be an attack on the spanish position the next morning. about o'clock the regiment started for its position, arriving after o'clock, having covered a distance of less than three miles. the route was over an excuse for a road, but was crowded with some of the troops of almost every organization of the army, causing numberless halts, but worse than all, breaking the much-needed rest of the troops. on one part of this route i heard men asking, "what regiment is this?" and heard various responses, as follows: "the w.w.w.'s, the st cavalry, the th infantry, the th cavalry," etc. some one asked, "what are the w.w.w.'s?" and some one replied, "wood's weary walkers." i do not know who is responsible for that condition of affairs. had we had an enterprising enemy in our front, disaster certainly would have followed. here were a number of organizations scattered along a narrow, muddy trail, at the mercy of an active foe. all this was only three or four miles from the spanish works. the men were cheerful, and few if any realized that there might be danger. most of the men were up and moving about before daylight the next morning. shortly after, the regiment started in the direction of el caney. at a.m. we halted in a mango grove near the ducureau mansion. shortly before noon a mounted orderly appeared with a message for the brigade commander. a few minutes later the march towards el caney was taken up. heavy musketry fire had been heard in that direction since shortly before o'clock. a march of little more than a mile and the regiment was formed for battle, companies g and h in the firing line, c and d in support, the remaining four companies in reserve. for two hours or perhaps more the firing was very heavy, especially during the second hour. attention is called to report of colonel a.s. daggett, pages and , "report of the war department, , vol. i," and endorsement on same by major-general a.r. chaffee. he says: "this stone fort was practically in the possession of the th infantry at about p.m. july ." i cannot reconcile this statement with the fact that between the hours named some of the heaviest firing was going on, which does not indicate that its defenders were ready to give up. lord wellington once said, "at the end of every campaign truth lies at the bottom of a deep well, and it often takes twenty years to get her out." this may not be an exception. about half-past o'clock the firing ceased and el caney was ours. the dead were collected near a hedge and the regiment was formed in column of masses to pay a silent tribute of respect to our departed comrades. the regiment then started for the mango grove where we had left our blanket rolls and haversacks. just as we were starting, some men with canteens started for water (about a mile away), when orders were received to be ready to march in twenty minutes. a few rods took us back to the road leading to santiago. we moved down the road about three-quarters of a mile and halted. two hours later, the pack train arrived with ammunition and then another with rations. before the latter were issued orders were issued to move at once to the rear. the regiment marched over the trail it had come on the day before, arriving at el poso about o'clock a.m. here we took the road leading to santiago. about a.m. we passed under san juan hill and moved to our right. our forces held the crest of the hill. in passing along the hill we were sheltered from the fire except a short space, where one or two men were slightly wounded. arriving at the la cruz house near the road leading from el caney to santiago about . p.m. and bivouacked for the night. about o'clock the troops on our left were attacked by the spanish. the firing was very heavy for an hour, when it suddenly ceased, and we retired for the night. during this time we were under the hill and protected from the fire. next morning (sunday, july d) desultory firing began at daylight. about a.m. the regiment left the la cruz house and moved across the caney-santiago road and formed line to the left and moved forward to a ridge overlooking the city. a number of shots fell about us, but no one was struck. shortly after, we were in possession of the ridge and began intrenching. the firing was kept up and two men were wounded. about noon we were informed that a truce had been established and all work was stopped. this gave all a much-needed rest, though it proved to be of short duration, caused by a false alarm by major webb, the inspector of the division staff. during the afternoon the regiment was moved to the foot of the ridge, leaving only the pickets on the crest. about . p.m. we were ordered to the picket line and began intrenching. the tall grass was wet from a drenching rain a few hours before. the ground, though wet, was hard, and slow progress was made, having only their bayonets for picks and their bare hands for shovels. all night this work went on. the men were tired, and hungry (as rations had not come up that day), but worked faithfully. during this, and i will add, throughout the campaign, i never heard a murmur nor a complaint; even when almost all the men of the regiment were down with fever and bowel trouble they were cheerful and ready to do any duty they were called on for. the morning of july d cervera's fleet sailed down the bay. an officer rode by our part of the line about half-past and informed us of it. a few minutes later we heard the roar of the big guns, though at the time i little thought of what was going on. in the afternoon we heard cheering on our line way to the left, and as the good news came along it was taken up, and soon the whole line was shouting. on the morning of july th the non-combatants left santiago by two roads, one passing through our line. it was a pitiful sight. during the forenoon of the th we moved about a mile to the right and began intrenching. this position was very near the spanish line, and quite elaborate works were constructed. we remained in this position until the morning of the th, when the regiment was ordered to the right of the line, about three miles. here we intrenched. about p.m. a truce was announced. at . p.m. a staff officer came to the regimental commander's tent and informed him that the regiment was to be on the line at o'clock midnight, and as soon as the moon rose to advance through the jungle until fired on, when the line was to halt and intrench. the night was stormy and any moon there might have been was obscured by the clouds. we were up, however, standing until daylight in a drenching rain, for it was so dark that any movement was impossible. our rest was broken, without accomplishing anything that i know or heard of. however, the rain and storm were providential, for i will always believe if the movement had been started we should have met with disaster. the ground was broken, deep ravines and underbrush with wire fences running through it. i have never learned who was "the father" of this order, and possibly never will. he must be ashamed of it. the afternoon of the th the regiment advanced several hundred yards to the front and dug more intrenchments. they were still on this work the afternoon of the th when it was announced that the spanish army had agreed to surrender. this came none too soon, for our men were coming down with malarial fever. a few days later nearly half the regiment were on the sick list, and the balance could not have done much. the regiment was moved the same afternoon to higher ground in rear of the trenches. strong guards were kept to look out for our prisoners and to prevent "our allies," the cubans, from going into the city. on the morning of the th the formal surrender of the city and spanish army took place. we were some distance away and did not see anything of the ceremony. on july th the regiment was moved about a mile further back in the hills and made camp, our tents, etc., having been brought up from the transport. medicines appeared very scarce, resulting in much suffering. the food supplied was totally unfit for our new surroundings, and i believe not a little of the sickness can be traced to this. our last camp was as good as any to be found in that vicinity. the regiment remained in camp until august th, when it embarked on the transport "camanche" for montauk point, arriving on the th, and landed on the d. b.h.r. loughborough, captain, th infantry. footnotes: [ ] first lieutenant mccorkle killed; captain edwards and first lieutenants kinnison and murdock wounded. chapter vii. san juan. cavalry division: the ninth and tenth regiments. when lawton's division swung off to the right to engage the enemy at el caney, with the results described in the preceeding chapter, the divisions of wheeler and kent were ordered to proceed directly along the santiago road toward san juan. within a mile from el pozo, the point where they had bivouacked for the night of the th, the troops arrived at the aguadores river, which crosses the road here within less than a mile from san juan heights. wheeler's division headed the column, although that general was not commanding. he had been relieved on the afternoon of the th and did not resume command until about o'clock on july ,[ ] long after the heights had been carried, although he was on the field shortly after o'clock of that day. the dismounted cavalry division on the morning of july presented , fighting men, including officers. the first brigade, commanded by colonel carrol, had officers and , men, in regiments as follows: third cavalry, officers, men; sixth cavalry, officers, men; ninth cavalry, officers, men, the ninth having hardly one-half the strength of either of the other regiments of the brigade. the second brigade, commanded by general wood, contained , persons, distributed as follows: brigade staff, officers, men; first cavalry, officers, men: tenth cavalry, officers, men; first volunteer cavalry (rough riders), officers, men. before the troops left el poso, grimes' battery had been put in position and had fired a few shots at a blockhouse on san juan hill, distance , yards. using black powder, which created a cloud of smoke with every shot, the battery was readily located by the foe, and the shrapnel from their guns was soon bursting among our forces. the second shot from the spaniards wounded four of the rough riders and two or three of the regulars, while a third killed and wounded several cubans. as a matter of course there was a rapid movements of the troops from that immediate vicinity. the firing soon ceased, and the troops took up that general advance movement already noted. it is no easy task to follow the movements of the cavalry division from the time it left el poso that july morning until it finally entrenched itself for the night on san juan hills. as heretofore we will take the official reports first, and from them make up the itinerary and the movements of the battle that followed, as far as they will enable us to do so. general sumner says the division proceeded toward santiago, and when about three-fourths of a mile from el poso was halted in a narrow road to await orders and remained there for nearly an hour, subject to the effects of heavy artillery fire from the enemy's battery. major wessells, of the third cavalry, says, while following the road toward santiago that morn, "much delay ensued from some reason unknown to the undersigned," and that the first brigade of the division arrived at san juan ford about o'clock. this creek was about five hundred yards farther toward santiago than aguadores river, and ran about parallel with san juan heights, from which it was about three-fourths of a mile distant. the orders for which general sumner had waited nearly an hour under fire had come and were "verbal instructions to move to the san juan creek and hold it." reaching this creek his advance guard was met by the spaniards who fired one volley and retreated to a position on a hill on sumner's right front, about , yards distant. crossing this creek with sufficient strength to hold it, sumner was now ordered to move by the right flank and connect with lawton's left. while his troops were in this massed condition prior to deploying to the right through a thick jungle, the balloon that was in use for purposes of reconnoitering, came up the road and exposed itself to the full view of the spaniards upon the heights. they needed no further invitation to direct toward our forces their artillery, for which the balloon became a flying target. many officers and men were wounded here by exploding shells and small arms' fire of the enemy (sumner). under this fire, however, the troops were deployed as ordered. colonel wood, who had charge of the second brigade, of which the rough riders were the leading regiment, says this "regiment was directed to change direction to the right, and by moving up the creek to effect a junction with general lawton's division, which was engaged at caney, about one and a-half miles toward the right, but was supposed to be working toward our right flank. after proceeding in this direction about half a mile the effort to connect with general lawton was given up." this movement to the right took place between ten and eleven o'clock, at which time lawton's forces had made no impression upon el caney, and he was far from making any movement which might be described as working toward the right flank of the cavalry division. lawton was not found by that half-hour's search to the right; and it was evident that something must be done by these troops in front, and done quickly. the whole division was under fire, and the battle on the spanish side was in actual progress. true our men were hidden away in the jungle that bordered the creek, but their position was known to the spaniards, and leaves and boughs are no cover from shot and shell. they were receiving the fire of the enemy and making no reply whatever, save by the few ineffective shots from the far away battery on el poso hill. directly in front of the cavalry division was a little hill occupied by a spanish force. this hill is called in general wood's report east hill, but in the literature of the battle it is usually mentioned as kettle hill. the fire in part was coming from here. colonel wood gives another report of the morning's experience in which he says: "the brigade moved down the road toward santiago in rear of the first brigade, with instructions to deploy to the right after crossing the san juan, and continue to extend to the right, reaching out toward general lawton's left and holding ourselves in rear of the first brigade as a support. on reaching the stream the first volunteer cavalry, which was in the lead, crossed the stream with comparatively slight loss and deployed to the right in good order, but at this time a captive balloon was led down the road in which the troops were massed, and finally anchored at the crossing of the stream. the approach and anchoring of this balloon served to indicate the line of approach of the troops and to locate the ford, and the result was a terrific converging of artillery and rifle fire on the ford, which resulted in severe loss of men. under this fire the first united states cavalry and the tenth united states cavalry crossed the stream and deployed to the right where they were placed in position in rear of the first brigade. two regiments of the second brigade, to wit., the first and the tenth regular cavalry, were located in the rear of the first brigade. the first regular cavalry had begun its day's work as support of grimes' battery, but had later come forward and taken its place in the brigade time enough to join in the action that followed. "after completing the deployment," says sumner, "the command was so much committed to battle that it became necessary either to advance or else retreat under fire." the troops were already in battle, but were not fighting, and could not do so in their present position, simply because they could not see the enemy. "lieutenant miley, representing general shafter, authorized an advance, which was ordered, carroll's brigade taking the advance, reinforced on the right by roosevelt's regiment, and supported by the first and tenth cavalry." (sumner.) colonel wood says: "after remaining in this position for about an hour (meaning the position held by his brigade previous to the coming of the order to advance) the order to advance was given, and the brigade advanced in good order as possible, but more or less broken up by the masses of brush and heavy grass and cactus; passing through the line of the first brigade, mingling with them and charging the hill in conjunction with these troops, as well as some few infantry who had extended to the right." it must be remembered that the first brigade consisted wholly of regulars, the third, sixth and ninth cavalry, while the second brigade had that remarkable regiment, the rough riders. this fact may account for their breaking through the lines of the first brigade. major wessells, who commanded the third cavalry in that fight, and was himself wounded at the close of the first charge, says his regiment became entangled with other regiments, but, nevertheless, was to the crest as soon as any. of the advance of the whole division, general sumner says: "the advance was made under heavy infantry fire, through open flat ground, cut up by wire fences, to the creek, distant about yards. the advance was made in good order, the enemy's fire being returned only under favorable opportunities. in crossing the flat one officer and several men were killed and several officers and men wounded. both sides of the creek were heavily wooded for about yards. the creek was swollen, and the crossing through this space and the creek was made with great difficulty. "after passing through the thick woods the ground was entirely open and fenced by wire. from this line it was necessary to storm the hill, upon the top of which is a house, loop-holed for defense. the slope of the hill is very difficult, but the assault was made with great gallantry and with much loss to the enemy. in this assault colonel hamilton, lieutenants smith and shipp were killed; colonel carroll, lieutenants thayer and myer were wounded. a number of casualties occurred among the enlisted men." the heights were carried by the whole division. lieutenant-colonel baldwin's account of the part his regiment took in the assault upon san juan is told about as follows: after the search for lawton had been given up, the first and tenth cavalry were formed for attack on east hill. "i was directed," he says, "to take a position to the right, behind the river bank, for protection. while moving to this position, and while there, the regiment suffered considerable loss. after an interval of twenty or thirty minutes i was directed to form line of battle in a partially open field facing toward the blockhouses and strong intrenchments to the north occupied by the enemy. much difficulty was found on account of the dense undergrowth, crossed in several directions by wire fences. as a part of the cavalry division under general sumner, the regiment was formed in two lines, the first squadron under major s.t. norvell, consisting of troops a, b, e and i, leading; the second line, under major t.j. wint, consisting of troops c, f and g. troop d having crossed farther down the river, attached itself to a command of infantry and moved with that command on the second blockhouse. the regiment advanced in this formation in a heavy converging fire from the enemy's position, proceeding but a short distance when the two lines were united into one. the advance was rapidly continued in an irregular line toward the blockhouses and intrenchments to the right front. during this advance the line passed some troops of the first cavalry, which i think had previously been formed on our right. several losses occurred before reaching the top of the hill, first lieutenant william h. smith being killed as he arrived on its crest. the enemy having retreated toward the northwest to the second and third blockhouses, new lines were formed and a rapid advance was made upon these new positions. the regiment assisted in capturing these works from the enemy, and with the exception of troops c and i, which in the meantime had joined the first volunteer cavalry, then took up a position to the north of the second blockhouse, remaining there all night." major norvell, who commanded the first squadron of the tenth cavalry, which consisted of troops a, b, e and i, gives the following account of the experiences of july st: "the regiment took position in a wood, and here suffered considerable loss, due to the fact that the whole of the enemy's fire appeared to be directed to this point. in a short time we moved out of the wood by the right flank and then deployed to the left, being then directly in front of the enemy and one mile distant from his works, marked by three houses about half a mile from one another. the enemy was strongly entrenched in front of these houses. the line, consisting of the cavalry division, under direction of brigadier-general sumner, moved forward in double time, under a terrific fire of the enemy. we had a very heavy jungle to march through, beside the river (san juan) to cross, and during our progress many men were killed and wounded. the troops became separated from one another, though the general line was pretty well preserved. the works of the enemy were carried in succession by the troops; and the spaniards were steadily driven back toward the town to their last ditches. we now found ourselves about half a mile from the city, but the troops being by this time nearly exhausted, here intrenched themselves for the night under a heavy fire. by dark this line was occupied by all the troops engaged during the day." the official reports of the troop commanders of the tenth cavalry bring out a few more particulars which serve to give us a more vivid conception of this moving line. the entire cavalry division advanced together, and notwithstanding the roughness of the ground, major norvell assures us the line was pretty well preserved. troops a, b, e and i were in the first squadron, which was in the lead; troops c, f and g were in the second line; troop d made its advance with the infantry off to the left. we have now a fair knowledge of the general movement of the whole regiment. let us follow the fortunes of some of the troops, and by that means get nearer to the work done by the individual soldier. troop a was on the right of the leading squadron as the regiment took its place in line on the left of the first cavalry and moved against the spanish blockhouses in the face of a heavy fire, making a rush forward without intermission. a portion of the right platoon, under lieutenant livermore, became separated in one of the thickets, and under instructions received personally from the brigade commander, who seems to have been everywhere where he was needed, continued up the slope toward his right and toward the first blockhouse. the remainder of the troop, commanded by captain beck and lieutenant mccoy, moved in the same direction at first, but observing that on account of the shorter distance to the slope from that end of the line, a large number of troops were arriving there, captain beck swung his troop to the left and reached the summit of the hill between the second and third blockhouses, and on arriving received a message by an aid of the brigade commander to hold the ridge. just then lieut. livermore arrived, having come by way of blockhouse no. . the troop now being together, held the crest for an hour. at times the fire of the enemy was so severe and captain beck's force so small that there was great danger that he would be compelled to abandon the position, but fortunately at the most critical juncture lieutenant lyon of the twenty-fourth infantry came up with a few reinforcements, and lieutenant hughes of the tenth cavalry with a hotchkiss gun. lieutenant lyon formed his troops to the left of the gun, troop a of the tenth cavalry being on the right. with this force the position was held until other troops arrived. soon after, the squadron was reformed and the men entrenched themselves under fire. troop b was next to troop a and advanced as skirmishers by rushes and double time, but soon found its front blocked by other troops. troop i advanced in two sections, the left being commanded by lieutenant miller, joined in the attack on the right of the enemy's position; the right commanded by lieutenant fleming, advanced on trenches between two blockhouses, and in so doing caught up with the rest of the troop. the first half of the troop, after attacking the blockhouse on right of the enemy's position then crossed the valley and attacked the blockhouse on the left of enemy's position, and then moved forward with the first regular cavalry and first volunteer cavalry, until the troop assembled as a whole. when it reached the place of intrenchment there were altogether about one hundred men at that point of the ridge, consisting of men from the tenth cavalry and of the rough riders. it is claimed by lieutenant anderson, who commanded troop c, and who made his way to the front on the right of the line, that after coming up on the second hill and joining his troop to the left of troop i, colonel roosevelt and part of his regiment joined on the right of the tenth, and that he reported to him, placing c troop in his command. before this time lieutenant anderson had reported to captain jones, of troop f, while they were on kettle hill, and the two troops, f and c, had been formed in skirmish line and moved against the second blockhouse. in this movement troop c got separated from captain jones, and anderson, with men of his own troop and several from other organizations, moved forward until he connected with troop i, as previously narrated. these troops, c and i, were reported by their colonel as having joined the first volunteer cavalry. all of the troop commanders who were immediately with the men bear hearty testimony to their good conduct. captain jones, commanding troop f, says: "i could only do justice to the troop by mentioning by name all who were engaged, not only for their bravery, but for their splendid discipline under the most demoralizing fire." lieutenant fleming, commanding troop i, says: "the entire troop behaved with great gallantry. private elsie jones particularly distinguished himself." captain beck, commanding troop a, says: "the behaviour of the enlisted men was magnificent, paying studious attention to orders while on the firing line, and generally exhibiting an intrepidity which marks the first-class soldier." lieutenant hughes, who commanded the hotchkiss gun detachment, mentions four men for conspicuous bravery and commends his entire detachment for "spirit, enterprise and good behavior." the official story is that the entire cavalry division advanced under orders from general sumner and that the heft of its first blow fell upon kettle hill, which was soon captured, and on the crest of this hill the troops which had ascended it made a temporary halt, reformed their lines somewhat and immediately advanced upon the second hill to the help of that part of the cavalry division which had swung to the left in the advance, and also to the help of the infantry who were coming against fort san juan at the same time. meanwhile there was left upon kettle hill a sufficient garrison or force to prevent its being recaptured by the enemy. in the assault on kettle hill the brigade commander, colonel carroll, had been wounded, and lieutenant-colonel hamilton of the ninth cavalry killed. many troop officers also had been either killed or wounded and also in the rush forward through the jungle and high grass some troops had been separated from their officers, and yet it is remarkable that all were ready to move forward to the next assault. the words of praise to the whole cavalry division contained in the following order, published at camp wikoff immediately after the arrival there of the troops, are claimed by both black and white cavalrymen alike: headquarters, cavalry division, camp wikoff, l.i., september th, . to the officers and soldiers of the cavalry division, army of santiago. the duties for which the troops comprising the cavalry division were brought together have been accomplished. on june th we sailed from tampa, fla., to encounter in the sickly season the diseases of the tropical island of cuba, and to face and attack the historic legions of spain in positions chosen by them and which for years they had been strengthening by every contrivance and art known to the skillful military engineers of europe. on the d, one squadron each of the st and th regular cavalry and two squadrons of the st volunteer cavalry, in all officers and men, landed on cuban soil. these troops marched on foot fourteen miles, and, early on the morning of the th, attacked and defeated double their number of regular spanish soldiers under the command of lieutenant-general linares. eagerly and cheerfully you pushed onward, and on july st forded san juan river and gallantly swept over san juan hill, driving the enemy from its crest. without a moment's halt you formed, aligning the division upon the st infantry division under general kent, and, together with these troops, you bravely charged and carried the formidable intrenchments of fort san juan. the entire force which fought and won this great victory was less than seven thousand men. the astonished enemy, though still protected by the strong works to which he had made his retreat, was so stunned by your determined valor that his only thought was to devise the quickest means of saving himself from further battle. the great spanish fleet hastily sought escape from the harbor and was destroyed by our matchless navy. after seizing the fortifications of san juan ridge, you, in the darkness of night, strongly intrenched the position your valor had won. reinforced by bates' brigade on your left and lawton's division on your right, you continued the combat until the spanish army of santiago province succumbed to the superb prowess and courage of american arms. peace promptly followed, and you return to receive the plaudits of seventy millions of people. the valor displayed by you was not without sacrifice. eighteen per cent., or nearly one in five, of the cavalry division fell on the field either killed or wounded. we mourn the loss of these heroic dead, and a grateful country will always revere their memory. whatever may be my fate, wherever my steps may lead, my heart will always burn with increasing admiration for your courage in action, your fortitude under privation and your constant devotion to duty in its highest sense, whether in battle, in bivouac or upon the march. joseph wheeler, major-general u.s.v., commanding. aside from that part of the tenth cavalry who fought under general wheeler and who are consequently included among those congratulated by the general order just quoted, troop m of that regiment, under command of lieutenant c.p. johnson, performed an important part in the war. the troop consisted of men and left port tampa june on board the steamship florida, the steamship fanita also making a part of the expedition. the troop was mounted and was accompanied by a pack train of animals. both ships were heavily loaded with clothing, ammunition and provision, and had on board besides lieutenant johnson's command, general nunez and staff and armed cubans. the expedition sailed around the west end of the island and attempted a landing at a point chosen by general nunez on june , but failed owing to the fact that the place chosen was well guarded by spaniards, who fired upon the landing party. the expedition had with it a small gunboat, the peoria, commanded by captain ryan, and on the afternoon of june th an attack was made upon a blockhouse on the shore by the gunboat, and a small force of cuban and american volunteers landed, but were repulsed with the loss of one killed, general nunez's brother, and seven wounded. two days later lieutenant johnson was able to land and immediately made connection with general gomez, unloading his stores for the cuban army. lieutenant g.p. ahearn, of the twenty-fifth infantry, who went on this expedition as a volunteer, rendered important service on the night after the attack on the blockhouse at tayabacoa. as the attacking party met with repulse and escaped to the ship in the darkness, several of their wounded were left on shore. several boats sent out to recover them had returned without the men, their crews fearing to go on shore after them. lieutenant ahearn volunteered to attempt the rescue of the men, and taking a water-logged boat, approached the shore noiselessly and succeeded in his undertaking. the crew accompanying lieutenant ahearn was made up of men from troop m, tenth cavalry, and behaved so well that the four were given medals of honor for their marked gallantry. the action of lieutenant ahearn in this case was in keeping with his whole military career. he has ever manifested a fondness for exceptional service, and has never failed when opportunity occurred to display a noble gallantry on the side of humanity. nothing appeals to him so commandingly as an individual needing rescue, and in such a cause he immediately rises to the hero's plane. the noble colored soldiers who won medals on that occasion were all privates and became heroes for humanity's sake. their names deserve a place in this history outside the mere official table. they were dennis bell, george h. wanton, fitz lee and william h. tompkins, and were the only colored soldiers who, at the time of this writing, have won medals of honor in the spanish war. others, however, may yet be given, as doubtless others are deserved. the heroic service performed by whole regiments, as in the case of the twenty-fourth infantry, should entitle every man in it to a medal of some form as a souvenir for his posterity. losses of the ninth cavalry in the battles of san juan: officers--killed, lieutenant-colonel john m. hamilton. men--killed, trumpeter lewis fort, private james johnson. officers--wounded, adjutant winthrop s. wood, captain charles w. taylor. men--wounded. first sergeant charles w. jefferson, sergeant adam moore, sergeant henry f. wall, sergeant thomas b. craig, corporal james w. ervine, corporal horace t. henry, corporal john mason, burwell bullock, elijah crippen, edward davis, hoyle ervin, james gandy, edward d. nelson, noah prince, thomas sinclair, james r. spear, jr., jacob tull, william h. turner, george warren, alfred wilson. losses of the tenth cavalry during the battle of san juan: officers--killed, first lieutenant w.e. shipp, first lieutenant w.h. smith. men--killed, john h. smoot, corporal w.f. johnson, john h. dodson, george stroal, william h. slaughter. officers--wounded, major t.j. wint captain john bigelow, jr., adjutant and first lieutenant m.h. barnum, first lieutenant r.l. livermore, first lieutenant e.d. anderson, second lieutenant f.r. mccoy, second lieutenant h.c. whitehead, second lieutenant t.a. roberts, second lieutenant h.o. willard. men--wounded, first sergeant a. houston, first sergeant robert milbrown, q.m. sergeant william payne, sergeant smith johnson, sergeant ed. lane, sergeant walker johnson, sergeant george dyers, sergeant willis hatcher, sergeant john l. taylor, sergeant amos elliston, sergeant frank rankin, sergeant e.s. washington, sergeant u.g. gunter, corporal j.g. mitchell, corporal allen jones, corporal marcellus wright, privates lewis l. anderson, john arnold, charles arthur, john brown, frank d. bennett, wade bledsoe, hillary brown, thornton burkley, john brooks, w.h. brown, wm. a. cooper, john chinn, j.h. campbell, henry fearn, benjamin franklin, gilmore givens, b.f. gaskins, william gregory, luther d. gould, wiley, hipsher, thomas hardy, charles hopkins, richard james, wesley jones, robert e. lee, sprague lewis, henry mccormack, samuel t. minor, lewis marshall, william matthews, houston riddill, charles robinson, frank ridgeley, fred. shackley, harry d. sturgis, peter saunderson, john t. taylor, william tyler, isom taylor, john watson, benjamin west, joseph williams, allen e. white, nathan wyatt. * * * * * note.--"while we talked, and the soldiers filled their canteens and drank deep and long, like camels who, after days of travel through the land of 'thirst and emptiness,' have reached the green oasis and the desert spring, a black corporal of the th infantry walked wearily up to the 'water hole.' he was muddy and bedraggled. he carried no cup or canteen, and stretched himself out over the stepping-stones in the stream, sipping up the water and the mud together out of the shallow pool. a white cavalryman ran toward him shouting, 'hold on, bunkie; here's my cup!' the negro looked dazed a moment, and not a few of the spectators showed amazement, for such a thing had rarely if ever happened in the army before. 'thank you,' said the black corporal. 'well, we are all fighting under the same flag now.' and so he drank out of the white man's cup. i was glad to see that i was not the only man who had come to recognize the justice of certain constitutional amendments, in the light of the gallant behaviour of the colored troops throughout the battle, and, indeed, the campaign. the fortune of war had, of course, something to do with it in presenting to the colored troops the opportunities for distinguished service, of which they invariably availed themselves to the fullest extent; but the confidence of the general officers in their superb gallantry, which the event proved to be not misplaced, added still more, and it is a fact that the services of no four white regiments can be compared with those rendered by the four colored regiments--the th and th cavalry, and the th and th infantry. they were to the front at la guasima, at caney, and at san juan, and what was the severest test of all, that came later, in the yellow-fever hospitals."--bonsal. footnotes: [ ] official report of general sumner. chapter viii. san juan (continued). kent's division: the twenty-fourth infantry; forming under fire--a gallant charge. turning now to the centre and left of the american line we follow the advance of that division of infantry commanded by general kent, and which met the brunt of spanish resistance at san juan. this division, known as the first division, fifth army corps, consisted of three brigades, composed as follows: first brigade, brigadier-general hawkins commanding, made up of the sixth infantry, the sixteenth infantry, and the seventy-first new york volunteers. the second brigade, colonel pearson commanding, made up of the second infantry, the tenth infantry and the twenty-first infantry. the third brigade, commanded by colonel wikoff, in which were the ninth infantry, the thirteenth infantry and the twenty-fourth infantry; in all officers and , men. thus, in the whole division there were eight regiments of regular infantry and one volunteer regiment, the seventy-first new york. although our present purpose is to bring into view the special work of the twenty-fourth infantry, it will be necessary to embrace in our scope the work of the entire division, in order to lay before the reader the field upon which that particular regiment won such lasting credit. general kent, who commanded the division, a most accomplished soldier, gives a lucid account of the whole assault as seen from his position, and of the work performed by his division, in his report, dated july , . when general kent's division arrived in the neighborhood of the san juan ford and found itself under fire and the trail so blocked by troops of the cavalry division, which had not yet deployed to the right, that direct progress toward the front was next to impossible, the welcome information was given by the balloon managers that a trail branched off to the left from the main trail, only a short distance back from the ford. this trail led to a ford some distance lower down the stream and nearly facing the works on the enemy's right. general kent on learning of this outlet immediately hastened back to the forks and meeting the seventy-first new york regiment, the rear regiment of the first brigade, he directed that regiment into this trail toward the ford. the regiment was to lead the way through this new trail and would consequently arrive at the front first on the left; but meeting the fire of the enemy, the first battalion of the regiment apparently became panic stricken and recoiled upon the rest of the regiment; the regiment then lay down on the sides of the trail and in the bushes, thoroughly demoralized. wikoff's brigade was now coming up and it was directed upon the same trail. this brigade consisted of the ninth, thirteenth and twenty-fourth. colonel wikoff was directed by general kent to move his brigade across the creek by the trail (the left fork) and when reaching the opposite side, of the creek to put the brigade in line on the left of the trail and begin the attack at once. in executing this order the entire brigade stumbled through and over hundreds of men of the seventy-first new york regiment. when a volunteer regiment broke through the lines of the ninth cavalry from the rear, that regiment was in its place on the field in line of battle, with its morale perfect. it was under discipline and delivering its fire with regularity. it had an absolute right to its place. the seventy-first was in no such attitude, and general kent directed the advance through it in these words: "tell the brigade to pay no attention to this sort of thing; it is highly irregular." the ninth cavalry's position was exactly _regular_; the position of the seventh-first was to the eyes of general kent "highly irregular." the three regiments of this brigade were to take their positions on the left of the ford after crossing the stream, in the following order: on the extreme left the twenty-fourth, next to it in the centre of the brigade, the ninth, and on the right of the brigade the thirteenth. in approaching the ford the ninth and twenty-fourth became mixed and crossed in the following order: first one battalion of the ninth; then a battalion of the twenty-fourth; then the second battalion of the ninth, followed by the second battalion of the twenty-fourth. the line was formed under fire, and while superintending its formation the brigade commander, colonel wikoff, came under observation and was killed; lieutenant-colonel worth, who succeeded him, was seriously wounded within five minutes after having taking command, and lieutenant-colonel liscum, who next assumed charge of the brigade, had hardly learned that he was in command before he, too, was disabled by a spanish shot by this time, however, the formation was about complete and the brigade ready to begin the advance. leaving wikoff's brigade in line ready to begin the advance we must now return in our narrative to the main ford, where the major portions of hawkins' and pearson's brigades are massed and follow the various regiments as they come to their places in the battle line preparing for the onslaught. after crossing the ford with the sixth infantry, pursuant to the orders given by lieutenant miley in the name of general shafter, general hawkins attempted to flank the enemy by a movement to the left, the sixth infantry leading and the sixteenth intending to pass beyond it in its rear and join to its left. the sixth in passing to its intended position passed to the left of the sixth cavalry, which held the left of the line of the cavalry division, which had crossed the ford and deployed to the right, reaching beyond the spanish lines in that direction, or at least it was able to reach the extreme right of the enemy. the sixth infantry continued this line southward and it was to be farther extended by the sixteenth. before this disposition could be effected the fire of the enemy became so severe that an advance movement was started and the sixth lined up facing the fort on the hill, with only one company and a half of the sixteenth on its left. while hawkins' and wikoff's brigades were preparing for the advance upon the enemy's works, pearson's brigade was approaching the ford, hurrying to the support. the twenty-first regiment of this brigade was detached from the brigade and sent directly forward on the main trail with orders to re-enforce the firing line. this regiment crossed the san juan river to the left of the main ford and rushed forward to support hawkins' left. in the meantime the two other regiments of the brigade, the second and tenth, which had preceded the twenty-first in their march from el poso, had been deflected to the left by order of the division commander and were passing to the front over the trail previously taken by wikoff's brigade, crossing the san juan at the lower ford. the tenth crossed in advance and formed in close order on the opposite side of the stream, its line facing northwest. it was soon after, however, put in battle formation and moved to the right until it connected with the twenty-first. the second regiment crossed the ford in the rear of the tenth, having been delayed considerably by the seventh-first new york volunteers, who still blocked the way between the forks and the lower ford. after crossing the ford the second put itself in line on the left of the tenth, the whole brigade being now in position to support the first and third brigades in their charge. this movement of colonel pearson's brigade had not been made without hardship and loss. all of the regiments came under the enemy's fire before reaching the san juan river and many men were killed or wounded while the regiments were gaining their positions. the movement was so well executed as to call forth from the division commander the following enconium: "i observed this movement from the fort san juan hill. colonel e.p. pearson, tenth infantry, commanding the second brigade, and the officers and troops under his command deserve great credit for the soldierly manner in which this movement was executed." although we left wikoff's brigade standing in line on the left of the lower ford, we must not imagine that it remained in that position until the above movement on the part of the second brigade had been accomplished. there was no standing still in the fierce fire to which the men of that brigade were at that time subjected--a fire which had already cut down in rapid succession three brigade commanders. the formation was no sooner completed than the rapid advance began. the thirteenth infantry holding the right of the brigade moved to the right and front, while the ninth and twenty-fourth moved almost directly to the front at first, thus partially gaining the flank of the enemy's position. the whole line moved with great rapidity across the open field and up the hill, so that when the second and tenth infantry came to their position as support, the heroic third brigade was well up the heights. to the right of the third brigade the first brigade, containing the gallant sixth, under colonel egbert, and the sixteenth, was advancing also, and the two brigades arrived at the fort almost simultaneously; so that the division commander in speaking of the capture says: "credit is almost equally due the sixth, ninth, thirteenth, sixteenth and twenty-fourth regiments of infantry." to the third brigade he gives the credit of turning the enemy's right. let us now examine more closely that sweep of the third brigade from the left of the lower ford to san juan hill, in order to trace more distinctly the pathway of honor made for itself by the twenty-fourth. this regiment formed left front into line under fire and advanced over the flat in good order, and then reformed under shelter of the hill preparatory to the final charge upon the enemy's intrenchments. the experience of the companies in crossing the flat is told by the company commanders. one company under the orders of its captain formed line of skirmishers and advanced in good order at rapid gait, reaching the foot of the hill almost exhausted. this was about the experience of all, but this company is mentioned because it was the first company of the regiment to reach the top of the hill. in crossing the flat there was necessarily some mixing of companies and in some instances men were separated from their officers, but those who escaped the enemy's bullets made their way across that plain of fire and were ready to join in the charge up the hill where only brave men could go. there was but a moment's pause for breath at the foot of the hill and the general charge all along the line began, the sixth infantry probably taking the initiative, although the gallant colonel egbert, of that regiment (since killed in the philippines), makes no such claim. in his farewell official report of the sixth he thus describes the final act: "we were now unexpectedly re-enforced. lieutenant parker, made aware by the heavy fire from the hill that a conflict was going on in his front, opened fire with his gatlings most effectively on the intrenchments, while from far down on my left i heard cheering and shouts, and saw coming up the slope towards us a multitude of skirmishers. as they drew nearer we distinguished the tall figure of general hawkins, with his aide, lieutenant ord, sixth infantry, charging at the head of the skirmishers and waving their hats. when the charge came up nearly abreast of where the sixth stood in the road i ordered the companies out through the gaps in the wire fence to join it, and they complied with the same alacrity and enthusiasm that they had displayed in entering this bloody field. the gatlings redoubled their fierce grinding of bullets on the spanish, despite which there still came a savage fire from the blockhouse and trenches. here the gallant captain wetherell, sixth infantry, fell, shot through the forehead, at the head of his company, and i received a mauser bullet through the left lung, which disabled me. but the blood of the troops was now up, and no loss of officers or men could stop them. they charged up the incline until, coming to a steep ridge near the top, they were brought to a stand by the hail of bullets from the gatlings against the summit. as soon as this could be stopped by a signal, the mingled troops of the sixth, sixteenth, thirteenth and twenty-fourth swept up and over the hill and it was won." from testimony gathered on the evening of the fight it was concluded that there were more men of the twenty-fourth infantry on the ridge in this first occupation than of any other regiment, but all of the regiments of the division had done admirably and the brave blacks of the twenty-fourth won on that day a standing in arms with the bravest of the brave. the spaniards although driven from their first line, by no means gave up the fight; but retreating to a line of intrenchments about eight hundred yards in the rear they opened upon the new-comers a fire almost as hot as before, and the troops found it difficult to hold what they had gained. the supporting regiments were coming up and strengthening the line, the men meanwhile entrenching themselves under fire as rapidly as possible. the thirteenth infantry was immediately ordered off to the right to assist the cavalry division, especially the rough riders, who were said to be in danger of having their flank turned. here it remained under fire all night. the advance and charge of the twenty-fourth made up only a part of the advance and charge of the third brigade; and this in turn was part of the attack and assault made by the whole infantry division; a movement also participated in at the same hour by the cavalry division; so that regarded as a whole, it was a mighty blow delivered on the enemy's right and centre by two-thirds of the american army, and its effect was stunning, although its full weight had not been realized by the foe. the part sustained in the assault by each regiment may be estimated by the losses experienced by each in killed and wounded. judged by this standard the brunt fell upon the sixth, sixteenth, thirteenth, and twenty-fourth, all of which regiments lost heavily, considering the short time of the action. the movement by which the twenty-fourth reached its position on that memorable st of july has called forth especial mention by the regimental commander and by the acting assistant adjutant-general of the brigade; it was also noted immediately after the battle by all the newspaper writers as one of the striking occurrences of the day. the regiment on coming under fire marched about one mile by the left flank, and then formed left front into line on its leading company, company g, commanded by captain brereton. the first man of the regiment to take position in the line was the first sergeant of g company, r.g. woods. this company when reaching its position formed on left into line, under a severe fire in front and a fire in the rear; the other companies forming in the same manner, with more or less regularity, to its left. as soon as the line was formed the order was given to charge. the advance was made across an open meadow, during which several officers were wounded, among them the officers of company f, the command of that company devolving upon its first sergeant, william rainey, who conducted the company successfully to the crest of the hill. the description of the movement of company d as given by lieutenant kerwin, who was placed in command of that company after its officers had been shot, is a very interesting document. lieutenant kerwin claims to have made his report from "close inquiries and from personal observation." according to this report the company was led across the san juan creek by its captain (ducat), the second lieutenant of the company (gurney) following it, and keeping the men well closed up. while crossing, the company encountered a terrific fire, and after advancing about ten yards beyond the stream went through a wire fence to the right, and advanced to an embankment about twenty yards from the right bank of the stream. here captain ducat gave the order to advance to the attack and the whole company opened out in good order in line of skirmishers and moved rapidly across the open plain to the foot of san juan hill. in making this movement across the plain the line was under fire and the brave lieutenant gurney was killed, and first sergeant ellis, corporal keys and privates robinson and johnson wounded. it was a race with death, but the company arrived at the base of the hill in good form, though well-nigh exhausted. after breathing a moment the men were ready to follow their intrepid commander, captain ducat, up the hill, and at twelve o'clock they gained the summit, being the first company of the regiment to reach the top of the hill. just as they reached the crest the brave ducat fell, shot through the hip, probably by a spanish sharpshooter, thus depriving the company of its last commissioned officer, and leaving its first sergeant also disabled. the commander of the regiment speaks of its doings in a very modest manner, but in a tone to give the reader confidence in what he says. he became temporarily separated from the regiment, but made his way to the crest of the hill in company with the adjutant and there found a part of his command. he says a creditable number of the men of his regiment reached the top of the hill among the first to arrive there. the commander of the second battalion, captain wygant, crossed the meadow, or flat, some distance ahead of the battalion, but as the men subsequently charged up the hill, he was unable to keep up with them, so rapid was their gait it was from this battalion that captain ducat's company broke away and charged on the right of the battalion, arriving, as has been said, first on the top of the hill. as the regiment arrived captain wygant, finding himself the ranking officer on the ground, assembled it and assigned each company its place. captain dodge, who commanded company c in this assault, and who subsequently died in the yellow fever hospital at siboney, mentions the fact that captain wygant led the advance in person, and says that in the charge across the open field the three companies, c, b and h, became so intermixed that it was impossible for the company commanders to distinguish their own men from those of the other companies, yet he says he had the names of twenty men of his own company who reached the trenches at fort san juan in that perilous rush on that fiery mid-day. the testimony of all the officers of the regiment is to the effect that the men behaved splendidly, and eight of them have been given certificates of merit for gallantry in the action of july . the losses of the regiment in that advance were numerous, the killed, wounded and missing amounted to , which number was swelled to during the next two days. so many men falling in so short a time while advancing in open order tells how severe was the fire they were facing and serves to modify the opinion which was so often expressed about the time the war broke out, to the effect that the spanish soldiers were wanting both in skill and bravery. they contradicted this both at el caney and at san juan. in the latter conflict they held their ground until the last moment and inflicted a loss upon their assailants equal to the number engaged in the defence of the heights. since july , , expatiation on the cowardice and lack of skill of the spanish soldier has ceased to be a profitable literary occupation. too many journalists and correspondents were permitted to witness the work of spanish sharpshooters, and to see their obstinate resistance to the advance of our troops, to allow comments upon the inefficiency of the spanish army to pass unnoticed. our army from the beginning was well impressed with the character of the foe and nerved itself accordingly. the bravery of our own soldiers was fully recognized by the men who surrendered to our army and who were capable of appreciating it, because they themselves were not wanting in the same qualities. [transcriber's note: this footnote appeared in the text without a footnote anchor: "the intrenchments of san juan were defended by two companies of spanish infantry, numbering about two hundred and fifty to three hundred men. at about o'clock in the morning reinforcements were sent to them, bringing the number up to about seven hundred and fifty men. there were two pieces of mountain artillery on these hills, the rest of the artillery fire against our troops on that day being from batteries close to the city."--in cuba with shafter (miley), page .] chapter ix. the surrender, and afterwards. in the trenches--the twenty-fourth in the fever camp--are negro soldiers immune?--camp wikoff. after the battle of el caney the twenty-fifth infantry started for the mango grove, where the blanket rolls and haversacks had been left in the morning, and on its way passed the second massachusetts volunteers standing by the roadside. this regiment had seen the charge of the twenty-fifth up the hillside, and they now manifested their appreciation of the gallantry of the black regulars in an ovation of applause and cheers. this was the foundation for sergeant harris' reply when on another occasion seeing the manifest kind feelings of this regiment to the twenty-fifth, i remarked: "those men think you are soldiers." "they know we are soldiers," replied the sergeant. the regiment bivouacked in the main road leading from el caney to santiago, but sleep was out of the question. what with the passing of packtrains and artillery, and the issuing of rations and ammunition, the first half of the night gave no time for rest; and shortly after o'clock, apprehensions of a spanish attack put every one on the alert. at . the march to the rear was commenced and the entire division passed around by el poso and advanced to the front by the aguadores road, finally reaching a position on wheeler's right about noon, july . subsequently the line of investment was extended to the right, the cuban forces under general garcia holding the extreme right connecting with the water front on that side of the city. next to them came ludlow's mckibben's and chaffee's forces. in mckibben's brigade was the twenty-fifth, which dug its last trench on cuban soil on july th, on the railroad running out from santiago to the northwest. this intrenchment was the nearest to the city made by any american organization, and in this the regiment remained until the surrender. the twenty-fourth remained entrenched over to the left, in general kent's division, lying to the right of the st. this regiment ( th) had won great credit in its advance upon the enemy, but it was to win still greater in the field of humanity. capt. leavel, who commanded company a, said: "it would be hard to particularize in reporting upon the men of the company. all--non-commissioned officers, privates, even newly joined recruits--showed a desire to do their duty, yea, more than their duty, which would have done credit to seasoned veterans. too much cannot be said of their courage, willingness and endurance." captain wygant, who commanded the second battalion of the regiment, says: "the gallantry and bearing shown by the officers and soldiers of the regiment under this trying ordeal was such that it has every reason to be proud of its record. the losses of the regiment, which are shown by the official records, show the fire they were subjected to. the casualties were greater among the officers than the men, which is accounted for by the fact that the enemy had posted in the trees sharpshooters, whose principal business was to pick them off." there is no countenance given in official literature to the absurd notion maintained by some, that it was necessary for the officers of black troops to expose themselves unusually in order to lead their troops, and that this fact accounts for excessive losses among them. the fact is that the regular officer's code is such that he is compelled to occupy the place in battle assigned him in the tactics, and no matter how great his cowardice of heart may be, he must go forward until ordered to halt. the penalty of cowardice is something to be dreaded above wounds or even death by some natures. "colored troops are brave men when led by white officers."(?) as a matter of fact there is very little leading of any sort by officers in battle. the officer's place is in the rear of the firing line, directing, not leading, and it is his right and duty to save his own life if possible, and that of every man in his command, even while seeking to destroy the enemy, in obedience to orders. the record of the twenty-fourth for bravery was established beyond question when it swept across that open flat and up san juan hill on that hot mid-day of july st, . after lying in the trenches until july th, the news reached the camp of the twenty-fourth that yellow fever had broken out in the army, and that a large hospital and pest-house had been established at siboney. about o'clock that day an order came to the commanding officer of the regiment directing him to proceed with his regiment to siboney and report to the medical officer there. the regiment started on its march at . , numbering at that time companies, containing officers and men. marching on in the night, going through thickets and across streams, the men were heard singing a fine old hymn: when through the deep waters i call thee to go, the rivers of woe shall not thee o'erflow; for i will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, and sanctify to thee they deepest distress. in view of what was before them, the words were very appropriate. they arrived on the hill at siboney at . on the morning of july th. without discussing the graphic story told by correspondents of the highest respectability describing the regiment as volunteering, to a man, to nurse the sick and dying at siboney, we will rather follow the official records of their doings in that fever-stricken place. on arriving at siboney on the morning of july , sunday, major markely, then in command of the regiment, met colonel greenleaf of the medical department, and informed him that the twenty-fourth infantry was on the ground. colonel greenleaf was just leaving the post, but major la garde, his successor, manifested his great pleasure in seeing this form of assistance arrive. such a scene of misery presented itself to major markely's eyes that he, soldier as he was, was greatly affected, and assured major la garde that he was prepared personally to sink every other consideration and devote himself to giving what assistance he could in caring for the sick, and that he believed his whole regiment would feel as he did when they came to see the situation. in this he was not mistaken. the officers and men of the twenty-fourth infantry did give themselves up to the care of the sick and dying, furnishing all help in their power until their own health and strength gave way, in some instances laying down even their lives in this noble work. on the day of arrival seventy men were called for to nurse yellow fever patients and do other work about the hospital. more than this number immediately volunteered to enter upon a service which they could well believe meant death to some of them. the camp was so crowded and filthy that the work of cleaning it was begun at once by the men of the twenty-fourth, and day by day they labored as their strength would permit, in policing the camp, cooking the food for themselves and for the hospital, unloading supplies, taking down and removing tents, and numberless other details of necessary labor. despite all the care that could be taken under such conditions as were found at siboney, the yellow fever soon overran the entire camp, and of the officers of the regiment, had died, more were expected to die; were dangerously ill, and more or less so. out of the whole sixteen there were but three really fit for duty, and often out of the whole regiment it would be impossible to get men who could go on fatigue duty. out of the men who marched to siboney only escaped sickness, and on one day were down. those who would recover remained weak and unfit for labor. silently, without murmuring, did these noble heroes, officers and men, stand at their post ministering to the necessities of their fellowman until the welcome news came that the regiment would be sent north and the hospital closed as soon as possible. on august major la garde, more entitled to the honor of being classed among the heroes of santiago than some whose opportunities of brilliant display were vastly superior, succumbed to the disease. the fact should be borne in mind that all of these men, officers, soldiers and surgeons, went upon this pest-house duty after the severe labors of assault of july - , and the two weeks of terrible strain and exposure in the trenches before santiago, and with the sick and wounded consequent upon these battles and labors--none were strong. on july th, the day after the twenty-fourth left the trenches, the surrender was made and on the next morning the final ceremonies of turning over santiago to the american forces took place, and the soldiers were allowed to come out of their ditches and enter into more comfortable camps. the hardships of the period after the surrender were not much less than those experienced while in the lines. on the th of august the twenty-fourth infantry, having obtained an honorable release from its perilous duty, marched out of siboney with band playing and colors flying to go on board the transport for montauk; but of the men who marched into siboney, only were able to march out, directed by out of the officers that marched in with them. altogether there were officers and men who went on board the transport, but all except the number first given were unable to take their places in the ranks. they went on board the steamer nueces, and coming from an infected camp, no doubt great care was taken that the transport should arrive at its destination in a good condition. although there was sickness on board, there were no deaths on the passage, and the nueces arrived in port "one of the cleanest ships that came to that place." the official report states that the nueces arrived at montauk point september , with troops on board; sick, no deaths on the voyage, and not infected. worn out by the hard service the regiment remained a short time at montauk and then returned to its former station, fort douglass, utah, leaving its camp at montauk in such a thoroughly creditable condition as to elicit official remark. while the twenty-fourth infantry had without doubt the hardest service, after the surrender, of any of the colored regiments, the others were not slumbering at ease. lying in the trenches almost constantly for two weeks, drenched with rains, scorched by the burning sun at times, and chilled by cool nights, subsisting on food not of the best and poorly cooked, cut off from news and kept in suspense, when the surrender finally came it found our army generally very greatly reduced in vital force. during the period following, from july th to about the same date in august the re-action fell with all its weight upon the troops, rendering them an easy prey to the climatic influences by which they were surrounded.[ ] pernicious malarial fever, bowel troubles and yellow fever were appearing in all the regiments; and the colored troops appeared as susceptible as their white comrades. the theory had been advanced that they were less susceptible to malarial fever, and in a certain sense this appears to be true; but the experience of our army in cuba, as well as army statistics published before the cuban war, do not bear out the popular view of the theory. the best that can be said from the experience of cuba is to the effect that the blacks may be less liable to yellow fever and may more quickly rally from the effects of malarial fever. these conclusions are, however, by no means well established. the twenty-fourth suffered excessively from fevers of both kinds, and in the judgment of the commanding officer of the regiment "effectually showed that colored soldiers were not more immune from cuban fever than white," but we must remember that the service of the twenty-fourth was exceptional. the twenty-fifth infantry lost but one man during the whole campaign from climatic disease, john a. lewis, and it is believed that could he have received proper medical care his life would have been saved. yet this regiment suffered severely from fever as did also the ninth and tenth cavalry. arriving at montauk[ ] early the author had the opportunity to see the whole of the fifth army corps disembark on its return from cuba, and was so impressed with its forlorn appearance that he then wrote of it as coming home on stretchers. pale, emaciated, weak and halting, they came, with , sick, and reporting deaths on the voyage. but, as general wheeler said in his report, "the great bulk of the troops that were at santiago were by no means well." never before had the people seen an army of stalwart men so suddenly transformed into an army of invalids. and yet while all the regiments arriving showed the effects of the hardships they had endured, the black regulars, excepting the twenty-fourth infantry, appeared to have slightly the advantage. the arrival of the tenth cavalry in "good condition" was an early cheering item in the stream of suffering and debility landing from the transports. seeing all of the troops land and remaining at camp wikoff until its days were nearly numbered, the writer feels sure that the colored troops arrived from the front in as good condition as the best, and that they recuperated with marked comparative rapidity. the chaplain of the twenty-fifth infantry, while en route to join his regiment at montauk, thinking seriously over the condition of the men returning from such a hard experience, concluded that nothing would be more grateful to them than a reasonable supply of ripe fruit, fresh from the orchards and fields. he therefore sent a dispatch to the daily evening news, published in bridgeton, n.j., asking the citizens of that community to contribute a carload of melons and fruits for the men of the twenty-fifth, or for the whole camp, if they so wished. subsequently mentioning the fact to the commanding officer of the regiment, lieutenant-colonel daggett, he heartily commended the idea, believing that the fruit would be very beneficial. the good people of bridgeton took hold of the matter heartily, and in a short time forwarded to the regiment more than four hundred of jersey's finest watermelons, fresh from the vines. these were distributed judiciously and the health of the men began to improve forthwith. soon five hundred more arrived, sent by a patriotic citizen of philadelphia. these were also distributed. ladies of brooklyn forwarded peaches and vegetables, and supplies of all sorts now were coming in abundance. our men improved so rapidly as to be the occasion of remark by correspondents of the press. they were spoken of as being apparently in good condition. while engaged in the work of supplying their physical wants the chaplain was taken to task by a correspondent of leslie's for being too much concerned in getting a carload of watermelons for his regiment, to go over to a graveyard and pray over the dead. the next day the chaplain made haste to go over to that particular graveyard to relieve the country from the crying shame that the correspondent had pointed out, only to find two men already there armed with prayer-books and one of them especially so fearful that he would not get a chance to read a prayer over a dead soldier, that the chaplain found it necessary to assure him that the opportunity to pray should not be taken from him; and thus another popular horror was found to be without reality. the colored ladies of brooklyn organized a soldiers' aid society, and besides contributing in a general way, as already mentioned, also made and presented to the soldiers about four hundred home-made pies, which were most highly appreciated. they also prepared a tasty souvenir commemorative of the heroic work performed by the troops in cuba, and expressive of high appreciation of the gallantry of the colored regiments. a beautiful stand of colors was also procured for the twenty-fourth infantry, which were subsequently presented to the regiment with appropriate ceremonies. at the camp were three colored chaplains and one colored surgeon, serving with the regular army, and their presence was of great value in the way of accustoming the people at large to beholding colored men as commissioned officers. to none were more attention shown than to these colored men, and there was apparently no desire to infringe upon their rights. occasionally a very petty social movement might be made by an insignificant, with a view of humiliating a negro chaplain, but such efforts usually died without harm to those aimed at and apparently without special comfort to those who engineered them. the following paragraphs, written while in camp at the time indicated in them, may serve a good purpose by their insertion here, showing as they do the reflections of the writer as well as in outlining the more important facts associated with that remarkable encampment: * * * * * camp wikoff and its lessons. now that the days of this camp are drawing to a close it is profitable to recall its unique history and gather up some of the lessons it has taught us. despite all the sensationalism, investigations, testings, experimentation, and general condemnation, the camp at montauk accomplished what was intended, and was itself a humane and patriotic establishment. it is not for me to say whether a better site might not have been selected, or whether the camp might not have been better managed. i will take it for granted that improvement might have been made in both respects, but our concern is rather with what was, than with what "might have been." to appreciate camp wikoff we must consider two things specially; first, its purpose, and secondly, the short time allowed to prepare it; and then go over the whole subject and properly estimate its extent and the amount of labor involved. the intention of the camp was to afford a place where our troops, returning from cuba, prostrated with climatic fever, and probably infected with yellow fever, might receive proper medical treatment and care, until the diseases were subdued. the site was selected with this in view, and the conditions were admirably suited to such a purpose. completely isolated, on dry soil, with dry pure air, cool climate, away from mosquitoes, the camp seemed all that was desired for a great field hospital. here the sick could come and receive the best that nature had to bestow in the way of respite from the heat, and pure ocean breezes, and, taken altogether, the experiences of august and a good part of september, have justified the selection of montauk. while prostrations were occurring elsewhere, the camp was cool and delightful most of the time. as to the preparations, it must be remembered that the recall of the whole army of invasion from cuba was made in response to a popular demand, and as a measure of humanity. bring the army home! was the call, and, bring it at once! [illustration] such urgency naturally leaps ahead of minor preparations. the soldiers wanted to come; the people wanted them to come; hence the crowding of transports and the lack of comforts on the voyages; hence the lack of hospital accommodations when the troops began to arrive. haste almost always brings about such things; but sometimes haste is imperative. this was the case in getting the army out of cuba and into camp at montauk in august, ' . haste was pushed to that point when omissions had to occur, and inconvenience and suffering resulted. we must also remember the condition of the men who came to montauk. about , were reported as sick before they left cuba; but, roughly speaking, there were , sick men landing in montauk. those who were classed as well were, with rare exceptions, both mentally and physically incapable of high effort. it was an invalid army, with nearly one-half of its number seriously sick and suffering. ten thousand sick soldiers were never on our hands before, and the mighty problem was not realized until the transports began to emit their streams of weakness and walking death at montauk. the preparation was altogether inadequate for such a mass of misery, and for a time all appeared confusion. then came severe, cruel, merciless criticisms; deserved in some cases no doubt, but certainly not everywhere. the faults, gaps, failures, were everywhere to be seen, and it was easy to see and to say what ought to have been done. but the situation at camp wikoff from august th to sep. th needed more than censure; it needed help. the men who were working for the government in both the medical and commissary departments needed assistance; the former in the way of nurses, and the latter in the way of appropriate food. the censure and exposure indulged in by the press may have contributed to direct the attention of the benevolently disposed to the conditions in the camp. then came the era of ample help; from massachusetts; from new york, in a word, from all over the country. the merchants' relief association poured in its thousands of dollars worth of supplies, bringing them to the camp and distributing them generously and wisely. the women's patriotic relief, the women's war relief, the international brotherhood league, and the powerful red cross society, all poured in food and comforts for the sick thousands. besides these great organizations there were also the spontaneous offerings of the people, many of them generously distributed by the brooklyn daily eagle's active representatives. the tent of that journal was an excellent way-mark and a veritable house of the good shepherd for many a lost wanderer, as well as a place of comfort, cheer and rest. the work done was very valuable and highly appreciated. to the medical department came the trained hand of the female nurse. no one who saw these calm-faced, white-hooded sisters, or the cheery cheeked, white capped nurses from the schools, could fail to see that they were in the right place. the sick soldier's lot was brightened greatly when the gentle female nurse came to his cot. woman can never be robbed of her right to nurse. this is one of the lessons taught by the hispano-american war. this vast army has been handled. no yellow fever has been spread. the general health has been restored. the disabled are mostly housed in hospitals, and many of them are on the road to recovery. some have died; some are on furlough, and many have gone to their homes. the regulars are repairing to their stations quite invigorated, and greatly helped in many ways by the kind treatment they have received. camp wikoff was not a failure; but a great and successful object lesson, as well as a great summer school in nationalism. here black, white and indian soldiers fraternized; here northerners and southerners served under the same orders. ten thousand soldiers and as many civilians daily attended the best school of its kind ever held in this country, striving to take home to their hearts the lessons that god is teaching the nations. the rev. sylvester malone thus sums up the message of the war to us in his letter to the committee to welcome brooklyn's soldiers: "this short war has done so much for america at home and abroad that we must take every soldier to our warmest affection and send him back to peaceful pursuits on the conviction that there is nothing higher in our american life than to have the privilege to cheer and gladden the marine and the soldier that have left to america her brightest and best page of a great history. this past war must kindle in our souls a love of all the brethren, black as well as white, catholic as well as protestant, having but one language, one nationality, and it is to be hoped, yet one religion." these are true words, as full of patriotism as they are of fraternity, and these are the two special lessons taught at montauk--a broad, earnest, practical fraternity, and a love of country before which the petty prejudices of race and section were compelled to yield ground. the young men's christian association in camp wikoff. the young men's christian association has done an excellent work in camp wikoff. their tents have afforded facilities for profitable amusements, in the way of quiet games, thus bringing out the use of these games distinct from their abuse--gambling. their reading tables have also been well supplied with papers and magazines, religious and secular, generally very acceptable to the soldiers, as attested by the numbers that read them. but perhaps best of all, has been the provision made for the soldiers to write. tables, pens, ink, paper and envelopes have been supplied in abundance. these were of great advantage to soldiers living in tents, and the work of the association in this respect cannot be too highly commended. the specially religious work of the association as i have seen it, consists of three divisions: first, the meetings in their tents, held nightly and on sundays. these have been vigorously carried on and well attended, the chaplains of the camp often rendering assistance. secondly, i have noticed the y.m.c.a. men visiting the sick in the hospitals and camps, giving the word of exhortation and help to the sick. perhaps, however, in their work of private conversation with the well men, they have done as much real service for god as in either of the other two fields. they have made the acquaintance of many men and have won the respect of the camp. this i have numbered as the third division of their work--personal contact with the soldiers of the camp, at the same time keeping themselves "unspotted from the world." b. the th infantry was ordered down to siboney to do guard duty. when the regiment reached the yellow-fever hospital it was found to be in a deplorable condition. men were dying there every hour for the lack of proper nursing. major markley, who had commanded the regiment since july st, when colonel liscum was wounded, drew his regiment up in line, and dr. la garde, in charge of the hospital, explained the needs of the suffering, at the same time clearly setting forth the danger to men who were not immune, of nursing and attending yellow-fever patients. major markley then said that any man who wished to volunteer to nurse in the yellow-fever hospital could step forward. the whole regiment stepped forward. sixty men were selected from the volunteers to nurse, and within forty-eight hours forty-two of these brave fellows were down seriously ill with yellow or pernicious malarial fever. again the regiment was drawn up in line, and again major markley said that nurses were needed, and that any man who wished to do so could volunteer. after the object lesson which the men had received in the last few days of the danger from contagion to which they would be exposed, it was now unnecessary for dr. la garde to again warn the brave blacks of the terrible contagion. when the request for volunteers to replace those who had already fallen in the performance of their dangerous and perfectly optional duty was made again, the regiment stepped forward as one man. when sent down from the trenches the regiment consisted of eight companies, averaging about forty men each. of the officers and men who remained on duty the forty days spent in siboney, only twenty-four escaped without serious illness, and of this handful not a few succumbed to fevers on the voyage home and after their arrival at montauk. as a result, thirty-six died and about forty were discharged from the regiment owing to disabilities resulting from sickness which began in the yellow-fever hospital.--bonsal's fight for santiago. footnotes: [ ] "after the surrender, dear chaplain, the real trouble and difficulties began. such a period, from july , to august , , was never before known to human beings, i hope. the starving time was nothing to the fever time, where scores died per day. we were not permitted to starve; but had fever, and had it bad; semi-decayed beef, both from refrigerators and from cans. we had plenty of fever, but no clothing until very late; no medicine save a little quinine which was forced into you all the time, intermittent only with bad meat."--extract from a soldier's letter. [ ] while the twenty-fifth infantry was in camp at chickamauga park i was ordered to xenia, ohio, on recruiting duty, and on july . on seeing the reports of the wounded i asked officially to be ordered to my regiment. an order to that effect came about a month later, directing me to join my regiment by way of tampa, florida. arriving in tampa, my destination was changed by telegraph to montauk point, n.y., whither i arrived a few days before the regiment did. chapter x. review and reflections. gallantry of the black regulars--diary of sergeant-major e.l. baker, tenth cavalry. it is time now to sum up the work of the four regiments whose careers we have thus far followed, and to examine the grounds upon which the golden opinions they won in battle and siege are based. we have seen that in the first fight, that of las guasimas, on june th, the tenth cavalry, especially troops i and b, both with their small arms and with the machine guns belonging to troop b, did most effective work against the spanish right, joining with the first cavalry in overcoming that force which was rapidly destroying roosevelt's rough riders. nor should it be forgotten that in this first fight, troop b, which did its full share, was commanded on the firing line by sergeants john buck and james thompson. in the squad commanded by sergeant thompson several men of the first regular cavalry fought and it is claimed were highly pleased with him as squad commander. while this was the first fight of the men of the tenth cavalry with the spaniards, it was by no means their first experience under fire. from the time of the organization of the regiment in up to within a year of the war, the men had been engaged frequently in conflicts with indians and marauders, often having men killed and wounded in their ranks. the fights were participated in by small numbers, and the casualties were not numerous, but there were opportunities for the acquirement of skill and the display of gallantry. altogether the men of the regiment during their experience on the plains engaged in sixty-two battles and skirmishes. this training had transformed the older men of the regiment into veterans and enabled them to be cool and efficient in their first fight in cuba. sergeant buck, upon whom the command of troop b chiefly fell after becoming separated from his lieutenant in the battle at guasimas, joined the regiment in , and had already passed through eighteen years of the kind of service above described. he was at the time of the cuban war in the prime of life, a magnificent horseman, an experienced scout, and a skilled packer. in , when he joined the regiment, the troops were almost constantly in motion, marching that one year nearly seventy-seven thousand miles, his own troop covering twelve hundred and forty-two miles in one month. this troop with four others made a ride of sixty-five miles in less than twenty-one hours, arriving at their destination without the loss of a single horse. in he was mentioned by the commanding officer of fort missoula, montana, for highly meritorious service, skill and energy displayed while in charge of pack train of an expedition across the bitter root mountains, idaho, during the most inclement weather, in quest of a party of gentlemen lost. (letter of commanding officer, fort missoula, montana, february , .) sergeant buck has also won the silver medal for revolver shooting. sergeant james thompson joined the regiment in , and has passed the ten years in the one troop, and proved himself at las guasimas a soldier worthy his regiment. the first battle gave the tenth a reputation in a new field, corresponding to that which it had gained in the west, and this was not allowed to fade during its stay in cuba. the fame of this first action spread rapidly through the army and inspired the other regiments of colored men with a desire to distinguish themselves on this new field of honor, and their readiness to be to the front and to take prominent part in all service was so marked that opportunity could not be withheld from them. as the army advanced toward santiago these regiments became more and more the mark of observation by foreign military men who were present, and by the great throng of correspondents who were the eyes for the people of the civilized world. and hence, when the lines of assault were finally determined and the infantry and cavalry of our army deployed for its perilous attack upon the spanish fortifications the black regiments were in their places, conspicuous by their vigor and enthusiasm. in them were enlisted men whose time of service had expired a few days before, but who had promptly re-enlisted. in at least two cases were men who served their full thirty years and could have retired with honor at the breaking out of the war. they preferred to share the fortunes of their comrades in arms, and it is a comfort to be able to record that the two spoken of came home from the fight without a wound and with health unimpaired. how many others there were in the same case in the army is not reported, but the supposition is that there were several such in both the white and colored regiments. recalling the scenes of that memorable first of july, , we can see the twenty-fifth infantry advancing steadily on the stone fort at el caney at one time entirely alone, meeting the fire of the fort even up to their last rush forward. captain loughborough, who commanded company b, of that regiment, and although his company was in the reserve, was nevertheless under fire, says: "the hardest fighting of the twenty-fifth was between two and four o'clock," at which time all the other troops of the attacking force, except bates' brigade, were under cover and remaining stationary, the twenty-fifth being the only organization that was advancing. the official reports give the positions of general chaffee's brigade during the two hours between two o'clock and four of that afternoon as follows: the seventh was under partial cover and remained in its position "until about . p.m." the seventeenth remained with its left joined to the right of the seventh "until the battle was over." the twelfth infantry was in its shelter within yards of the fort "until about p.m." ludlow's brigade was engaged with the town, hence only miles' brigade, consisting of the fourth and twenty-fifth infantry, was advancing upon the fort. the fourth infantry was soon checked in its advance, as general daggett especially notes in his report, and the twenty-fifth was thus thrust forward alone, excepting bates' brigade, which was making its way up the right. this conspicuous advance of the twenty-fifth brought that regiment into the view of the world, and established for it a brilliant reputation for skill and courage. arriving in the very jaws of the fort the sharpshooters and marksmen of that regiment poured such a deadly fire into the loopholes of the fort that they actually silenced it with their rifles. these men with the sternness of iron and the skill acquired by long and careful training, impressed their characteristics on the minds of all their beholders. of the four hundred men who went on the field that morning very few were recruits, and many had passed over ten years in the service. when they "took the battle formation and advanced to the stone fort more like veterans than troops who had never been under fire," as their commander reports, they gave to the world a striking exhibition of the effect of military training. in each breast a spirit of bravery had been developed and their skill in the use of their arms did not for a moment forsake them. they advanced against volleys from the fort and rifle pits in front, and a galling fire from blockhouses, the church tower and the village on their left. before a less severe fire than this, on that very day, a regiment of white volunteers had succumbed and was lying utterly demoralized by the roadside; before this same fire the second massachusetts volunteers were forced to retire--in the face of it the twenty-fifth advanced steadily to its goal. lieutenant moss, who commanded company h on the firing line on that day, has published an account in which he says: "the town was protected on the north by three blockhouses and the church; on the west by three blockhouses (and partially by the church); on the east by the stone fort, one blockhouse, the church, and three rifle pits; on the south and southeast by the stone fort, three blockhouses, one loop-holed house, the church and eight rifle pits. however, the second brigade was sent forward against the southeast of the town, thus being exposed to fire from fourteen sources, nearly all of which were in different planes, forming so many tiers of fire. the cover on the south and southeast of the town was no better than, if as good, as that on the other sides." the cavalry regiments were no less conspicuous in their gallantry at san juan than was the twenty-fifth infantry at el caney. the brilliancy of that remarkable regiment, the rough riders, commanded on july st by colonel roosevelt, was so dazzling that it drew attention away from the ordinary regulars, yet the five regiments of regular cavalry did their duty as thoroughly on that day as did the regiment of volunteers.[ ] in this body of cavalry troops, where courage was elevated to a degree infringing upon the romantic, the two black regiments took their places, and were fit to be associated in valor with that highly representative regiment. the inspector-general turns aside from mere routine in his report long enough to say "the courage and conduct of the colored troops and first united states volunteers seemed always up to the best." that these black troopers held no second place in valor is proven by their deeds, and from the testimony of all who observed their conduct, and that they with the other regulars were decidedly superior in skill was recognized by the volunteer colonel himself. the ninth cavalry, although suffering considerably in that advance on east hill, involved as it was, more or less, with roosevelt's regiment, did not receive so large a share of public notice as its sister regiment. the strength of the ninth was but little over one-half that of the tenth, and its movements were so involved with those of the volunteers as to be somewhat obscured by them; the loss also of its commander just as the first position of the enemy fell into our hands, was a great misfortune to the regiment. the ninth, however, was with the first that mounted the heights, and whatever praise is to be bestowed upon the rough riders in that assault is to be distributed in equal degree to the men of that regiment. being in the leading brigade of the division this regiment had been firing steadily upon the spanish works before the charge was ordered, and when the movement began the men of the ninth advanced so rapidly that they were among the first to reach the crest. the tenth regiment, with its hotchkiss guns, and its trained men, took its place in the line that morning to add if possible further lustre to the distinction already won. in crossing the flat, in climbing the heights, and in holding the ridge these brave men did all that could be expected of them. roosevelt said: "the colored troops did as well as any soldiers could possibly do," meaning the colored men of the ninth and tenth cavalry. to their officers he bestows a meed of praise well deserved, but not on the peculiar ground which he brings forward. he would have the reader believe that it has required special ability and effort to bring these colored men up to the condition of good soldiers and to induce them to do so well in battle; while the testimony of the officers themselves and the experience of more than a quarter of a century with colored professional troops give no countenance to any such theory. the voice of experience is that the colored man is specially apt as a soldier, and general merritt declares him always brave in battle. the officers commanding colored troops at santiago honored themselves in their reports of the battles by giving full credit to the men in the ranks, who by their resolute advance and their cool and accurate firing dislodged an intrenched foe and planted the flag of our union where had floated the ensign of spain. that rushing line of dismounted cavalry, so ably directed by sumner, did not get to its goal without loss. as it swept across the open to reach the heights, it faced a well-directed fire from the spanish works, and men dropped from the ranks, wounded and dying. of the officers directing that advance fell either killed or wounded and men. these numbers appear small when hastily scanned or when brought into comparison with the losses in battle during the civil war, but if we take time to imagine officers lying on the ground either killed or wounded and men in the same condition, the carnage will not appear insignificant. woe enough followed even that one short conflict. it must be observed also that the whole strength of this division was less than men, so that about one out of every eight had been struck by shot or shell. several enlisted men among the colored cavalry displayed high soldierly qualities in this assault, evidencing a willingness to assume the responsibility of command and the ability to lead. color-sergeant george berry became conspicuous at once by his brilliant achievement of carrying the colors of two regiments, those of his own and of the third cavalry. the color-sergeant of the latter regiment had fallen and berry seized the colors and bore them up the hill with his own. the illustrated press gave some attention to this exploit at the time, but no proper recognition of it has as yet been made. sergeant berry's character as a soldier had been formed long before this event, and his reputation for daring was already well established. he entered the service in and when he carried that flag up san juan was filling out his thirty-first year in the service. all this time he had passed in the cavalry and had engaged in many conflicts with hostile indians and ruffians on our frontiers. perhaps the most important parts taken by any enlisted men in the cavalry division were those taken by sergeants foster and givens. the former was first sergeant of troop g and as the troop was making its way to the hill by some means the spaniards were able not only to discover them but also the direction in which they were moving and to determine their exact range. sergeant foster ventured to tell the lieutenant in charge that the course of advance should be changed as they were marching directly into the enemy's guns. "silence," shouted the lieutenant. "come on, men; follow me." "all right, sir," said the sergeant; "we'll go as far as you will." the next instant the lieutenant was shot through the head, leaving sergeant foster in command. immediately the troop was deployed out of the dangerous range and the sergeant by the exercise of good judgment brought his men to the crest of the hill without losing one from his ranks. at the time of this action sergeant foster was a man who would readily command attention. born in texas and a soldier almost continuously since , part of which time had been passed in an infantry regiment, he had acquired valuable experience. in , while serving in the cavalry, he had been complimented in general orders for skill in trailing raiding parties in arizona. he was a resolute and stalwart soldier, an excellent horseman and possessed of superior judgment, and with a reputation for valor which none who knew him would question. the return of troop g, tenth cavalry, for july, , contains the following note: "lieutenant roberts was wounded early in the engagement; lieutenant smith was killed about . a.m. while gallantly leading the troop in the advance line. after lieutenant smith fell the command of the troop devolved upon first sergeant saint foster, who displayed remarkable intelligence and ability in handling the troop during the remainder of the day. sergeant foster's conduct was such as cannot be excelled for valor during the operations around santiago. he commanded the troop up the hills of san juan." sergeant william h. givens, of troop d, tenth cavalry, also commanded in the action against san juan. his captain, who was wounded three times in the fight, being finally disabled before reaching the hill, makes the following report: "sergeant william h. givens was with the platoon which i commanded; whenever i observed him he was at his post exercising a steadying or encouraging influence on the men, and conducting himself like the thorough soldier that i have long known him to be. i understand to my great satisfaction that he has been rewarded by an appointment to a lieutenancy in an immune regiment." the descriptive list of sergeant givens, made on august th, , contains these remarks: "commanded his troop with excellent judgment after his captain fell at the battle of san juan, july , , leading it up the hill to the attack of the blockhouse. "character: a most excellent soldier."[ ] sergeant givens may also be called an "old-timer." he had enlisted in ' , and had passed all that time in hard frontier service. the troop in which he enlisted during the years - was almost constantly engaged with hostile indians along the mexican border, and sergeant givens was called upon to take part in numerous scouts in which there were many striking adventures. he was also in that memorable campaign against victoria, conducted by general grierson. sergeant givens was an ideal soldier and worthy the commendations bestowed upon him by his troop commander and others. captain bigelow received his disabling wound about seventy-five yards from the blockhouse and was taken to the rear under heavy fire by two soldiers of the troop by the name of henderson and boardman. lieutenant kennington, reporting the work of the troop on that morning says that corporal j. walker was probably the first soldier to reach the top of the hill and is believed to have shot the spaniard who killed lieutenant ord. the report containing the above statement is dated july , . since that time the matter has been fully investigated by captain bigelow and the fact ascertained that corporal walker did arrive first on the hill and did shoot the spaniard referred to and he has been recommended for a medal of honor in consequence. the sergeant-major of the tenth cavalry, mr. e.l. baker, who served with great credit during the santiago campaign, is a soldier with an excellent record. he was born of french and american parentage in wyoming and enlisted in the ninth cavalry as trumpeter in , serving five years in that regiment. he then enlisted in the tenth cavalry, and in became sergeant-major. being desirous of perfecting himself in the cavalry service he applied for an extended furlough with permission to leave the country, intending to enter a cavalry school in france. in this desire he was heartily endorsed by the officers of his regiment, and was specially commended by general miles, who knew him as a soldier and who highly appreciated him as such. the breaking out of the spanish war soon after he had made application prevented a full consideration of his case. in sergeant-major baker published a specially valuable "roster of the non-commissioned officers of the tenth u.s. cavalry, with some regimental reminiscences, etc.," which has been of marked service in the preparation of the sketches of the enlisted men of his regiment. he contributes the interesting sketch of his experiences in cuba with his regiment, which follows this chapter, and which will prove to many perhaps the most interesting portion of my book. the twenty-fourth infantry advanced in that line of attack on the extreme left and reached the crest of the san juan hills in such numbers as to lead the press correspondents and others to conclude that there were more men of this regiment promptly on the ground than of any other one regiment. it is certain they made a record for heroism in that assault as bright as any won on the field that day; and this record they raised to a magnificent climax by their subsequent work in the fever hospital at siboney. for their distinguished service both in the field and in the hospital, the colored ladies of new york honored themselves in presenting the regiment the beautiful stand of colors already mentioned. as these fever-worn veterans arrived at montauk they presented a spectacle well fitted to move strong men to tears. in solemn silence they marched from on board the transport nueces, which had brought them from cuba, and noiselessly they dragged their weary forms over the sandy roads and up the hill to the distant "detention camp." twenty-eight of their number were reported sick, but the whole regiment was in ill-health. these were the men who had risked their lives and wrecked their health in service for others. forty days they had stood face to face with death. in their soiled, worn and faded clothing, with arms uncleaned, emaciated, and with scarce strength enough to make the march before them, as they moved on that hot nd of september from the transport to the camp, they appeared more like a funeral procession than heroes returning from the war; and to the credit of our common humanity it may be recorded that they were greeted, not with plaudits and cheers, but with expressions of real sympathy. many handkerchiefs were brought into view, not to wave joyous welcome, but to wipe away the tears that came from overflowing hearts. at no time did human nature at montauk appear to better advantage than in its silent, sympathetic reception of the twenty-fourth infantry. of these shattered heroes general miles had but recently spoken in words well worthy his lofty position and noble manhood as "a regiment of colored troops, who, having shared equally in the heroism, as well as the sacrifices, is now voluntarily engaged in nursing yellow fever patients and burying the dead." these men came up to montauk from great tribulations which should have washed their robes to a resplendent whiteness in the eyes of the whole people. great twenty-fourth, we thank thee for the glory thou hast given to american soldiery, and to the character of the american negro! thus these four colored regiments took their place on the march, in camp, in assault and in siege with the flower of the american army, the choice and pick of the american nation, and came off acknowledged as having shared equally in heroism and sacrifices with the other regular regiments so engaged, and deserving of special mention for the exhibition of regard for the welfare of their fellow man. the query is now pertinent as to the return which has been made to these brave men. the question of ahasuerus when told of the valuable services of the jew, mordecai, is the question which the better nature of the whole american people should ask on hearing the general report of the valuable services of the negro regular in the spanish war. when ahasuerus asked: "what honor and dignity hath been done to mordecai for this?" his servants that ministered unto him were compelled to answer: "there is nothing done for him." looking over these four regiments at the time of this writing an answer somewhat similar in force must be returned. that the colored soldier is entitled to honor and dignity must be admitted by all who admire brave deeds, or regard the welfare of the state. the colored soldier, however, was compelled to stand by and see a hundred lieutenancies filled in the regular army, many in his own regiments, only to find himself overlooked and to be forced to feel that his services however valuable, could not outweigh the demerit of his complexion. the sum total of permanent advantage secured to the colored regular as such, in that bloody ordeal where brave men gave up their lives for their country's honor, consists of a few certificates of merit entitling the holders to two dollars per month additional pay as long as they remain in the service. nor is this all, or even the worst of the matter. men who served in the war as first sergeants, and who distinguished themselves in that capacity, have been allowed to go back to their old companies to serve in inferior positions. notably is this the case with sergeant william h. givens, whose history has been detailed as commanding troop d, tenth cavalry, after captain bigelow fell, and who heroically led the troop up the hill. he is now serving in his old troop as corporal, his distinction having actually worked his reduction rather than substantial promotion. it must not be inferred from the foregoing, however, that nothing whatever was done in recognition of the gallantry of the colored regulars. something was done. cases of individual heroism were so marked, and so numerous, that they could not be ignored. the men who had so distinguished themselves could not be disposed of by special mention and compliments in orders. something more substantial was required. fortunately for such purpose four regiments of colored united states volunteer infantry were then in course of organization, in which the policy had been established that colored men should be accepted as officers below the grade of captain. into these regiments the colored men who had won distinction at santiago were placed, many as second lieutenants, although some were given first lieutenancies. this action of the government was hailed with great delight on the part of the colored americans generally, and the honors were accepted very gratefully by the soldiers who had won them on the field. fortunately as this opening seemed, it turned out very disappointing. it soon became evident that these regiments would be mustered out of the service, as they had proven themselves no more immune, so far as it could be determined from the facts, than other troops. the lieutenants who had been most fortunate in getting their commissions early got about six or seven months' service, and then the dream of their glory departed and they fell back to the ranks to stand "attention" to any white man who could muster political influence sufficient to secure a commission. their day was short, and when they were discharged from the volunteer service, there appeared no future for them as commissioned officers. their occupation was indeed gone. it was for them a most disappointing and exasperating promotion, resulting in some cases in loss of standing and in financial injury. their honors were too short-lived, and too circumscribed, to be much more than a lively tantalization, to be remembered with disgust by those who had worn them. cruel, indeed, was the prejudice that could dictate such a policy to the brave black men of san juan. the black heroes, however, were not without sympathy in their misfortune. the good people of the country had still a warm place in their hearts for the colored soldier, despite the sayings of his maligners. the people of washington, d.c., had an opportunity to testify their appreciation of the tenth cavalry as that regiment passed through their city on its way to its station in alabama, and later a portion of it was called to philadelphia to take part in the peace jubilee, and no troops received more generous attention. to express in some lasting form their regard for the regiment and its officers, some patriotic citizens of philadelphia presented a handsome saber to captain charles g. ayres, who had charge of the detachment which took part in the peace jubilee, "as a token of their appreciation of the splendid conduct of the regiment in the campaign of santiago, and of its superb soldierly appearance and good conduct during its attendance at the jubilee parade in philadelphia." likewise when the twenty-fifth infantry arrived at its station at fort logan, colorado, the people of denver gave to both officers and men a most cordial reception, and invited them at once to take part in their fall carnival. all over the country there was at that time an unusual degree of good feeling toward the colored soldier who had fought so well, and no one seemed to begrudge him the rest which came to him or the honors bestowed upon him. this state of feeling did not last. before the year closed assiduous efforts were made to poison the public mind toward the black soldier, and history can but record that these efforts were too successful. the three hundred colored officers became an object at which both prejudice and jealousy could strike; but to reach them the reputation of the entire colored contingent must be assailed. this was done with such vehemence and persistency that by the opening of the good name of the black regular was hidden under the rubbish of reports of misconduct. so much had been said and done, even in denver, which had poured out its welcome words to the heroes of el caney, that the ministerial alliance of that city, on february , , found it necessary to take up the subject, and that body expressed itself in the unanimous adoption of the following resolutions: resolutions adopted unanimously by the ministerial alliance of denver, february , . _resolved_, by the ministerial alliance of the city of denver, that the attempt made in certain quarters to have the twenty-fifth regiment, united states infantry, removed from fort logan, appears to this body to rest on no just grounds, to be animated on the contrary by motives unworthy and discreditable to denver and the state, and that especially in view of the heroic record of the twenty-fifth regiment, its presence here is an honor to denver and colorado, which this alliance would regret to have withdrawn.[ ] the mustering out of the volunteers about the time this opposition was approaching what appeared to be a climax, causing the removal from the service of the colored officers, appeased the wrath of the demon, and the waves of the storm gradually sank to a peace, gratifying, indeed, to those who shuddered to see a black man with shoulder-straps. as the last negro officer descended from the platform and honorably laid aside his sword to take his place as a citizen of the republic, or a private in her armies, that class of our citizenship breathed a sigh of relief. what mattered it to them whether justice were done; whether the army were weakened; whether individuals were wronged; they were relieved from seeing negroes in officers' uniforms, and that to them is a most gracious portion. the discharge of the volunteers was to them the triumph of their prejudices, and in it they took great comfort, although as a matter of fact it was a plain national movement coming about as a logical sequence, entirely independent of their whims or wishes. the injustice to the negro officer does not lie in his being mustered out of the volunteer service, but in the failure to provide for a recognition of his valor in the nation's permanent military establishment. the departure of the colored man from the volunteer service was the consequent disappearance of the colored military officer, with the single exception of lieutenant charles young of the regular cavalry, had a very depressing effect upon the colored people at large, and called forth from their press and their associations most earnest protests. with a few exceptions, these protests were encouched in respectful language toward the president and his advisers, but the grounds upon which they were based were so fair and just, that right-thinking men could not avoid their force. the following resolution, passed by the national afro-american council, may be taken as representative of the best form of such remonstrance: "_resolved_, that we are heartily grieved that the president of the united states and those in authority have not from time to time used their high station to voice the best conscience of the nation in regard to mob violence and fair treatment of justly deserving men. it is not right that american citizens should be despoiled of life and liberty while the nation looks silently on; or that soldiers who, with conspicuous bravery, offer their lives for the country, should have their promotion result in practical dismissal from the army." the nation graciously heeded the call of justice and in the re-organization of the volunteer army provided for two colored regiments, of which all the company officers should be colored men. under this arrangement many of the black heroes of santiago were recalled from the ranks and again restored to the positions they had won. thus did the nation in part remedy the evil which came in consequence of the discharge of the volunteers, and prove its willingness to do right. triumphantly did the administration vindicate itself in the eyes of good people, and again did it place its withering disapproval upon the conduct of those who were ready to shout their applause over the worthy black officer's accidental humiliation. the negro officer disappeared from the united states' regiments as a lieutenant only; but he returns to the same, or rather, to a higher grade of the same form of regiments, both as lieutenant and captain. how rapid and pronounced has been the evolution! it is true the negro officer is still a volunteer, but his standing is measurably improved, both because of the fact of his recall, and also because the regiments which he is now entering have some prospect of being incorporated into the regular army. it does not seem probable that the nation can much longer postpone the increase of the standing army, and in this increase it is to be hoped the american negro, both as soldier and officer, will receive that full measure of justice of which the formation of the present two colored regiments is so conspicuous a part. * * * * * diary of e.l. baker. sergeant-major tenth u.s. cavalry. appointed first lieutenant ninth u.s. volunteer infantry, and later captain of the forty-ninth volunteer infantry--now lieutenant in philippine scouts. a trip from montana to cuba with the tenth u.s. cavalry. april , , at . p.m., telegram was received from department headquarters, st. paul, minnesota, ordering the regiment to the department of the gulf. as every click of the telegraph instrument was expected to announce a rupture in the diplomatic relations between the united states and the kingdom of spain, all knew that the mobilization of the army south meant preparing it for the serious work for which it is maintained. on april we were off for chickamauga park. en route we were heartily greeted. patriotism was at its height. every little hamlet, even, had its offerings. to compare the journey with cæsar's march of triumph would be putting it mildly. we arrived at the historic point april . every moment of our stay there was assiduously devoted to organizing, refitting and otherwise preparing for the inevitable. officers were sent to many parts of the country to secure recruits. many also gave up details and relinquished their leaves of absence to take part in the impending crisis. may . we were moved a little nearer the probable theatre of operations. on account of some deficiency in water for troops at tampa, the regiment was stopped at lakeland, miles this side, where many recruits were received; troops increased to war strength, and new troops established. drills and instructions were also constantly followed up. june . orders were received to prepare headquarters, band and eight troops dismounted, with trained men only, for service in cuba. recruits to be left in camp with horses and property. june . we were off for port tampa, where the regiment embarked on the steamship leona that afternoon. june . she steamed from the dock. when the expedition seemed to be forming, news was received that the dreaded spanish fleet was being sighted, evidently lying in wait for army transports. so we steamed back to the pier. many of the men appeared disappointed at the move, probably not realizing that there was too much water in the atlantic ocean for the th army corps to drink. to my mind, the divine providence surely directed the move, as the delay enabled the force to be swelled several thousand, every one of whom was needed before santiago. june . we steamed out of tampa bay, amid cheers and music from the thirty odd transports, heavily escorted by naval vessels. among them were the much talked-of dynamiter, vesuvius, and the beautiful little cruiser, helena. off dry tortugas that formidable warship, indiana, joined the fleet. splendid weather; nothing unusual transpiring, though our transport, which also contained the first u.s. cavalry, had a seemingly close call from being sent to the bottom of the sea, or else being taken in as a prisoner, which the enemy could have done with impunity. whilst going down the saint nicholas chanel, in cuban waters, the vessel was deliberately stopped about midnight, june , and left to roll in the trough of the sea until the morning of the th, in consequence of which we were put hours behind the fleet and without escort, almost in sight of the cuban shores. men were indignant at having been placed in such a helpless position, and would have thrown the captain of the ship, whom they accused of being a spanish sympathizer and otherwise disloyal, overboard without ceremony, but for the strong arm of military discipline. we were picked up by the u.s. cruiser bancroft, late in the afternoon, she having been sent in quest of the jonah of the fleet. upon approach of the ship there were prolonged cheers from all of uncle sam's defenders. the only explanation that i have ever heard for this unpardonable blunder on the part of the ship's crew was that they mistook a signal of a leading vessel. june . land was sighted. june . dispatch boats active; transports circling; morro castle pointed out; three days' rations issued to each man; no extra impedimenta to be taken ashore; crew preparing for landing. june . as we neared daiquiri, the designated place for disembarking, flames could be seen reaching almost to the heavens, the town having been fired by the fleeing spaniards upon the approach of war vessels of sampson's fleet, who were assembling to bombard the shore and cover our landing. after a fierce fire from these ships, the landing was effected with loss of two men of our regiment, who were doubtless crushed to death between the lighters. they were buried near the place of recovery the next morning. the few half-clothed and hungry-looking natives on shore seemed pleased to see us. daiquiri, a shipping point of the spanish-american iron company, was mostly deserted. the board houses seemed to have been spared, while the sun-burned huts thatched with palm were still smoking, also the roundhouse in which there were two railroad locomotives, warped and twisted from the heat. the spanish evidently fired everything they could before evacuating. june . at . p.m. troops a, b, e and i, left with four troops of the first u.s. cavalry and rough riders (first u.s. volunteer cavalry) as advance guard of the army of invasion on the main road to santiago de cuba; about men all told, three hotchkiss guns, manned by ten cavalrymen, accompanied also by the brigadier commander, general s.m.b. young and staff. note.--these troops marched about miles through a drenching rain from to p.m.; bivouacked one hour later. oh the th, after breakfast, took the trail about . a.m. the vapor from wet clothing rose with the sun, so that you could scarcely recognize a man ten feet away. about three and one-half miles above siboney the command was halted; the first u.s. volunteer cavalry (rough riders) sent to the left; proceeding farther about one mile, the main column was split, first u.s. cavalry going to the right, the tenth cavalry remaining in the center. general wheeler joined at this point, accompanied by his orderly, private queene, troop a, tenth cavalry. disposition of the troops was explained by general young, who had located his headquarters with the tenth u.s. cavalry; general wheeler made his the same. hotchkiss guns were ordered closed up; magazines filled. the column had proceeded but a short way when the engagement opened in all its fury; troops were deployed and advanced in the direction from which the bullets were coming the thickest, as rapidly as the formation of the ground would permit, the left of the line touching the right of the rough riders. june . headquarters, band and the remainder of the first and tenth u.s. cavalry were off at a.m. the road was alive with troops (c, d, f, g,) colonels and privates alike lugging their rations and bedding beneath that ever watchful tropical sun, feeling as though they would wilt at every step, the undergrowth being so thick and tall that scarcely any breeze could get to you. on emerging from this thicket, through which we had been marching for several hours, the sampson fleet could be heard firing on the spanish batteries on shore. marines and other troops could be seen crossing the mountains above altares; this revived the men very much. as we approached verni jarabo (altares?), we were met by general lawton, who informed our colonel that the advance guard was engaged with the spanish at la guasima, and that it was hard pressed. our pace was quickened; the news appeared to lighten our heavy packs as we toiled to the front to assist our comrades. the roar of the artillery became plainer; wounded men along the road as well as those played-out from the intense heat. women and children were fleeing to places of safety. our forces were repairing a railroad engine and track; also tearing up a piece leading to a spanish blockhouse. in fact, everything seemed to have on an exceedingly warlike tint, but our advance continued as swifty as our weary feet would allow, which soon brought us to a number of our own comrades conveyed on litters from la guasima, where our advance guard was tussling hard with the dons for the honors of the day. upon arrival of reinforcements, victory had been wrested from the dons fairly by the advance guard without assistance. every one greeted each other, as though it had been a year instead of a few hours since parting. the first u.s. cavalry and rough riders were unstinted in extolling the fighting qualities of their brothers in arms, the tenth u.s. cavalry. the enemy was struck early june , entrenched on the heights of la guasima, near sevilla, on the main road from daiquiri to the city of santiago de cuba. the advance guard was soon hotly engaged with them; after a very desperate fight of over one hour, the enemy was driven in confusion from their intrenchments. our men were too exhausted to follow them. the tenth cavalry lost killed and wounded. for a while it was a terrific fight, as the enemy was strongly intrenched on the heights and our men had to climb them subjected to their fire, which was very accurate, and much of it doubtless from machine guns in hands of experienced men. our men had also to contend with the thickest underbrush, wire fences (the famous military trochas) and spanish daggers jabbing them in side at every step. for a while the situation was serious. the decisive blow of the attack seems to have been struck at an opportune moment, and the enemy withdrew in confusion. it has been estimated that about , spanish were engaged. everything indicated that they lost heavily; a santiago paper put it at . the writer and the sergeant-major of the first u.s. cavalry superintended the digging of one large grave where all the dead of the two regiments were interred according to the episcopal service. the rough riders, being farther to our left, buried their own. if advantage of position goes for anything, the spanish should have annihilated the americans as they approached the stronghold. the command remained on the battlefield until june , when it proceeded to sevilla, an old coffee and sugar plantation, to await the assembling of the army and placing of the artillery. our camp at sevilla was an interesting one in many ways. it was pitched between the main road and a stream of excellent water. from the hill beyond, the spanish works could be viewed. from the roadside many acquaintances were seen, also generals, foreign military attaches, troops, artillery and pack trains. wheeled transportation seemed entirely out of its place in cuba; one piece of artillery was noticed with horses tugging away at it. the cuban army, cavalry and infantry, passed us at this point, which seemed to consist of every male capable of swelling the crowd. those unable to carry or secure guns had an old knife or machete strapped to them. on june , about p.m., shortly after our daily shower, which was a little more severe and much longer than usual, the regiment was put in motion for the front. we had marched about yards when the war balloon was seen ascending some distance to our right. as the balloon question was new, every one almost was stumbling on the man's heels in front, trying to get a peep at this wonderful war machine. after much vexatious delay, narrow road crowded with troops, a pack train came along and added its mite to the congestion, as some of the mules turned their heels on the advancing column when pushed too much. we finally merged into a beautiful lawn, site of the division hospital, where all were as busy as beavers in placing this indispensable adjunct in order. here the work of july was clearly suggested. proceeding, wading and rewading streams, we bivouacked beyond the artillery on the heights of el poso, an old sugar plantation, about four miles off, in plain view of the city of santiago. the lights of the city showed so brightly, the enemy offering no resistance to our advance, i could not help feeling apprehensive of being in a trap. i thought so seriously over the matter that i did not unroll my pack, so as to be ready at an instant. simply released my slicker, put it on, and lay down where i halted. early july all the brigade was up, getting breakfast and making as much noise as if on a practice march. the tenth cavalry did not make any fire until orders were received to that effect. i remarked to my bunky that we were not going to fight evidently, as the smoke would surely disclose our presence and enable the enemy's artillery to get our range. the whole of santiago seemed to be decorated with hospital flags. at . a shell from capron's battery, u.s. artillery, directed at a blockhouse in el caney, announced that the battle was on. then the musketry became general. all stood and watched the doomed village quite a while as the battle progressed. soon grices' battery of the u.s. artillery, which was in support, belched forth destruction at the spanish works of the city, using black powder. the fire was almost immediately returned by the enemy's batteries, who had smokeless. they were shortly located when a fierce duel took place. the dons were silenced, but not until we had suffered loss. during this fire an aide--lieut. wm. e. shipp, tenth cavalry, brigade quartermaster--brought orders for us to take position on the left of the first u.s. cavalry. the line extended nearly north and south on a ridge some three or four miles from the city, where the regiment was exposed to much of the return fire from the enemy's batteries. the men exhibited no special concern and watched the flight of the death messenger as eagerly as if at a horse race. adjutant barnum here divided the band and turned it over to the surgeons to assist in caring for the wounded, and directed saddler sergeant smith and myself to accompany the colonel in advance. when lieut. shipp delivered his orders, some of the officers remarked, "you are having a good time riding around here." he replied that it was no picnic riding among bullets, and that he would prefer being with his troops. after the artillery had ceased firing, the regiment moved to the right, passed el poso, where there were additional signs of the enemy's havoc among our troops, proceeded down the road leading to santiago. the movement of the regiment was delayed as it approached the san juan river, by an infantry brigade which had halted. the regiment came within range of musket fire about three-quarters or one-half mile from the crossing. upon reaching the ford the colonel (baldwin) rode nearly across the stream (closely followed by his regiment) when we were greeted by the dons with a terrific volley of musketry, soon followed by artillery, which caused us to realize more fully than ever, that "things were coming our way." orders were given to throw off packs and get cover. in removing his, sergeant smith, on, my immediate left, was assisted by a spanish bullet, and an infantry soldier fell as my pack was thrown off to the right. in seeking cover men simply dropped to the right and left of the road in a prone position. the regiment was here subjected to a terrific converging fire from the blockhouse and intrenchments in front and the works further to the left and nearer the city. the atmosphere seemed perfectly alive with flying missiles from bursting shells over head, and rifle bullets which seemed to have an explosive effect. much fire was probably drawn by the war balloon, which preceded the regiment to a point on the edge of the river, near the ford, where it was held. this balloon undoubtedly rendered excellent service in locating positions of the spanish works and developing an ambush which had been laid for us, but the poor, ill-fated balloon certainly received many uncomplimentary remarks during our stay in its vicinity. it seemed as though the spanish regarded the balloon as an evil agent of some kind, and as though every gun, both great and small, was playing on it. i made several trips under it following the colonel, who repeatedly rode up and down the stream, and i would have been fully satisfied to have allowed my mind even to wander back to the gaily lighted ball rooms and festivals left behind only a few months before. while on the last trip under the balloon a large naval shell exploded, knocking the colonel's hat off, crippling his horse, and injuring the rider slightly in the arm and side, all of course, in addition to a good sand bath. i then joined the regiment, some rods beyond, then under cover. in crouching down behind a clump of brush, heard some one groan; on looking around, saw private marshall struggling in the river wounded. immediately rushing to his assistance another of those troublesome shells passed so close as to cause me to feel the heat. it did not stop the effort, however, and the wounded man was placed in safety. the regiment remained in the road only a few moments when it was ordered to take position behind the river bank some yards above the balloon for protection; while moving to that position, and while there, suffered much loss. why we did not lose heavier may be attributed to the fact that the enemy's musket fire was a trifle high, and their shells timed from one-half to one second too long, caused them to explode beyond, instead of in front, where the shells would have certainly secured the dons' maximum results, as, after the balloon was cut down, you could scarcely hold your hand up without getting it hit. during the battle, one trooper fell upon a good-sized snake and crushed it to death, and another trooper allowed one of these poisonous reptiles to crawl over him while dodging a volley from the spanish mausers. the shrapnel and canister shells, with their exceedingly mournful and groaning sound, seemed to have a more terrifying effect than the swift mauser bullet, which always rendered the same salutation, "bi-yi." the midern shrapnel shell is better known as the man-killing projectile, and may be regarded as the most dangerous of all projectiles designed for taking human life. it is a shell filled with or bullets, and having a bursting charge, which is ignited by a time fuse, only sufficient to break the base and release the bullets, which then move forward with the velocity it had the time of bursting. each piece is capable of dealing death to any living thing in its path. in practice firing, it is known where, by one shot, hits were made by a single shrapnel. in another, hits are recorded. imagine then, the havoc of a well-directed shrapnel upon a group of men such as is here represented. capron's battery at el caney cut down cavalrymen with one shell. after a delay of about minutes, during part of the time, the writer, assisted by sergeant smith and mr. t.a. baldwin, cut all the wire fences possible. mr. baldwin was dangerously wounded while so engaged just before the general advance. the regiment merged into open space in plain view of and under the fire of the enemy; and formed line of battle facing toward the blockhouses and strong intrenchments to the north, occupied by the spanish, and advanced rapidly in this formation, under a galling, converging fire from the enemy's artillery and infantry, on the blockhouses and heavy intrenchments to the right front. many losses occurred before reaching the top of the hill, lieut. w.h. smith being killed while gallantly conducting his troop as it arrived on the crest. lieut. w.e. shipp was killed about the same instant, shortly after leaving lieutenant smith, further to the left and near the pond on the sunken road leading to santiago. lieutenant smith was struck in the head and perished with a single groan. lieutenant shipp was hit near the heart; death must have been almost instantaneous, though it appears he made an effort to make use of his first aid package. thus the careers of two gallant and efficient officers whose lives had been so closely associated were ended. private slaughter, who was left in charge of lieutenant smith's body, was picked off by the spanish sharpshooters, and private jackson, lieutenant shipp's orderly, was left as deaf as a post from a bursting shell. the enemy having been driven back, northwest, to the second and third blockhouses, new lines were formed and a rapid advance made upon them to the new positions. the regiment assisted in capturing these works from the enemy, and planted two sets of colors on them, then took up a position to the north of the second blockhouse. with some changes in position of troops, this line, one of the most advanced, about three hundred yards of the enemy, was held and intrenchments dug under a very heavy and continuous fire from the spanish intrenchments in front, july and . in their retreat from the ridge, the enemy stood not on the order of their going, but fled in disorder like so many sheep from the scene, abandoning a quantity of ammunition, which was fired at them subsequently from our rapid-fire guns. our men were too exhausted to pursue them, footwear and clothing being soaked by wading rivers, they had become drenched with rain, and when they reached the crest they were about played-out; having fought about hours, most of which was under that ever-relentless tropical sun. throughout the night, work on the intrenchments was pushed, details buried the dead, improvised litters, and conveyed the wounded to hospitals, all of which was prosecuted with that vim for which the regular soldier is characterized, notwithstanding their water-logged condition. the regiment acted with extraordinary coolness and bravery. it held its position at the ford and moved forward unflinchingly after deployment, through the dense underbrush, crossed and recrossed by barbed wire, under heavy and almost plunging fire from the spanish works, while attacking with small arms an enemy strongly posted in intrenchments and blockhouses, supported by artillery, and who stubbornly contested every inch of ground gained by the american troops. officers were exceedingly active and tireless in their efforts to inspire and encourage the men. you could hear them call out, "move right along; the spaniards can't shoot; they are using blanks." one officer deliberately stopped and lit his pipe amid a shower of bullets, and then moved on as unconcerned as if on target practice. the rifle pits occupied by the enemy were intrenchments in reality, dug almost shoulder deep, and faced with stone, being constructed without approaches, leaving the only avenue for escape over the parapet, which was equivalent to committing suicide, in face of the unerring marksmanship of the united states troops. we were afterward told by a spanish soldier how they were held in these trenches by an officer stationed at each end with a club; also how they depended on their officers for everything. this may account for the large percentage of our officers picked off by the dons. i observed during the battle that when spotted by the enemy, delivering orders or busying about such duties as usually indicated some one in authority, the spanish would fire whole volleys at an individual, this evidently with a view to demoralizing the rank and file by knocking off the officers. the spanish also tried an old indian trick to draw our fire, or induce the men to expose themselves, by raising their hats on sticks or rifles, or placing them upon parapets, so when we went to fire they would aim to catch us as we rose with a terrific volley. the dons were, however, soon convinced of their folly in this respect, as we always had a volley for the hats and a much stouter one for the enemy as he raised to reply to the volley at the hats. the tenth cavalry had fought indians too long in the west to be foiled in that manner. we were annoyed much by the spanish sharpshooters stationed in tops of the beautiful palms and other trees of dense foliage. a number of these guerillas were found provided with seats, water and other necessaries, and i am told some of them had evidently robbed our dead to secure themselves an american uniform, that they might still carry on their nefarious work undetected. many of the disabled received their second and some their mortal wound, while being conveyed from the field by litter-bearers. though it was the tendency for a time to give the sharpshooter story little or no credence, but to lay the matter to "spent bullets"; it seemed almost out of the question that "spent bullets" should annoy our division hospital, some four or five miles from the spanish works. it would also seem equally as absurd that a bullet could be trained to turn angles, as several of our men were hit while assembled for transfer to general hospital and receiving temporary treatment at the dressing station located in an elbow of the san juan river. the division hospital was so harassed that it was necessary to order four troops of the th u.s. cavalry there for guard. while en route to the hospital on the morning of july with wounded, i saw a squad of the nd u.s. cavalry after one of these annoying angels, not feet from the road. on arrival at the hospital i was told by a comrade that several had been knocked from their stage of action. on july , our color-sergeant was shot from a tree after our line had passed beneath the tree where he was located. july , three more fell in response to a volley through tree tops, and on july , while waiting the hand to reach the hour for the bombardment of the city, one of the scoundrels deliberately ascended a tree in plain view of, and within two hundred yards of, our line. it was a good thing that the white flag for surrender appeared before the hour to commence firing, otherwise spain would have had at least one less to haggle with on account of back pay. to locate a sharpshooter using smokeless powder among the dense tropical growth may be compared with "looking for a needle in a haystack." the killed and wounded in battle present a scene well calculated to move the most callous. men shot and lacerated in every conceivable manner; some are expressionless; some just as they appeared in life; while others are pinched and drawn and otherwise distorted, portraying agony in her most distressful state. of the wounded, in their anguish, some are perfectly quiet; others are heard praying; some are calling for their mothers, while others are giving out patriotic utterances, urging their comrades on to victory, or bidding them farewell as they pass on to the front. july , in passing a wounded comrade, he told me that he could whip the cowardly spaniard who shot him, in a fair fist fight. during the first day's battle many interesting sights were witnessed. the new calibre gatling guns were in action. these cruel machines were peppering away several hundred shots each per minute and sweeping their front from right to left, cutting down shrubbery and spaniards like grain before the reaper. i observed the excellent service of the hotchkiss mountain gun; they certainly do their work to perfection and well did the dons know it. many shots fired into the "blind ditches and blockhouses" of the enemy caused them to scatter like rats. these guns use a percussion shell nearly two inches, and can be packed on mules. they were designed for light service with cavalry on the frontier. four of these little beauties were manned by men of the tenth cavalry. the spanish made it so hot for the boys that they would have to roll the gun under cover to load, and then steal it back to fire. i saw one of our light batteries of artillery go in position under fire at the foot of san juan hill. the movement was swiftly and skillfully executed. a most interesting feature of this was to see the caissons, drawn by six magnificent horses, off for ammunition. three drivers to each outfit, one to each pair of horses; all plying the whip at every jump, would remind you of a roman chariot race coming around on their last heat. wheeled vehicles of war suffer more than other troops, on account of their stationary positions. it is here that the dreaded sharpshooter comes in for glory, by picking off the gunners and other individuals. pack trains were seen dashing along the line with that always absolutely essential--ammunition--thereby gladdening the hearts of the boys who were doing their utmost to expend every round in their belts to gain another foot of spanish territory. during all these stirring events the stomachs of the real heroes were not neglected, and most certainly not along our part of the line. pack mules were brought right up to the line under a hot fire, loaded with sugar, coffee, bacon and hardtack, all of which was in plenty. some of the mules were killed and wounded, but this did not retard the advance of the train. when near the firing line some one called, "whose rations?" a prompt reply, "hungry soldiers." the daring horseman was all that was needed to make the situation complete. without participation of cavalry, the ideal warrior disappears from the scene, and the battle and-picture of war is robbed of its most attractive feature. late in the afternoon, july , i was directed to take saddler sergeant smith and bring to the firing line all the men i could find of the regiment. going to the dressing station, collected those who had brought or assisted wounded there, thence across a portion of the field passed over a few hours previous. men were found almost exhausted, soaking wet, or a solid mass of mud, resting as comfortably as if in the finest of beds; many of them had been on picket duty all night before, to which was added the hard day's work not then completed. after locating all i could, we went to the crest of the san juan hill, to the left of the sunken road, where the first u.s. cavalry was reforming, and there picked up a few more who had joined that regiment. the tenth cavalry having in the meantime taken another position, i set out to find it, going in front, telling smith to bring up the rear. we were detained a short time near sunken roads by shells from cervera's fleet, which were falling in it at a lively rate. barbed wire prevented us from "running the gauntlet." shortly after crossing the road an officer passed us, his horse pushed to his utmost, telling us to take all the ammunition that we possibly could on the firing line. about that instant, the pack train came thundering by, which we relieved of a few thousand rounds in short order. i was much amused at one of the men who innocently asked, "where are we to get axes to burst these strong boxes?" the job was speedily accomplished before the boxes were on the ground good, and most certainly in less time than it would have taken to explain matters to the inexperienced. we were soon off again, tramping all over the country, through darkness, running into wire entanglements, outposts and pickets, and within fifty yards of the enemy (subsequently ascertained). about . p.m. found colonel roosevelt a few hundred yards from the spanish lines with some of my regiment, the first cavalry, and rough riders, at work on trenches, where we reported. all seemed glad to have my little reinforcement, about men, and ammunition. i never felt so relieved at anything as i did to get that herculean task off my hands, a job as hard as working a problem in the third book of euclid. the men were so tired that they would lie down at every stop to find the right road or the way out of the wire entanglements constantly encountered. i have never seen in a book anything to equal the spanish wire entanglements. barbed wire was stretched in every nook and corner, through streams, grass, and from two inches to six feet in height, and from a corkscrew to a cable in design. it takes the nerve of a circus man to get men along when they are so exhausted that every place feels alike to them, and that they would gladly give away mr. jim hill's fortune if they possessed it, for a few hours' sleep. on arrival at the front, lunch was about over or just ready. lieutenant e.d. anderson ( th cavalry) gave me two and one-half hardtacks from his supply, which he carried in his bosom. i was soon down for a little rest; all desultory firing had ceased; the pick and the shovel were the only things to disturb the quietude of that anxious night. had been down but a short time when aroused by one of the rough riders, who had some rice and meat in an ammunition box which he brought from the captured blockhouse. the meat was undoubtedly mule, as the longer i chewed it the larger and more spongy it got, and were it not for the fact that i had had some experience in the same line many years before in mexico while in pursuit of hostile indians, i would certainly have accused our best friends (rough riders) of feeding us rubber. i made another effort for a little sleep, and was again aroused by some one passing around hardtack, raw bacon, etc., with instructions as to where to go to cook it. i thanked him and carefully laid it aside to resume my nap. at . a.m. the pickets were having such a lively set to, that i thought the general engagement was on. it was at this time i discovered that i was shivering cold, and that my teeth were rattling equal to a telegraph sounder; so under the circumstances, i concluded not to try for any more sleep. the dew was falling thick and heavy; no coat, no blanket, top shirt torn in strips from the brush, and undershirt wet and in my pack, thrown off on coming into battle. early july nd the artillery took position on our left. pickets kept up firing from . a.m. until . , when the engagement became general. shortly after . a.m. our artillery opened on the spanish works, who promptly returned the compliment. during the firing the dons exploded a shell in the muzzle of one of our pieces. adjutant barnum fell at . a.m.; his wound was promptly dressed, when i started to the division hospital with him. though seriously hurt, i have never seen a better natured man. while en route, we laid him down to eat a can of salmon _found in the road_. in response to his query, "what's up, sergeant?" the salmon was passed him; he helped himself, no further questions were asked, and the journey was resumed. on arrival at the hospital he was quickly examined and placed on a comfortable cot. many of the attendants were completely played-out from overwork. a visit to a field hospital will have a lasting place in your memory. every way you turn, amid the cries and groans, you get a beck or call to ease this, or hand me that, and one feels badly because of his inability to extend them material aid in their sufferings. on returning to the front, i found the regiment as hotly engaged as when i left it some hours before. as the fighting was from trenches, many of our men were wounded by shells. sharpshooters were on hand as usual. i was sent to the captain of troop e, under the crest of the hill, with orders to dig an approach to one of the enemy's trenches, evacuated the day before; also to bury some of their dead. while delivering the order, it being necessary to get very close on account of the noise, one of those ever vigilant sharpshooters put a bullet between our faces. the captain asked me to cut the wire fence so his troops could get through more rapidly; while telling me, another bullet passed so close as to disturb the captain's mustache. he took it good-naturedly, only remarking as he smiled, "pretty close, sergeant-major!" firing ceased about p.m. after all had had supper we changed position further to the right, where work on trenches was resumed. about . p.m. the spaniards made an attack upon our lines, and i have never before or since seen such terrific firing; the whole american line, which almost encircled the city, was a solid flame of fire. the enemy's artillery replied, also their much-praised "mausers," but to no avail; they had opened the ball, but uncle sam's boys did not feel like yielding one inch of the territory so dearly bought. about midnight all hands were aroused by the dynamite cruiser vesuvius "coughing" for the dons. the roar was so great that it seemed to shake the whole island. to the uninitiated it would appear that some one had taken a few mountains several miles up in a balloon and thrown them down. july . firing by pickets commenced very early, and quite heavy, at . a.m. terrific cannonading to the seaward was heard between and a.m. as there was some talk of the enemy making a sortie, all eyes were open. dirt began falling in the pits from the jar, bells could be heard tolling in the city, and steam whistles in the harbor. there was much speculation as to what was in progress. i'll say that there were many glad hearts when the news reached us that _sampson's fleet was king of the seas_. at m. all firing was ordered off, for flag of truce to enter the spanish lines. when the order for cease firing was given, one of the troopers laid his gun upon the parapet and remarked that he "would not take $ for his experience, but did not want a cent's worth more." work on bomb-proofs and breast works was continued incessantly until news of the surrender reached us. july . flag of truce all day; national and regimental colors placed on parapets. at noon the regiment paraded, and all hearts cheered by the patriotic telegram of the commander-in-chief--his excellency, president mckinley. refugees, in droves, could be seen leaving for several days, notice of bombardment having been served on the city. july . there was much excitement when lieutenant hobson and party crossed our lines. during truce, the monotony was broken occasionally by the presence of spanish soldiers in quest of something to eat or desiring to surrender. truce was off july at p.m. bombardment of the city commenced by the army and navy combined, which continued until p.m. th. gatling, dynamite, rapid-firing and hotchkiss guns were so well trained that the dons scarcely dared to raise their heads, and their firing was soon silenced. during the attack our part of the line suffered no loss. while occupying these works, it was discovered that the gun of the enemy that _annoyed us most was quite near a large building covered with red cross flags_. during the truce all of our dead were located and buried. it was sad, indeed, to see the vultures swarming like flies, when we knew so well their prey. though prepared to, several times, no shots were exchanged after july , and all was quiet until date of capitulation. the hardest rain ever witnessed, accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, was on the last day of the engagement. trenches were flooded and everything appeared as a sea. july , at a.m., the regiment, with the remainder of the army, was assembled over the trenches to witness the formal surrender of general toral, with the spanish forces. owing to the dense tropical growth, and its similarity in color to their clothing, little or nothing could be seen, beyond the straw hats of the dons, as they marched through the jungles. at m., we were again placed in the same position, to salute "old glory" as she ascended over the governor's palace in the city, which was told by capron's battery u.s. artillery. at the first shot, every individual tested his lungs to their fullest capacity, bands of music playing national airs. spanish soldiers were soon over our lines, trading off swords, wine, cigarettes and trinkets for hard tack and bacon. this soon ended, as there were positive orders against our fraternizing. the spaniards were a fine looking lot of young men; though generally small in stature, and were very neat and clean, considering. the officers were an intelligent and dignified looking set. the dons were away ahead on ammunition, and away behind on eatables. a few musty, hard tack, thrown in our trenches, were devoured like so much fresh beef, by so many hungry wolves. campaigning in the tropics entails many hardships, though unavoidable and only to be expected, in war. war is horrible in any aspect in which it may be viewed. even those features of it intended to be merciful, are full of harshness and rigor; and after all, fighting is the easiest part. as the capitulation was complete, and santiago was our's, we were ordered to change camp to a more healthful locality, with a view to allowing the men to recuperate. while en route many refugees were met returning to the city, men and women, with the scantiest clothing imaginable; large children even worse--in a nude state--all were making signs for something to eat. in passing through el caney, filth of all descriptions was piled up in the streets; stock was seen standing inside dwellings with occupants; young and old were emaciated--walking skeletons; children with stomachs bloated to thrice their natural size--due to the unsanitary condition of the huts, so i was informed. the bare facts are, that "half has never been told" regarding the true condition of the cubans, and it is truly a godsend that "uncle sam" was not delayed another day in letting the don's breathe a little of nature's sweetest fragrance of the nineteenth century--civilization. the portion of the island i saw appears to be a beautiful park deserted and laid waste by the lavish application of the torch for many years. magnificent mansions, or dwellings, in ruins; habitation scant, except near towns. there were no domestic animals, except a few for saddle purposes, nor were there crops to be seen. no use whatever appears to be made of the luxuriant pasturage and rich fields. sugar houses and sheds on plantations are in a state of decay, and the huge kettles for boiling deeply coated with rust. the climate of cuba offers all the essentials, heat, moisture and organic matter, for the development of germ life in its most active form. the great heat and moisture, so excellent for the development of infected wounds, and for the rapid decomposing of the heavy undergrowth cannot, i believe, be exceeded anywhere. the frequent tropical showers, invariably followed by a hot steam, along with which germs seem to float; the consequent exposure of the men to that glaring heat and moisture, lowered the general tone of the system so that they were especially liable to attacks of miasmatic diseases (malarial and typhoid fevers and dysentery.) owing to the dense humidity, clothing does not dry so long as it remains on the person, but must be removed, a condition that was absolutely impossible for many days on the field before santiago. to this alone, much of our sickness may be attributed. our new camp, pitched on the eminence of el caney, about one and one-half miles from the village, overlooking the city and bay of santiago, with its excellent water, shade, grass, and increased comforts, which were daily shipped from our transports, presented a scene far more conciliatory than had been witnessed about the tenth horse for many days. medals of honor and certificates of merit granted to colored soldiers for distinguished services in the cuban campaign. official. medals of honor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- name. | rank | regiment. | troop or co.| remarks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- bell, dennis | pvt. | th cav. | troop h. |for gallantry lee, fitz | pvt. | th cav. | troop m. |in action at tompkins, wm. h. | pvt. | th cav. | troop m. |tayabacoa, cuba, wanton, geo. h. | pvt. | th cav. | troop m. |june , . ----------------------------------------------------------------------- certificates of merit. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- name. |rank. | regiment. | troop or co.| remarks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- bates, james |pvt. | th cav. | troop h. | crosby, scott |pvt. | th inf. | comp. a. | davis, edward |pvt. | th cav. | troop h. | elliott, j. |sergt. | th cav. | troop d. | fasit, benjamin |sergt. | th cav. | troop e. | gaither, o. |q.m.sergt | th cav. | troop b. | goff, g.w. |sergt. | th cav. | troop b. | graham, j. |sergt. | th cav. | troop e. | hagen, abram |corp. | th inf. | comp. g. | herbert, h.t. |corp. | th cav. | troop e. | houston, adam | st sergt.| th cav. | troop c. | jackson, j. | st sergt.| th cav. | troop c. | jackson, elisha |sergt. | th cav. | troop h. | jackson, peter |corp. | th inf. | comp. g. | jefferson, c.w. | st sergt.| th cav. | troop b. | mccoun, p. | st sergt.| th cav. | troop e. | moore, loney |pvt. | th inf. | comp. a. | oden, oscar |musician | th cav. | ........ | payne, william |sergt. | th cav. | troop e. | pumphrey, geo. w |corp. | th cav. | troop h. | satchell, james |sergt. | th inf. | comp. a. | smith, l. |pvt. | th cav. | troop d. | thornton, william|corp. | th inf. | comp. g. | walker, j. |corp. | th cav. | troop d. | williams, john t.|sergt. | th inf. | comp. g. | williams, r. |corp. | th inf. | comp. b. | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- besides the certificates of merit and medals of honor, mentioned above, and the promotions to commissions in the volunteer services, there were some instances of promotion to non-commissioned officers' positions of men in the ranks or junior grade for conspicuous gallantry. notably among such were benjamin f. sayre, of the twenty-fourth, promoted to sergeant-major for gallantry at san juan, and private james w. peniston, of the tenth cavalry, promoted to squadron sergeant-major for conspicuous bravery at las guasimas. others there may be whose names are not available at this time. footnotes: [ ] "the ninth and tenth cavalry regiments fought one on either side of mine at santiago, and i wish no better men beside me in battle than these colored troops showed themselves to be. later on, when i come to write of the campaign, i shall have much to say about them."--t. roosevelt. [ ] the major commanding the squadron in which sergeant givens' troops served, writes to the sergeant the following letter: sergeant william h. givens, troop d, th cavalry, fort clark, texas. sergeant:--when making my report as commander of the second squadron, th u. s. cavalry, for action of july , , at san juan hills, i did not mention any enlisted men by name, as i was absent from the regiment at the time of making the report and without access to records, so that i could not positively identify and name certain men who were conspicuous during the fight; but i recollect finding a detachment of troop d under your command on the firing line during the afternoon of july st. your service and that of your men at that time was most creditable, and you deserve special credit for having brought your detachment promptly to the firing line when left without a commissioned officer. theo. j. wint, lieutenant-colonel, th u.s. cavalry. second lieutenant, th cavalry. true copy: [ ] extract from _the statesman_, denver, after the departure of the th infantry, and the arrival of the th: two policemen killed, the murderer at large and his comrades of the th regiment busy boasting of their sympathy for him, and extolling his deed to the skies, yet not a single petition has been prepared to have the regiment removed. the th infantry, with its honor undimmed by any such wanton crime, with a record unexcelled by any regiment in the service, was the target for all sorts of criticism and persecution as soon as it arrived. the one is a white regiment, composed of the scum of the earth, the other a black regiment composed of men who have yet to do one thing of which they should be ashamed. yet denver welcomes the one with open arms and salutes with marked favor, while she barely suffered the other to remain. had it been a negro soldier who committed the dastardly deed of saturday night the war department would have been deluged with complaints and requests for removal, but not a word has been said against the th. prejudice and hatred blacker than the wings of night has so envenomed the breasts of the people that fairness is out of the question. be he black, no matter how noble and good, a man must be despised. be he white, he may commit the foulest of crimes and yet have his crimes condoned. chapter xi. the colored volunteers. the ninth ohio battalion--eighth illinois--twenty-third kansas-third north carolina--sixth virginia--third alabama--the immunes. the return of the army and the repatriation of the spanish army from cuba, brought before the country for immediate solution the problem of garrisoning that island; and in a very short time the question of similar nature regarding porto rico. ten regiments of immunes had been organized in the volunteer service partly in anticipation of such a situation. four of these regiments were composed of colored enlisted men. the regiments were classed as united states volunteer infantry, and were numbered from one to ten, the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth being colored. of these four colored regiments the officers above first lieutenants were white men, except the chaplains, and in some cases the surgeons. very little care had been taken in enlisting the men, as it was important to get the regiments in the field as soon as possible; yet of them as a whole general breckinridge, inspector-general, speaks as follows: "the colored regiments of immunes, so called, raised for this war, have turned out, so far as can be judged from their camp life (as none of them have been in any actual campaign), very satisfactory. the regular colored regiments won golden opinions in battle. the experiment of having so many colored officers has not yet shown its full results. certainly we should have the best obtainable officers for our volunteers, and therefore some such men as colonel young, who is a graduate of the military academy at west point, whether white or black, must be sought for." besides these four colored regiments of immunes, so-called, there were other state organizations composed entirely of colored men, mustered into the united states service, as for example the ninth battalion of the ohio national guard. this organization was composed of four companies, with colored captains and lieutenants, the staff officers also being colored, the commanding officer of the battalion being major young, who was a first lieutenant in the regular army, a graduate from the military academy, and an officer of experience. he is the person referred to as _colonel_ young by general breckinridge, cited just above. this battalion, although not permitted to do any active campaigning, maintained itself well in that most trying of all duties for raw troops--camp duty--winning a good record in the south as well as in the north, having been stationed in virginia, pennsylvania and lastly in south carolina; from which latter place it was mustered out, and the men proceeded to their homes in an orderly manner, reflecting credit upon themselves and the officers under whom they had served. this organization is mentioned first, because it was the only one of its kind commanded by a regular army officer, and a man who had received scientific military training.[ ] two of these volunteer regiments, the eighth illinois and the twenty-third kansas, reached cuba and made history there, in garrison service, coming in direct contact with the ninth immunes, and in no sense suffering in comparison thereto. the eighth illinois being the first to go to the front, in a sense deserves to be noticed here first. this remarkable regiment was developed out of the ninth battalion, illinois national guard, and owes its origin to the persistent efforts of messrs. john r. marshall, robert r. jackson, franklin dennison, e.h. wright, rev. r.c. ransom, rev. j.w. thomas, s.b. turner and doubtless many others whose names do not appear. these gentlemen named called upon the governor of their state the next day after the president had issued his call for , volunteers, and received from that official the assurance that if another call should be made they should have the opportunity to recruit their battalion to a regiment, and that he would "call that regiment first into the service," and "that every officer in that regiment will be a colored man." after receiving this encouragement, the leaders began at once the work of organizing and recruiting, and when the second call came, may th, the regiment was well under way, and soon ready to go into camp to prepare for service. on june th it assembled in springfield from the following places: seven hundred men from chicago; one hundred and twenty from cairo; a full company from quincy, and smaller numbers from mound city, metropolis and litchfield, and nearly a company from springfield. the regiment was sworn in during the latter half of july, the muster roll showing , men and officers, every one of whom was of african descent except one private in a chicago company. of these forty-six officers, ten had received college education, six were lawyers, and the others were educated in the public schools, or had served in the regular army as non-commissioned officers. many of them were directly from illinois, that is in the sense of having been born and reared in the state, and were fully accustomed to the full exercise of their rights as men and citizens. in character and intelligence the official element of the eighth was about up to the standard of the volunteer army, as events subsequently proved. going into camp with the ninth, white, this latter regiment, early in august, received an order to move to a southern camp en route for cuba, leaving the eighth behind, greatly to the chagrin of both officers and men. governor tanner was evidently disturbed by this move, and expressed himself in the following language: "even from the very doors of the white house have i received letters asking and advising me not to officer this regiment with colored men, but i promised to do so, and i have done it. i shall never rest until i see this regiment--my regiment--on the soil of cuba, battling for the right and for its kinsmen." later the misfortunes of the first illinois proved the opportunity of the eighth. this regiment was in cuba, suffering terribly with the fever, the men going down under its effects so rapidly that the colonel in command implored governor tanner "to use all influence at washington to secure the immediate recall of the first illinois." when the governor received this message he sent for colonel marshall, of the eighth, and asked him to ascertain the sentiments of the officers and men of his regiment in regard to being sent to relieve the first. on the th day of august colonel marshall was able to send to washington the following dispatch: "h. c. corbin, adjutant-general:-- "i called the officers of the eighth illinois, colored, in conference and they are unanimously and enthusiastically in favor of being sent to relieve the first illinois at santiago." to this hearty dispatch came the following reply: "the secretary of war appreciates very much the offer of the eighth illinois volunteer infantry for duty in santiago, and has directed that the regiment be sent there by steamer yale, leaving new york next tuesday. the main trouble with our troops now in cuba is that they are suffering from exhaustion and exposure incident to one of the most trying campaigns to which soldiers have ever been subjected." "h.c. corbin, "_adjutant-general_." this action on the part of the regiment is said to have so pleased the president that on hearing it he declared it was the proudest moment of his life. on the th of august the regiment left springfield, and in passing through illinois and ohio was greeted with the most generous enthusiasm, the people supplying the men with free lunches at every station. this was the period when the sympathy of the whole country was turned toward the colored soldier in consequence of the reports of valor and heroism that had been circulated concerning the black regulars. on the afternoon of the th the yale cast off her lines, and with the first american negro regiment that the world has ever seen, steamed out of new york harbor amid the ringing of bells and shrieks of steam whistles, and four days later, august , landed in cuba. the regiment remained in cuba until march , performing garrison duty so well that general breckenridge said it was "as fine a volunteer regiment as was ever mustered into the service," and that it was "a shame to muster out of service such an excellent regiment." the twenty-third kansas, made up in that state and officered as was the eighth illinois, by men of the same race, with the enlisted men, arrived in cuba august , and in company with the eighth illinois regiment, was stationed in the country about san luis, with headquarters at that place, colonel marshall, of the illinois regiment, serving as commander of the post, and also as governor of the province of san luis. a detachment of the illinois regiment, under command of major jackson, was sent to palma soriana, and did excellent work there in the preservation of order between the cubans and spaniards, who were living together in that place in outward peace but in secret resentful hostility. major jackson managed affairs so well that both parties came to admire him, and when he was called away expressed their regret. captain roots, who commanded the post after the departure of major jackson, was equally fortunate, especially with the cubans, and when it was thought his command was to be removed, the citizens generally united in a petition to the general commanding, asking that both the captain and his command might remain in the city. the fact is also noted by the chroniclers of the regiment that several marriages took place in palma soriana between soldiers of the eighth illinois and cuban maidens. the eighth regiment was finally settled in san luis, occupying the old spanish barracks and arsenal, and under colonel marshall's supervision the city was put in fine sanitary condition, streets and yards being carefully policed; meanwhile under the reign of order and peace which the colonel's just methods established, confidence prevailed, business revived and the stagnation which had so long hung like a fog over the little city, departed, and in its stead came an era of bustling activity. all was peaceful and prosperous, both with the citizens and the garrison, until the ninth united states volunteers came in the vicinity. then a difficulty sprang up in which both regiments became involved, although it was in no sense serious, but it afforded a pretext for the removal of the eighth illinois from the city. the event turned out all the better for the eighth, as it enabled them to establish camp marshall, about three miles from the city, in a healthy neighborhood, where they remained until ordered home to be mustered out. the regiment came back to chicago in fine condition and was tendered an enthusiastic welcome by that great city. thus two entire regiments represented the country abroad in this, its first, foreign war with a european power. it should also be recorded that although the ninth united states volunteers was composed of persons who were classed as immune, and had come chiefly from louisiana, and notwithstanding that the officers of the regiment above lieutenants were white men, and the colonel an officer of the regular army of long experience, and was specially praised by so good a sanitarian as general wood for having been, constant and untiring in his efforts to look after the welfare of his men, and that the surgeons of the regiment were white men, that deaths among the colored men numbered one officer and seventy-three enlisted men. in striking contrast with this record of the immune regiment is that of the eighth illinois, which was made up entirely of residents of that state and officered throughout by colored men. its medical officers were men of high character, and its losses by death were just twenty, or but little over one-fourth the number that occurred in the immune regiment. an efficient auxiliary society to this regiment was formed of colored ladies of chicago who forwarded to the sick in cuba more than six hundred dollars worth of well chosen supplies, which did much for the comfort of those in the hospital; but this would not account for the great difference in the death rate of the two regiments. though not immune, the eighth illinois fared very much better than the so-called immune regiment, although the latter had the benefit of white officers. the experience of the twenty-third kansas did not differ in any important respect from that of the eighth illinois. both regiments returned to their homes in march, , and were mustered out of the service, leaving behind them good records for efficiency. the sixth virginia regiment consisted of eight companies and was under command of lieutenant-colonel richard c. croxton, of the regular army, white, with majors j.b. johnson and w.h. johnson, colored. it was mustered into service during the latter part of the summer and went into camp near knoxville, tennessee. here an order came from corps headquarters, at lexington, kentucky, directing that nine of the officers, including one major, should appear before a board of examiners in order to give evidence of their fitness to command. the officers named, regarding this as uncalled for, immediately tendered their resignations. the vacancies thus created were filled by the governor of the state, the appointees being white men. these white officers on arriving at the camp and finding themselves unwelcome, immediately followed in the wake of their colored predecessors, and tendered their resignations. the difficulties arising from this friction were somehow adjusted, but in what manner the reports available at this time do not show. moving to macon, georgia, the regiment remained in the service until some time in the winter, when it was mustered out. much was said by the local papers to the detriment of the men composing this regiment, but viewing their action from the standpoint of the civilian and citizen, it does not appear reprehensible. they had volunteered with the understanding that their own officers, officers with whom they were well acquainted, and in whose friendship they held a place, should command them, and when they saw these officers displaced and white strangers put in their stead, they felt a pardonable indignation, and took their own way of expressing it. as soldiers, their conduct in resisting authority, cannot be commended. the third north carolina volunteer infantry was organized as were the regiments of illinois and kansas, above described. the officers of the north carolina regiment were all colored men of that state and were men of character and note. its commanding officer, colonel young, had held responsible positions under both state and national governments, had been editor of a paper and member of the state legislature and major in the state militia. in character, he was above reproach, being a strict teetotaler and not even using tobacco. the regiment made a good record, but did not see any active service. a peculiar regiment was organized in alabama, known as the third alabama volunteer infantry, in which the enlisted men were all colored and the officers all white. the regiment saw no service and attracted no attention outside of its immediate locality. two companies of colored men with colored captains were also mustered into the united states service from indiana, and finally attached to colonel huggins' command, although not becoming a part of his regiment, the eighth immunes. they were stationed at fort thomas, ky., and at chickamauga, and were mustered out early. their officers were men of intelligence who had acquired experience by several years' service in the militia, and the companies were exceptionally well drilled. they were designated companies a and b and were commanded by captains porter and buckner, with lieutenant thomas as quartermaster. the organization of the four immune regiments, already mentioned, gave opportunity for ninety-six colored men to obtain commissions as lieutenants. a few of these positions were seized upon by influential young white men, who held them, but with no intention of ever serving in the regiments, as they found staff positions much more congenial to their tastes. the colored men who were appointed lieutenants in these regiments were generally either young men of ability and influence who had assisted in getting up their companies, and who in many cases had received some elementary military instruction as cadets, in school, or men who had distinguished themselves by efficiency or gallantry in the regular army. some exceptions there were, of course, and a few received commissions in consequence of personal friendship and political considerations. before these regiments were mustered out of the service about one-half of the lieutenants were men from the regular army. i am sure the reader will be pleased to learn that sergeants foster, buck and givens, whose deeds in cuba have already been related, were rewarded with commissions, and that the gallant thomas c. butler, who rushed forward from his company's line and seized the spanish standard at el caney, was afterward permitted to serve in cuba with the rank of a commissioned officer. besides those named above, there were others also of marked ability and very respectable attainments who received commissions on general merit, as well as for gallantry. chief among the class promoted for efficiency was first lieutenant james r. gillespie, formerly post quartermaster-sergeant. gillespie had served several years in the tenth cavalry and had proved himself an excellent soldier. both in horsemanship and as marksman he was up to the standard, while his character and business qualifications were such as to secure for him a staff position of responsibility. as quartermaster-sergeant he held positions of important posts and filled them with great satisfaction. because of his efficiency as a soldier he was given a commission as first lieutenant and executed the duties of his office with the same ability that had marked his career as an enlisted man. from the tenth cavalry also came first lieutenant baker, whose commission was a tribute to his fidelity and efficiency. a soldier of high type he bore his commission and its honors as worthily as any son of our republic. in the same category must be placed first lieutenant wm. mcbryer, formerly sergeant in the twenty-fifth infantry. mcbryer had served in the tenth cavalry and had won a medal of honor in conflict with the indians. he was a soldier distinguished by strength of character, prompt executiveness, quick decision and courage. he was also possessed of considerable literary skill, was a good speaker and attractive writer, and a man of fine parts. he was a valuable acquisition to the volunteer service and would have made a fine captain. of the colored sergeants from the regular army who were given commissions in the volunteer service it would not be extravagant to say that all were men of worth, well-tried in the service, and there was scarcely one of them but could have successfully commanded a company. lieutenant a.j. smith, formerly first sergeant in the twenty-fifth infantry, was so well informed in the paper work of the army and in company administration particularly that he was regarded as an authority, and he was so well experienced in the whole life of a soldier, in camp, field, garrison and in battle, that it would have been difficult to find his superior in the army. to the credit of all of the enlisted men of the regular army referred to, who received commissions in the volunteer service, all served honorably and were mustered out without bringing any scandal of any sort upon the service. the colored volunteers in the service acquitted themselves as well as the average volunteer, and when mustered out proceeded to their homes about as others did. the treatment accorded them in some of the southern cities, especially in nashville, tennessee, did not speak well for the loyalty of that section, nor was it such as might reasonably be expected from a people who had fared so well in the offices and honors of the short war. from the best sources available, it seems incumbent to say that the many charges alleged against the colored volunteers for excessive rioting and disorder were without proper foundation, and the assaults made upon them unjustifiable and cruel. the spirit of the assailants is best seen from a description of the attack made upon the unarmed discharged soldiers of the eighth immuners in nashville, already alluded to. this description was made by the sheriff who participated in the brutality. an officer who was on the train, and who was asleep at the time, when aroused went into the car where the men were and found that they had been beaten and robbed, and in some instances their discharges taken from them and torn up, and their weapons and money taken from them by citizens. it was about one o'clock a.m. and the men were generally asleep when attacked. the sheriff gloats over it in language which ought not be allowed to disappear: "it was the best piece of work i ever witnessed. the police went to the depot, not armed with the regulation 'billy,' but carrying stout hickory clubs about two and one-half feet long. their idea was that a mahogany or lignum vitae billy was too costly a weapon to be broken over a negro's head. the police were on board the train before it stopped even, and the way they went for the negroes was inspiring. the police tolerated no impudence, much less rowdyism, from the negroes, and if a darky even looked mad, it was enough for some policeman to bend his club double over his head. in fact after the police finished with them they were the meekest, mildest, most polite set of colored men i ever saw." this language is respectfully dedicated to the memory of the proud city of nashville, and presents to the readers the portrait of her police. despite this vile treatment, the colored soldier went on to his home, ready again to respond to his country's call, and to rally to the defence of his country's flag, and, incidentally, to the preservation of the lives and homes of the misguided, heartless beings who can delight in his sufferings. the hickory club belongs to one sort of warrior; the rifle to quite another. the club and rifle represent different grades of civilization. the negro has left the club; the language from nashville does honor to the club. billy and bully are the theme of this officer of the law, and for a "darkey even to look mad" is ample justification for "some policeman to bend his club double over his head." were these policemen rioters? or were they conservaters of the peace? judge ye! outline history of the ninth (separate) battalion, ohio volunteer infantry. _by the battalion adjutant, lieutenant wilson ballard._ the ninth battalion, ohio volunteer infantry, the only colored organization from ohio in the volunteer army during the war with spain, was, previous to the date of its muster into the united states service, known as the ninth battalion, ohio national guard. april th, , the battalion, consisting of three companies, a from springfield, under captain r.r. rudd; b from columbus, under captain james hopkins, and c from xenia, under captain harry h. robinson, was ordered into camp at columbus, ohio. the battalion was under the command of major charles fillmore. may , , the battalion was mustered into the volunteer service by captain rockefeller, u.s.a. lieutenant charles young, u.s.a., then on duty at wilberforce university, wilberforce, ohio, as professor of military science and tactics, was commissioned by governor bushnell as major commanding the ninth battalion, o.v.i., relieving major fillmore. in order to enable lieutenant young to accept his volunteer commission, he was granted an indefinite leave of absence by the war department. may , , the command having been ordered to join the second army corps at camp russell a. alger, near falls church, va., left camp bushnell and arrived at camp alger may , . when major-general graham assumed command of the second army corps and organized it into divisions, the battalion was placed in the provisional division. in june (exact date not remembered) the battalion was placed in the second brigade, second division, being brigaded with the twelfth pennsylvania and seventh illinois regiments. the battalion was relieved from the second brigade, second division and placed in the second brigade, first division, being brigaded with the eighth ohio and sixth massachusetts. a new jersey regiment was relieved from duty as corps headquarters' guard late in june and the ninth battalion assigned to that duty. the battalion performed this duty until it was ordered south from camp meade, penn., when it became separated from corps headquarters. important outposts, such as the entrance to falls church and the guarding of the citizens' gardens and property, were under the charge of the command. when general garretson's brigade (second brigade, first division, consisting of the eighth ohio, ninth battalion and sixth massachusetts) was ordered to cuba, general graham, thinking that his entire army corps would soon be ordered to active service, requested the war department, as the battalion was his headquarters guard, to let the battalion remain with him. (see telegrams gen. graham's report to the secretary of war.) general graham's request being honored by the department, the battalion was deprived of this chance of seeing active service in foreign fields. the battalion was then attached to the second brigade, second division, under brigadier-general plummer, being brigaded with the first new jersey, sixty-fifth new york and seventh ohio. in july the battalion was relieved from this brigade and attached directly to corps headquarters. when the second army corps was ordered to camp meade, penna., the battalion was one of the first to break camp, going with corps headquarters. the battalion left camp r.a. alger august , , and arrived in camp at camp george g. meade, near middletown, penna., august , . in camp the battalion occupied a position with the signal and engineer corps and hospital, near corps headquarters. when the peace jubilee was held in philadelphia, the battalion was one of the representative commands from the second army corps, being given the place of honor in the corps in the parade, following immediately general graham and staff. when the corps was ordered south the battalion was assigned to the second brigade under brigadier-general ames. the battalion left camp meade november . up to this time it had done the guard duty of corps headquarters and was complimented for its efficient work by the commanding general. the battalion arrived in summerville, s.c., november , . it was brigaded with the fourteenth pennsylvania and third connecticut. when the battalion arrived in the south the white citizens were not at all favorably disposed toward colored soldiers, and it must be said that the reception was not cordial. but by their orderly conduct and soldierly behavior the men soon won the respect of all, and the battalion was well treated before it left. november - major philip reade, inspector general first division, second army corps, inspected the ninth battalion, beginning his duties in that brigade with this inspection. he complimented the battalion for its work both from a practical and theoretical standpoint. coming to the fourteenth pennsylvania he required them to go through certain movements in the extended order drill which not being done entirely to his satisfaction, he sent his orderly to the commanding officer of the ninth battalion, requesting him to have his command on the drill ground at once. the battalion fell in and marched to the ground and when presented to the inspector orders were given for it to go through with certain movements in the extended order drill in the presence of the pennsylvania regiment. this done, the inspector dismissed the battalion, highly complimenting major young on the efficiency of his command. just after the visit of the inspector general, general s.b.m. young, commanding the second army corps, visited camp marion. orders were sent to major young one morning to have his battalion fall in at once, as the general desired to have them drill. by his command the battalion went through the setting-up exercises and battalion drill in close and extended order. the general was so well pleased with the drill that the battalion was exempted from all work during the remainder of the day. the battalion was ordered to be mustered out january , . lieutenant geo. w. van deusen, first artillery, who was detailed to muster out the command, hardly spent fifteen minutes in the camp. major young had been detailed assistant commissary of musters and signed all discharges for the ninth battalion, except for the field and staff, which were signed by lieutenant van deusen. the companies left for their respective cities the same night they were paid. major bullis was the paymaster. footnotes: [ ] see "outline history of the ninth (separate) battalion ohio volunteer infantry," by the battalion adjutant, lieutenant nelson ballard, following the close of this chapter. chapter xii. colored officers. by captain frank r. steward, a.b., ll.b., harvard, forty-ninth u.s. volunteer infantry--appendix. of all the avenues open to american citizenship the commissioned ranks of the army and navy have been the stubbornest to yield to the newly enfranchised. colored men have filled almost every kind of public office or trust save the chief magistracy. they have been members of both houses of congress, and are employed in all the executive branches of the government, but no negro has as yet succeeded in invading the commissioned force of the navy, and his advance in the army has been exceedingly slight. since the war, as has been related, but three negroes have been graduated from the national military academy at west point; of these one was speedily crowded out of the service; another reached the grade of first lieutenant and died untimely; the third, first lieutenant charles young, late major of the th ohio battalion, u.s. volunteers, together with four colored chaplains, constitute the sole colored commissioned force of our regular army. although negroes fought in large numbers in both the revolution and the war of , there is no instance of any negro attaining or exercising the rank of commissioned officer. it is a curious bit of history, however, that in the civil war those who were fighting to keep colored men enslaved were the first to commission colored officers. in louisiana but a few days after the outbreak of the war, the free colored population of new orleans organized a military organization, called the "native guard," which was accepted into the service of the state and its officers were duly commissioned by the governor.[ ] these negro soldiers were the first to welcome general butler when he entered new orleans, and the fact of the organization of the "native guard" by the confederates was used by general butler as the basis for the organization of three colored regiments of "native guards," all the line officers of which were colored men. governor pinchback, who was a captain in one of these regiments, tells the fate of these early colored officers. "there were," he writes, "in new orleans some colored soldiers known as 'native guards' before the arrival of the federal soldiers, but i do not know much about them. it was a knowledge of this fact that induced general butler, then in command of the department of the gulf, to organize three regiments of colored soldiers, viz: the first, second and third regiments of native guards. "the first regiment of louisiana native guards, colonel stafford commanding, with all the field officers white, and a full complement of line officers ( ) colored, was mustered into service at new orleans september , , for three years. soon after general banks took command of the department and changed the designation of the regiment to first infantry, corps d'afrique. april th, , it was changed again to seventy-third united states colored infantry. [transcriber's note: this footnote appeared in the text without a footnote anchor: "on the d of november, , there was a grand review of the confederate troops stationed at new orleans. an associated press despatch announced that the line was seven miles long. the feature of the review, however, was one regiment of fourteen hundred free colored men. another grand review followed the next spring, and on the appearance of rebel negroes a local paper made the following comment: "'we must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably uniformed. most of these companies, quite unaided by the administration, have supplied themselves with arms without regard to cost or trouble. on the same day one of these negro companies was presented with a flag, and every evidence of public approbation was manifest.'" (williams's negro troops in the rebellion, pp. - )] "the second louisiana native guards, with colonel n.w. daniels and lieutenant-colonel hall, white, and major francis e. dumas, colored, and all the line officers colored except one second lieutenant, was mustered into service for three years, october , . general banks changed its designation to second infantry corps d'afrique, june , , and april , , it was changed to second united states colored troops. finally it was consolidated with the ninety-first as the seventy-fourth colored infantry, and mustered out october , . "the third regiment of louisiana native guards, with colonel nelson and all field officers white, and all line officers ( ) colored, was mustered into service at new orleans for three years, november , . its designation went through the same changes as the others at the same dates, and it was mustered out november , , as the seventy-fifth colored infantry. "soon after the organization of the third regiment, trouble for the colored officers began, and the department began a systematic effort to get rid of them. a board of examiners was appointed and all colored officers of the third regiment were ordered before it. they refused to obey the order and tendered their resignations in a body. the resignations were accepted and that was the beginning of the end. like action with the same results followed in the first and second regiments, and colored officers were soon seen no more. all were driven out of the service except three or four who were never ordered to appear before the examining board. among these was your humble servant. i was then captain of company a, second regiment, but i soon tired of my isolation and resigned." later on in the war, with the general enlistment of colored soldiers, a number of colored chaplains and some surgeons were commissioned. towards the close of the war several colored line officers and a field officer or two were appointed. the state of massachusetts was foremost in according this recognition to colored soldiers. but these later appointments came, in most cases, after the fighting was all over, and gave few opportunities to command. at the close of the war, with the muster out of troops the colored officers disappeared and upon the reorganization of the army, despite the brilliant record of the colored soldiers, no negro was given a commission of any sort. the outbreak of the spanish war brought the question of colored officers prominently to the front. the colored people began at once to demand that officers of their own race be commissioned to command colored volunteers. they were not to be deluded by any extravagant praise of their past heroic services, which veiled a determination to ignore their just claims. so firmly did they adhere to their demands that but one volunteer regiment of colored troops, the third alabama, could be induced to enter the service with none of its officers colored. but the concessions obtained were always at the expense of continuous and persistent effort, and in the teeth of a very active and at times extremely violent opposition. we know already the kind of opposition the eighth illinois, the twenty-third kansas, and the third north carolina regiments, officered entirely by colored men, encountered. it was this opposition, as we have seen, which confined colored officers to positions below the grade of captain in the four immune regiments. from a like cause, we know also, distinguished non-commissioned officers of the four regular regiments of colored troops were allowed promotion only to lieutenantcies in the immune regiments, and upon the muster out of those organizations, were compelled, if they desired to continue soldiering, to resume their places as enlisted men. there is some explanation for this opposition in the nature of the distinction which military rank confers. military rank and naval rank constitute the only real distinction among us. our officers of the army and navy, and of the army more than of the navy, because the former officers are more constantly within the country, make up the sole separate class of our population. we have no established nobility. wealth confers no privilege which men are bound to observe. the respect paid to men who attain eminence in science and learning goes only as far as they are known. the titles of the professions are matters of courtesy and customs only. our judges and legislators, our governors and mayors, are still our "fellow citizens," and the dignity they enjoy is but an honorary one. the highest office within our gift offers no exception. at the close of his term, even an ex-president, "that melancholy product of our system," must resume his place among his fellow citizens, to sink, not infrequently, into obscurity. but fifty thousand soldiers must stand attention to the merest second lieutenant! his rank is a _fact_. the life tenure, the necessities of military discipline and administration, weld army officers into a distinct class and make our military system the sole but necessary relic of personal government. any class with special privileges is necessarily conservative. the intimate association of "officer" and "gentleman," a legacy of feudal days, is not without significance. an officer must also be a gentleman, and "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" is erected into an offence punishable by dismissal from the service. the word "gentleman" has got far away from the strict significance of its french parent. de tocqueville has made us see the process of this development. passing over to england, with the changing conditions, "gentleman" was used to describe persons lower and lower in the social scale, until, when it crossed to this country, its significance became lost in an indiscriminate application to all citizens[ ]. a flavor of its caste significance still remains in the traditional "high sense of honor" characteristic of our military service. it was a distant step for a slave and freedman to become an officer and gentleman. while the above reflections may be some explanations _in fact_ for the opposition to the commissioning of negroes, there was no one with hardihood enough to bring them forward. such notions might form the groundwork of a prejudice, but they could not become the reason of a policy. it is an instinctive tribute to the good sense of the american people that the opponents of colored officers were compelled to find reasons of another kind for their antagonism. the one formula heard always in the campaign against colored officers was: negroes cannot command. this formula was sent forth with every kind of variation, from the fierce fulminations of the hostile southern press, to the more apologetic and philosophical discussions of our northern secular and religious journals. to be sure, every now and then, there were exhibitions of impatience against the doctrine. not a few newspapers had little tolerance for the nonsense. some former commanders of negro soldiers in the civil war, notably, general t.j. morgan, spoke out in their behalf. the brilliant career of the black regulars in cuba broke the spell for a time, but the re-action speedily set in. in short it became fastened pretty completely in the popular mind as a bit of demonstrated truth that negroes could not make officers; that colored soldiers would neither follow nor obey officers of their own race. this formula had of course to ignore an entire epoch of history. it could take no account of that lurid program wrought in the antilles a century ago--a rising mob of rebel slaves, transformed into an invincible army of tumultuous blacks, under the guidance of the immortal toussaint, overcoming the trained armies of three continental powers, spain, england and france, and audaciously projecting a black republic into the family of nations, a program at once a marvel and a terror to the civilized world. not alone in hayti, but throughout the states of central and south america have negroes exercised military command, both in the struggles of these states for independence, and in their national armies established after independence. at least one soldier of negro blood, general dumas, father of the great novelist, arose to the rank of general of division in the french army and served under napoleon. in our day we have seen general dodds, another soldier of negro blood, returning from a successful campaign in africa, acclaimed throughout france, his immense popularity threatening paris with a renewal of the hysterical days of boulanger. finally, we need not be told that at the very head and front of the cuban rebellion were negroes of every hue, exercising every kind of command up to the very highest. we need but recall the lamented maceo, the negro chieftain, whose tragic end brought sorrow and dismay to all of cuba. with an army thronging with blacks and mulattoes, these cuban chieftains, black, mulatto and white, prolonged such an harassing warfare as to compel the intervention of the united states. at the end of this recital, which could well have been extended with greater particularity, if it were thought needful, we are bound to conclude that the arbitrary formula relied upon by the opponents of colored officers was never constructed to fit such an obstinate set of facts. the prolonged struggle which culminated in permitting the negro's general enlistment in our civil war had only to be repeated to secure for him the full pay of a soldier, the right to be treated as a prisoner of war, and to relieve him of the monopoly of fatigue and garrison duty. he was too overjoyed with the boon of fighting for the liberation of his race to make much contention about who was to lead him. with meagre exception, his exclusive business in that war was to carry a gun. yet repeatedly negro soldiers evinced high capacity for command. colonel thomas wentworth higginson draws a glowing portrait of sergeant prince rivers, color-sergeant of the first south carolina volunteers, a regiment of slaves, organized late in . the color-sergeant was provost-sergeant also, and had entire charge of the prisoners and of the daily policing of the camp. "he is a man of distinguished appearance and in old times was the crack coachman of beaufort. * * * they tell me that he was once allowed to present a petition to the governor of south carolina in behalf of slaves, for the redress of certain grievances, and that a placard, offering two thousand dollars for his re-capture is still to be seen by the wayside between here and charleston. he was a sergeant in the old 'hunter regiment,' and was taken by general hunter to new york last spring, where the chevrons on his arm brought a mob upon him in broadway, whom he kept off till the police interfered. there is not a white officer in this regiment who has more administrative ability, or more absolute authority over the men; they do not love him, but his mere presence has controlling power over them. he writes well enough to prepare for me a daily report of his duties in the camp; if his education reached a higher point i see no reason why he should not command the army of the potomac. he is jet-black, or rather, i should say, wine-black, his complexion, like that of others of my darkest men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness, and to my eye very handsome. his features are tolerably regular, and full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white officers, being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of apparently inexhaustable strength and activity. his gait is like a panther's; i never saw such a tread. no anti-slavery novel has described a man of such marked ability. he makes toussaint perfectly intelligible, and if there should ever be a black monarchy in south carolina he will be its king."[ ] excepting the louisiana native guards, the first south carolina volunteers was the first regiment of colored troops to be mustered into the service in the civil war. the regiment was made up entirely of slaves, with scarcely a mulatto among them. the first day of freedom for these men was passed in uniform and with a gun. among these negroes, just wrested from slavery, their scholarly commander, colonel higginson, could find many whom he judged well fitted by nature to command. "afterwards i had excellent battalion drills," he writes, "without a single white officer, by way of experiment, putting each company under a sergeant, and going through the most difficult movements, such as division columns and oblique squares. and as to actual discipline, it is doing no injustice to the line-officers of the regiment to say that none of them received from the men more implicit obedience than color-sergeant rivers. * * * it always seemed to me an insult to those brave men to have novices put over their heads, on the ground of color alone, and the men felt it the more keenly as they remained longer in the service. there were more than seven hundred enlisted men in the regiment, when mustered out after more than three years' service. the ranks had been kept full by enlistment, but there were only fourteen line-officers instead of the full thirty. the men who should have filled these vacancies were doing duty as sergeants in the ranks."[ ] numerous expeditions were constantly on foot in the department of the south, having for their object the liberation of slaves still held to service in neighborhoods remote from the union camps, or to capture supplies and munitions of war. frequently these expeditions came in conflict with armed bodies of rebels and hot engagements would ensue, resulting in considerable loss of life. colored soldiers were particularly serviceable for this work because of their intimate knowledge of the country and their zeal for the rescue of their enslaved brethren. one of these expeditions, composed of thirty colored soldiers and scouts, commanded by sergeant-major henry james, third united states colored troops, left jacksonville, florida, early in march, , to penetrate into the interior through marion county. they destroyed considerable property in the use of the rebel government, burned the bridge across the oclawaha river, and started on their return with ninety-one negroes whom they had rescued from slavery, four white prisoners, some wagons and a large number of horses and mules. they were attacked by a rebel band of more than fifty cavalry. the colored soldiers commanded by one of their own number, defeated and drove off the rebels, inflicting upon them the heavy loss of thirty men. after a long and rapid march they arrived at st. augustine, florida, with a loss of but two killed and four wounded, the expedition covering in all five days. these colored soldiers and their colored commander were thanked in orders by major-general q.a. gilmore, commanding the department, who was moved to declare that "this expedition, planned and executed by colored men, under the command of a colored non-commissioned officer, reflects credit upon the brave participants and their leader," and "he holds up their conduct to their comrades in arms as an example worthy of emulation."[ ] it was no uncommon occurrence throughout the civil war for colored non-commissioned officers to be thrown into command of their companies by the killing or wounding of their superior officers. on many a field of battle this happened and these colored non-commissioned officers showed the same ability to take the initiative and accept the responsibility, and conducted their commands just as bravely and unfalteringly as did their successors on the firing line at la guasima and el caney, or in the charge up san juan hill. in the battle of new market heights, fought on the th of september, , as part of a comprehensive effort to turn lee's left flank, the great heroism of the black soldiers, and the terrible slaughter among them, impressed their commander, the late major-general butler, to his dying day, and made him the stout champion of their rights for the rest of his life. in that battle, to quote from the orders putting on record the "gallant deeds of the officers and soldiers of the army of the james":-- "milton m. holland, sergeant-major fifth united states colored troops, commanding company c; james h. bronson, first sergeant, commanding company d; robert pinn, first sergeant, commanding company i, wounded; powhatan beaty, first sergeant, commanding company g, fifth united states colored troops--all these gallant colored soldiers were left in command, all their company officers being killed or wounded, and led them gallantly and meritoriously through the day. for these services they have most honorable mention, and the commanding general will cause a special medal to be struck in honor of these gallant soldiers." "first sergeant edward ratcliff, company c, thirty-eighth united states colored troops, thrown into command of his company by the death of the officer commanding, was the first enlisted man in the enemy's works, leading his company with great gallantry for which he has a medal." "sergeant samuel gilchrist, company k, thirty-sixth united states colored troops, showed great bravery and gallantry in commanding his company after his officers were killed. he has a medal for gallantry."[ ] "honorable mention" and "medals" were the sole reward open to the brave negro soldiers of that day. not alone in camp and garrison, in charge of expeditions, or as non-commissioned officers thrown into command of their companies on the field of battle have negro soldiers displayed unquestioned capacity for command, but as commissioned officers they commanded in camp and in battle, showing marked efficiency and conspicuous gallantry. the colored officers of the first and second regiments of louisiana native guards, whose history has been detailed earlier in this chapter,[ ] were retained in the service long enough to command their troops in bloody combat with the enemy. it will be remembered that of the second regiment of louisiana native guards only the colonel and lieutenant-colonel were white, the major, f.e. dumas, and all the line officers, as in the case of the first regiment of louisiana native guards, being colored. on april , , colonel n.u. daniels, who commanded the second regiment of louisiana native guards, with a detachment of two hundred men of his regiment, under their colored officers, engaged and repulsed a considerable body of rebel infantry and cavalry at pascagoula, mississippi. the engagement lasted from a.m. until p.m. and was remarkable for the steadiness, tenacity and bravery of these black troops in this, their first battle, where they succeeded in defeating and beating off an enemy five times their number. the official report by the colonel commanding declared: "great credit is due to the troops engaged for their unflinching bravery and steadiness under this, their first fire, exchanging volley after volley with the coolness of veterans, and for their determined tenacity in maintaining their position, and taking advantage of every success that their courage and valor gave them; and also to their officers, who were cool and determined throughout the action, fighting their commands against five times their number, and confident throughout of success. * * * "i would particularly call the attention of the department to major f.e. dumas, capt. villeverd and lieuts. jones and martin, who were constantly in the thickest of the fight, and by their unflinching bravery and admirable handling of their commands, contributed to the success of the attack, and reflected great honor upon the flag for which they so nobly struggled."[ ] the battle which settled for all time the bravery of black troops, and ought as well to silence all question about the capacity of colored officers, was the storming of port hudson, may , . for months the confederates had had uninterrupted opportunity to strengthen their works at port hudson at a time when an abundance of slave labor was at their disposal. they had constructed defenses of remarkable strength. on a bluff, eighty feet above the river, was a series of batteries mounting in all twenty siege guns. for land defenses they had a continuous line of parapet of strong profile, beginning at a point on the river a mile from port hudson and extending in a semi-circle for three or four miles over a country for the most part rough and broken, and ending again at the river, a half mile north of port hudson. at appropriate positions along this line four bastion works were constructed and thirty pieces of field artillery were posted. the average thickness of the parapet was twenty feet, and the depth of the ditch below the top of the parapet was fifteen feet. the ground behind the parapet was well adapted for the prompt movement of troops.[ ] on the th of may general banks reached the immediate vicinity of port hudson, and proceeded at once to invest the place. on the th the assault was ordered. two colored regiments of louisiana native guards, the first regiment with all line officers colored, and the third with white officers throughout, were put under command of colonel john a. nelson, of the third regiment, and assigned to position on the right of the line, where the assault was begun. the right began the assault in the morning; for some reason the left did not assault until late in the afternoon. six companies of the first louisiana and nine companies of the third, in all men, were formed in column of attack. even now, one cannot contemplate unmoved the desperate valor of these black troops and the terrible slaughter among them as they were sent to their impossible task that day in may. moving forward in double quick time the column emerged from the woods, and passing over the plain strewn with felled trees and entangled brushwood, plunged into a fury of shot and shell as they charged for the batteries on the rebel left. again and again that unsupported column of black troops held to their hopeless mission by the unrelenting order of the brigade commander, hurled itself literally into the jaws of death, many meeting horrible destruction actually at the cannon's mouth. it was a day prodigal with deeds of fanatical bravery. the colors of the first louisiana, torn and shivered in that fearful hail of fire, were still borne forward in front of the works by the color-sergeant, until a shell from the enemy cut the flag in two and gave the sergeant his mortal wound. he fell spattering the flag with blood and brains and hugged it to his bosom as he lay in the grasp of death. two corporals sprang forward to seize the colors, contending in generous rivalry until a rebel sharpshooter felled one of them across the sergeant's lifeless body. the other dashed proudly forward with the flag. sixteen men fell that day defending the colors. black officers and white officers commanded side by side, moving among the men to prompt their valor by word and example, revealing no difference in their equal contempt of death. captain quinn, of the third regiment, with forty reckless followers, bearing their rifles and cartridge boxes above their heads, swam the ditch and leaped among the guns, when they were ordered back to escape a regiment of rebels hastening for their rear. six of them re-crossed alive, and of these only two were unhurt, the brave quinn and a lieutenant. the gallant captain andre cailloux, who commanded the color company of the first louisiana, a man black as night, but a leader by birth and education, moved in eager zeal among his men, cheering them on by words and his own noble example, with his left arm already shattered, proudly refusing to leave the field. in a last effort of heroism, he sprang to the front of his company, commanded his men to follow him, and in the face of that murderous fire, gallantly led them forward until a shell smote him to death but fifty yards from the works. cailloux, a pure negro in blood, was born a freeman and numbered generations of freemen among his ancestry. he had fine presence, was a man of culture and possessed wealth. he had raised his company by his own efforts, and attached them to him, not only by his ardent pride of race, which made him boast his blackness, but also by his undoubted talents for command. his heroic death was mourned by thousands of his race who had known him. his body, recovered after the surrender, was given a soldier's burial in his own native city of new orleans. when the day was spent, the bleeding and shattered column was at length recalled. the black troops did not take the guns, but the day's work had won for them a fame that cannot die. the nation, which had received them into the service half-heartedly, and out of necessity, was that day made to witness a monotony of gallantry and heroism that compelled everywhere awe and admiration. black soldiers, and led by black officers as well as white, assigned a task hopeless and impossible at the start, had plunged into that withering storm of shot and shell, poured fourth by artillery and infantry, charging over a field strewn with obstacles, and in madness of bravery had more than once thrown the thin head of their column to the very edge of the guns. they recoiled only to reform their broken lines and to start again their desperate work. when the day was gone, and they were called back, the shattered remnant of the column which had gone forth in the morning still burned with passion. with that day's work of black soldiers under black officers, a part forever of the military glory of the republic, there are those who yet dare to declare that negroes cannot command. the assault on port hudson had been unsuccessful all along the line. a second assault was ordered june . it, too, was unsuccessful. the fall of vicksburg brought the garrison to terms. the surrender took place july , . in the report of the general commanding, the colored soldiers were given unstinted praise. general banks declared that "no troops could be more determined or more daring."[ ] the northern press described glowingly their part in the fight. the prowess of the black soldiers had conquered military prejudice, and won for them a place in the army of the union. and the brave black officers who led these black soldiers, they were, all of them, ordered forthwith before an examining board with the purpose of driving them from the service, and every one of them in self-respect was made to resign. in such manner was their bravery rewarded. in the four regiments of colored troops made a part of the regular army since the civil war, colored soldiers, to say nothing of the three colored graduates from west point, referred to earlier in this chapter, have repeatedly given evidence of their capacity to command. an earlier chapter has already set forth the gallant manner in which colored non-commissioned officers, left in command by the killing or wounding of their officers, commanded their companies at la guasima, el caney and in the charge at san juan. on numerous occasions, with none of the heroic setting of the santiago campaign, have colored soldiers time and again command detachments and companies on dangerous scouting expeditions, and in skirmishes and fights with hostile indians and marauders. the entire western country is a witness of their prowess. this meritorious work, done in remote regions, has seldom come to public notice; the medal which the soldier wears, and the official entry in company and regimental record are in most cases the sole chronicle. a typical instance is furnished in the career of sergeant richard anderson, late of the ninth cavalry. the sergeant has long ago completed his thirty years of service. he passed through all non-commissioned grades in his troop and regiment, and was retired as post commissary-sergeant. the story of the engagements in which he commanded give ample proof of his ability and bravery. it would be no service to the sergeant to disturb his own frank and formal narrative. the sergeant's story:-- "while in sub-camp at fort cumming, new mexico, awaiting orders for campaign duty against hostile indians (old naney's band), on the evening of june , , my troop commander being absent at fort bayard, which left me in command of my troop, there being no other commissioned officer available, a report having come in to the commanding officer about o'clock that a band of apache indians were marching toward cook's canon, troops b and l, under general command of captain francis, th cavalry, and myself commanding troop b, were ordered out. we came upon the indians in cook's canon and had an engagement which lasted two or three hours. three or four indians were killed and several wounded. we had no men killed, but a few wounded in both l and b troops. we followed the indians many miles that evening, but having no rations, returned to fort cumming late that evening, and went into camp until the following morning, when the two troops took the trail and followed it many days, but being unable to overtake the indians, returned to fort cumming. in august, , while my troop was in camp at fort cumming, new mexico, awaiting orders for another campaign against these same apache indians, my troop commander having been ordered to fort bayard, new mexico, on general court-martial duty, and during his absence having no commissioned officer available, i was in command of my troop subject to the orders of the post commander. at o'clock at night, august , , while in my tent asleep, the commanding officer's orderly knocked on my tent and informed me that the commanding officer wanted me to report to him at once. i asked the orderly what was up. he informed me that he supposed a scout was going out, as the commanding officer had sent for lieutenant smith, then in command of troop h, th cavalry. i dressed myself promptly and reported, and found lieutenant smith and the commanding officer at the office on my arrival. the commanding officer asked me about how many men i could mount for thirty days' detached duty, leaving so many men to take care of property and horses. i told him about how many. he ordered me to make a ration return for that number of men, and send a sergeant to draw rations for thirty days' scout; and for me to hurry up, and when ready to report to lieutenant smith. by . my troop was ready and mounted, and reported as ordered, and at o'clock troop's b and h pulled out from fort cumming for lake valley, new mexico; and when the sun showed himself over the tops of the mountains we marched down the mountains into lake valley, thirty-five miles from fort cumming. we went into camp hoping to spend a few hours and take a rest, and feed our horses and men. about o'clock a small boy came running through camp crying as if to break his heart, saying that the indians had killed his mother and their baby. some of the men said the boy must be crazy; but many of them made for their horses without orders. soon lieutenant smith ordered "saddle up." in less than five minutes all the command was saddled up and ready to mount. we mounted and pulled out at a gallop, and continued at that gait until we came to a high mountain, when we came down to a walk. and when over the mountain we took up the gallop, and from that time on, nothing but a gallop and a trot, when the country was favorable for such. when we had marched about two miles from lake valley we met the father of the boy, with his leg bleeding where the indians had shot him. we marched about half a mile farther, when we could see the indians leaving this man's ranch. we had a running fight with them from that time until about o'clock that evening, august th, . having no rations, we returned to lake valley with the intention of resting that night and taking the trail the next morning; but about o'clock that night a ranchman came into camp and reported that the indians had marched into a milk ranch and burned up the ranch, and had gone into camp near by. lieutenant smith ordered me to have the command in readiness to march at o'clock sharp, and said we could surprise those indians and capture many of them and kill a few also. i went and made my detail as ordered, with five days' rations in haversacks, and at o'clock reported as ordered. about half-past o'clock the command pulled out and marched within about a mile and a half of the milk ranch and went into camp; and at daylight in the morning saddled up and marched to the ranch. the indians had pulled out a few minutes before our arrival. we took their trail and came up with them about o'clock, finding the indians in ambush. lieutenant smith was the first man killed, and when i heard his last command, which was "dismount," then the whole command fell upon your humble servant. we fell back, up a canon and on a hill, and held them until o'clock, when a reinforcement came up of about twenty men from lake valey and the indians pulled off over the mountains. the following-named men were killed in the engagement: lieutenant g.w. smith; mr. daily, a miner; saddler thomas golding; privates james brown and monroe overstreet. wounded--privates wesley harris, john w. williams and william a. hallins. after the indians ceased firing and fell back over the mountains i cared for the wounded and sent lieutenant smith's body to fort bayard, new mexico, where his wife was, which was about sixty miles from the battle-ground, and mr. daily's body to lake valley, all under a strong detachment of men under a non-commissioned officer; when i marched with the remainder of the command with the dead and wounded for rodman mill, where i arrived about o'clock on the morning of august and buried the dead and sent the wounded to fort bayard. one thing that attracted my attention more than anything else was the suffering of private john w. williams, troop h, who was shot through the kneecap and had to ride all that night from the battle-ground to brookman's mill. poor fellow! i buried all my dead, and then marched for fort cumming, where we arrived about sunset and reported to general edward hatch, then commanding the regiment and also the district of new mexico, giving him all the details pertaining to the engagement. general hatch asked me about how many men i could mount the next morning, the st. i informed him about how many. he ordered me to have my troop in readiness by daylight and report to lieutenant demmick, then commanding troop l, and follow that indian trail. my troop was ready as ordered, and marched. we followed those indians to the line of old mexico, but were unable to overtake them. such was my last engagement with hostile indians." the formula that negroes cannot command, with the further assertion that colored soldiers will neither follow nor obey officers of their own race, we have now taken out of the heads of its upholders, and away from its secure setting of type on the printed page, and applied it to the facts. negro soldiers have shown their ability to command by commanding, not always with shoulder-straps, to be sure, but nevertheless commanding. with wearying succession, instance after instance, where negroes have exercised all manner of military command and always creditably, have extended for us a recital to the border of monotony, and made formidable test of our patience. in france and the west indies, in central and south america, negroes have commanded armies, in one instance fighting under napoleon, at other times to free themselves from slavery and their countries from the yoke of oppression. in our own country, from the days of the revolution, when fourteen american officers declared in a memorial to the congress, that a "negro man called salem poor, of colonel frye's regiment, captain ames' company, in the late battle at charlestown, behaved like an _experienced officer_, as well as an excellent soldier;"[ ] from the first war of the nation down to its last, negro soldiers have been evincing their capacity to command. in the civil war, where thousands of colored soldiers fought for the union, their ability to command has been evidenced in a hundred ways, on scouts and expeditions, in camp and in battle; on two notable occasions, negro officers gallantly fought their commands side by side with white officers, and added lustre to the military glory of the nation. upon the re-organization of the regular army at the close of the war the theatre shifted to our western frontier, where the negro soldier continued to display his ability to command. finally, in the spanish war, just closed, the negro soldier made the nation again bear witness not alone to his undaunted bravery, but also to his conspicuous capacity to command. out of this abundant and conclusive array of incontestable facts, frankly, is there anything left to the arbitrary formula that negroes cannot command, but a string of ipse dixits hung on a very old, but still decidedly robust prejudice? there is no escape from the conclusion that as a matter of fact, with opportunity, negroes differ in no wise from other men in capacity to exercise military command. undoubtedly substantial progress has been made respecting colored officers since , when colored soldiers were first admitted in considerable numbers into the army of the union. at the period of the civil war colored officers for colored soldiers was little more than thought of; the sole instance comprised the short-lived colored officers of the three regiments of louisiana native guards, and the sporadic appointments made near the close of the war, when the fighting was over. more than three hundred colored officers served in the volunteer army in the war with spain. two northern states, illinois and kansas, and one southern state, north carolina, put each in the field as part of its quota a regiment of colored troops officered throughout by colored men. ohio and indiana contributed each a separate battalion of colored soldiers entirely under colored officers. in a regiment of colored troops with colored officers was practically impossible. in a regiment of colored volunteers without some colored officers was almost equally impossible. in a regiment of colored soldiers commanded by colored officers would have been a violation of the sentiment of the period and an outrage upon popular feelings, the appearance of which in almost any northern city would hardly fail to provoke an angry and resentful mob. at that period, even black recruits in uniforms were frequently assaulted in the streets of northern cities. we have seen already how sergeant rivers, of the first south carolina volunteers, had to beat off a mob on broadway in new york city. in regiments and battalions of colored troops, with colored colonels and majors in command, came out of states where the most stringent black laws were formerly in force, and were greeted with applause as they passed on their way to their camps or to embark for cuba. in baltimore, in , the appearance of a negro in the uniform of an army surgeon started a riot, and the irate mob was not appeased until it had stripped the patriotic colored doctor of his shoulder-straps. in , when the sixth regiment of massachusetts volunteers passed through the same city, the colored officers of company l of that regiment were welcomed with the same courtesies as their white colleagues--courtesies extended as a memorial of the fateful progress of the regiment through the city of baltimore in . one state which went to war in to keep the negro a slave, put in the field a regiment of colored soldiers, officered by colored men from the colonel down. to this extent has prejudice been made to yield either to political necessity, or a generous change in sentiment. thus were found states both north and south willing to give the negro the full military recognition to which he is entitled. with this wider recognition of colored officers the general government has not kept pace. in the four regiments of colored volunteers recruited by the general government for service in the war with spain, only the lieutenants were colored. through the extreme conservatism of the war department, in these regiments no colored officers, no matter how meritorious, could be appointed or advanced to the grade of captain. such was the announced policy of the department, and it was strictly carried out. the commissioning of this large number of colored men even to lieutenancies was, without doubt, a distinct step in advance; it was an entering wedge. but it was also an advance singularly inadequate and embarrassing. in one of these colored volunteer, commonly called "immune" regiments, of the twelve captains, but five had previous military training, while of the twenty-four colored lieutenants, eighteen had previous military experience, and three of the remaining six were promoted from the ranks, so that at the time of their appointment twenty-one lieutenants had previous military training. of the five captains with previous military experience, one, years ago, had been a lieutenant in the regular army; another was promoted from post quartermaster-sergeant; a third at one time had been first sergeant of artillery; the remaining two had more or less experience in the militia. of the eighteen lieutenants with previous military experience, twelve had served in the regular army; eight of these, not one with a service less than fifteen years, were promoted directly from the ranks of the regulars for efficiency and gallantry. at the time of their promotion two were sergeants, five first sergeants and one a post quartermaster-sergeant. the four others from the regular army had served five years each. of the six remaining lieutenants with previous military experience, four had received military training in high schools, three of whom were subsequently officers in the militia; fifth graduated from a state college with a military department; the sixth had been for years an officer in the militia. with this advantage at the start, it is no extravagance to say that the colored officers practically made the companies. to them was due the greater part of the credit for whatever efficiency the companies showed. moreover, these colored officers were not behind in intelligence. among them were four graduates of universities and colleges, two lawyers, two teachers, one journalist, five graduates of high schools and academies, and the men from the regular army, as their previous non-commissioned rank indicates, were of good average intelligence. there is no reason to believe that this one of the four colored volunteer regiments was in any degree exceptional. these are the officers for whom the war department had erected their arbitrary bar at captaincy, and declared that no show of efficiency could secure for them the titular rank which they more than once actually exercised. for they were repeatedly in command of their companies through sickness or absence of their captains. they served as officers without the incentive which comes from hope of promotion. they were forced to see the credit of their labors go to others, and to share more than once in discredit for which they were not responsible. they were, and in this lay their chief embarrassment, without the security and protection which higher rank would have accorded them. in case of trial by court-martial, captains and other higher officers filled the court to the exclusion of almost all others. these were white men. it is gratifying to record that the war department recognized this special injustice to colored officers, and in the two regiments of colored volunteers recruited for service in the philippines all the line-officers are colored men, the field officers being white, and appointed from the regular army in pursuance of a general policy. thus far has the general government advanced in recognition of the military capacity of the negro. in the swing of the pendulum the nation is now at the place where the hardy general butler was thirty-seven years ago, when he organized the three regiments of louisiana native guards with all line-officers colored. the way in which modern armies are organized and perfected leaves little necessity for an equipment of exceptional personal gifts in order to exercise ordinary military command. the whole thing is subordinate, and the field for personal initiative is contracted to the minimum. in our own army the president is commander-in-chief, and the command descends through a multitude of subordinate grades down to the lowest commissioned officer in the service. we have "articles of war" and "regulations," and the entire discipline and government of the army is committed to writing. there is no chance to enshroud in mystery the ability to command. for ordinary military command, with intelligence the chief requisite, little is required beyond courage, firmness and good judgment. these qualities are in no respect natural barriers for colored men. this last story of the negro soldier's efficiency and gallantry, told in the pages of this book, teaches its own very simple conclusion. the cuban campaign has forced the nation to recognize the completion of the negro's evolution as a soldier in the army of the united states. the colored american soldier, by his own prowess, has won an acknowledged place by the side of the best trained fighters with arms. in the fullness of his manhood he has no rejoicing in the patronizing paean, "the colored troops fought nobly," nor does he glow at all when told of his "faithfulness" and "devotion" to his white officers, qualities accentuated to the point where they might well fit an affectionate dog. he lays claim to no prerogative other than that of a plain citizen of the republic, trained to the profession of arms. the measure of his demand--and it is the demand of ten millions of his fellow-citizens allied to him by race--is that the full manhood privileges of a soldier be accorded him. on his record in arms, not excluding his manifest capacity to command, the colored soldier, speaking for the entire body of colored citizens in this country, only demands that the door of the nation's military training school be freely open to the capable of his race, and the avenue of promotion from the ranks be accessible to his tried efficiency; that no hindrance prevent competent colored men from taking their places as officers as well as soldiers in the nation's permanent military establishment. footnotes: [ ] headquarters department of the gulf, new orleans, august , . general orders no. . "whereas, on the d day of april, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one, at a public meeting of the free colored population of the city of new orleans, a military organization, known as the 'native guards' (colored), had its existence, which military organization was duly and legally enrolled as a part of the militia of the state, its officers being commissioned by thomas o. moore, governor and commander-in-chief of the militia of the state of louisiana, in the form following, that is to say: the state of louisiana. (seal of the state.) by thomas overton moore, governor of the state of louisiana, and commander-in-chief of the militia thereof. "'in the name and by the authority of the state of louisiana: know ye that ---- ----, having been duly and legally elected captain of the "native guards" (colored), first division of the militia of louisiana, to serve for the term of the war, "'i do hereby appoint and commission him captain as aforesaid, to take rank as such, from the d day of may, eighteen hundred and sixty-one. "'he is, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duties of his office by doing and performing all manner of things thereto belonging. and i do strictly charge and require all officers, non-commissioned officers and privates under his command to be obedient to his orders as captain; and he is to observe and follow such orders and directions, from time to time, as he shall receive from me, or the future governor of the state of louisiana, or other superior officers, according to the rules and articles of war, and in conformity to law. "'in testimony whereof, i have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the state to be hereunto annexed. "'given under my hand, at the city of baton rouge, on the second day of may, in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one. (l.s.) (signed) thos. o. moore. "'by the governor: (signed) p.d. hardy, secretary of state. (wilson: black phalanx, p. .) [ ] de tocqueville: l'ancien régime et la revolution, p. - . [ ] thomas westworth higginson: army life in a black regiment, pp. - . [ ] thomas wentworth higginson: army life in a black regiment, p. . [ ] williams's negro troops in the rebellion, pp. - , quoting the order. [ ] williams's negro troops in the rebellion, pp. - , original order quoted. [ ] see pp. - ms. [ ] wilson: black phalanx, p. , original order quoted. [ ] campaigns of the civil war. f.v. greene. the mississippi, p. et seq. [ ] williams's negro troops in the rebellion, p. , original order quoted. [ ] ms. archives of massachusetts, vol. , p. , quoted in williams's negro troops in the rebellion, p. . appendix. the correspondence following shows the progress of the negotiations for the surrender of the city of santiago and the spanish army, from the morning of july d until the final convention was signed on the sixteenth of the same month. this surrender virtually closed the war, but did not restore the contending nations to a status of peace. twenty-three thousand spanish soldiers had laid down their arms and had been transformed from enemies to friends. on the tenth of august following, a protocol was submitted by the president of the united states, which was accepted by the spanish cabinet on the eleventh, and on the twelfth the president announced the cessation of hostilities, thus closing a war which had lasted one hundred and ten days. on the tenth of december a treaty of peace between the united states and spain was signed at paris, which was subsequently ratified by both nations, and diplomatic relations fully restored. the war, though short, had been costly. one hundred and fifty million dollars had been spent in its prosecution, and there were left on our hands the unsolved problem of cuba and the philippines, which promised much future trouble. within a month from the signing of the convention, the army of invasion, known as the fifth army corps, was on its homeward voyage, and by the latter part of august the whole command was well out of cuba. well did the soldiers themselves, as well as their friends, realize, as the former returned from that campaign of a hundred days, that war in the tropics was neither a pastime nor a practice march. the campaign had tested the powers of endurance of the men to its utmost limit. the horrors of war were brought directly to the face of the people, as the ten thousand invalids dragged their debilitated forms from the transports to their detention camps, or to the hospitals, some too helpless to walk, and many to die soon after greeting their native shores. those who had been so enthusiastic for the war were now quiet, and were eagerly laying the blame for the sorrow and suffering before them upon the shoulders of those who had conducted the war. few stopped to think that a good part of this woe might be justly charged to those who had constantly resisted the establishment of an adequate standing army, and who, with inconsistent vehemence, had urged the nation into a war, regardless of its military equipment. the emaciated veterans arriving at montauk were spoken of as the evidences of "military incompetency;" they were also evidence of that narrow statesmanship which ignores the constant suggestions of military experience. * * * * * headquarters united states forces, near san juan river, july , -- . a.m. to the commanding general of the spanish forces, santiago de cuba. sir:--i shall be obliged, unless you surrender, to shell santiago de cuba. please inform the citizens of foreign countries, and all the women and children, that they should leave the city before o'clock to-morrow morning. very respectfully, your obedient servant, william r. shafter, major-general u.s.v. reply. santiago de cuba, july , . his excellency the general commanding forces of united states, near san juan river. sir:--i have the honor to reply to your communication of to-day, written at . a.m., and received at p.m., demanding the surrender of this city, or, in contrary case, announcing to me that you will bombard this city, and that i advise the foreigners, women and children that they must leave the city before o'clock to-morrow morning. it is my duty to say to you that this city will not surrender, and that i will inform the foreign consuls and inhabitants of the contents of your message. very respectfully, jose toral, commander-in-chief, fourth corps, headquarters fifth army corps, camp near san juan river, cuba, july , . the commanding general, spanish forces, santiago de cuba, cuba. sir:--i was officially informed last night that admiral cervera is now a captive on board the u.s.s. gloucester, and is unharmed. he was then in the harbor of siboney. i regret also to have to announce to you the death of general vara del rey at el caney, who, with two of his sons, was killed in the battle of july st. his body will be buried this morning with military honors. his brother, lieutenant-colonel vara del rey, is wounded and a prisoner in my hands, together with the following officers: captain don antonio vara del rey, captain isidor arias, captain antonio mansas, and captain manuel romero, who, though severely wounded, will all probably survive. i also have to announce to you that the spanish fleet, with the exception of one vessel, was destroyed, and this one is being so vigorously pursued that it will be impossible for it to escape. general pando is opposed by forces sufficient to hold him in check. in view of the above, i would suggest that, to save needless effusion of blood and the distress of many people, you may reconsider your determination of yesterday. your men have certainly shown the gallantry which was expected of them. i am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant, william r. shafter, major-general, commanding united states forces. headquarters fifth army corps, camp near san juan river, cuba, july , . to the commanding general, spanish forces, santiago de cuba, cuba. sir:--the fortune of war has thrown into my hands quite a number of officers and private soldiers, whom i am now holding as prisoners of war, and i have the honor to propose to you that a cartel of exchange be arranged to-day, by which the prisoners taken by the forces of spain from on board the merrimac, and any officers and men of the army who may have fallen into our hands within the past few days, may be returned to their respective governments on the terms usual in such cases, of rank for rank. trusting that this will meet with your favorable consideration, i remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, william r. shafter, major-general, commanding united states forces. headquarters fifth army corps, camp near san juan river, cuba, july , . to the commanding officer, spanish forces, santiago. sir:--it will give me great pleasure to return to the city of santiago at an early hour to-morrow morning all the wounded spanish officers now at el caney who are able to be carried and who will give their parole not to serve against the united states until regularly exchanged. i make this proposition, as i am not so situated as to give these officers the care and attention that they can receive at the hands of their military associates and from their own surgeons; though i shall, of course, give them every kind treatment that it is possible to do under such adverse circumstances. trusting that this will meet with your approbation, and that you will permit me to return to you these persons, i am, your very obedient servant, william r. shafter, major-general, commanding united states forces. army of the island of cuba, fifth corps, general staff. to his excellency the commander-in-chief of the american forces. excellency:--i have the honor to reply to the three communications of your excellency, dated to-day, and i am very grateful for the news you give in regard to the generals, chiefs, officers and troops that are your prisoners, and of the good care that you give to the wounded in your possession. with respect to the wounded, i have no objection to receiving in this place those that your excellency may willingly deliver me, but i am not authorized by the general-in-chief to make any exchange, as he has reserved to himself that authority. yet i have given him notice of the proposition of your excellency. it is useless for me to tell you how grateful i am for the interest that your excellency has shown for the prisoners and corpse of general vara del rey, giving you many thanks for the chivalrous treatment. the same reasons that i explained to you yesterday, i have to give again to-day--that this place will not be surrendered. i am, yours with great respect and consideration, (signed) jose toral. in santiago de cuba, july , . headquarters fifth army corps, camp near san juan river, cuba, july , . to the commander-in-chief, spanish forces, santiago de cuba. sir:--in view of the events of the d instant, i have the honor to lay before your excellency certain propositions to which, i trust, your excellency, will give the consideration which, in my judgment, they deserve. i inclose a bulletin of the engagement of sunday morning which resulted in the complete destruction of admiral cervera's fleet, the loss of six hundred of his officers and men, and the capture of the remainder. the admiral, general paredes and all others who escaped alive are now prisoners on board the harvard and st. louis, and the latter ship, in which are the admiral, general paredes and the surviving captains (all except the captain of the almirante oquendo, who was slain) has already sailed for the united states. if desired by you, this may be confirmed by your excellency sending an officer under a flag of truce to admiral sampson, and he can arrange to visit the harvard, which will not sail until to-morrow, and obtain the details from spanish officers and men on board that ship. our fleet is now perfectly free to act, and i have the honor to state that unless a surrender be arranged by noon of the th instant, a bombardment will be begun and continued by the heavy guns of our ships. the city is within easy range of these guns, the eight-inch being capable of firing , yards, the thirteen-inch, of course, much farther. the ships can so lie that with a range of , yards they can reach the centre of the city. i make this suggestion of a surrender purely in a humanitarian spirit. i do not wish to cause the slaughter of any more men, either of your excellency's forces or my own, the final result, under circumstances so disadvantageous to your excellency being a foregone conclusion. as your excellency may wish to make reference of so momentous a question to your excellency's home government, it is for this purpose that i have placed the time of the resumption of hostilities sufficiently far in the future to allow a reply being received. i beg an early answer from your excellency. i have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, w. r. shafter, major-general, commanding. headquarters fifth army corps, camp near santiago, july , . hon. secretary of war, washington, d. c. i forwarded general toral's proposition to evacuate the town this morning without consulting any one. since then i have seen the general officers commanding divisions, who agree with me in that it should be accepted. st. it releases at once the harbor. d. it permits the return of thousands of women, children and old men, who have left the town, fearing bombardment, and are now suffering fearfully where they are, though i am doing my best to supply them with food. d. it saves the great destruction of property which a bombardment would entail, most of which belongs to cubans and foreign residents. th. it at once releases this command while it is in good health for operations elsewhere. there are now three cases of yellow fever at siboney in a michigan regiment, and if it gets started, no one knows where it will stop. we lose by this, simply some prisoners we do not want and the arms they carry. i believe many of them will desert and return to our lines. i was told by a sentinel who deserted last night that two hundred men wanted to come, but were afraid our men would fire upon them. w.r. shafter, major-general, united states volunteers. reply. washington, d.c., july , . major-general shafter, playa, cuba. in reply to your telegram recommending terms of evacuation as proposed by the spanish commander, after careful consideration by the president and secretary of war, i am directed to say that you have repeatedly been advised that you would not be expected to make an assault upon the enemy at santiago until you were prepared to do the work thoroughly. when you are ready this will be done. your telegram of this morning said your position was impregnable and that you believed the enemy would yet surrender unconditionally. you have also assured us that you could force their surrender by cutting off their supplies. under these circumstances, your message recommending that spanish troops be permitted to evacuate and proceed without molestation to holguin is a great surprise and is not approved. the responsibility for the destruction and distress to the inhabitants rests entirely with the spanish commander. the secretary of war orders that when you are strong enough to destroy the enemy and take santiago, you do it. if you have not force enough, it will be despatched to you at the earliest moment possible. reinforcements are on the way of which you have already been apprised. in the meantime, nothing is lost by holding the position you now have, and which you regard as impregnable. acknowledge receipt. by order of the secretary of war. (signed) h.c. corbin, adjutant-general. headquarters united states forces, camp near san juan river, cuba, july , . to his excellency, the commander-in-chief of the spanish forces, santiago de cuba. sir:--with the largely increased forces which have come to me, and the fact that i have your line of retreat securely within my hands, the time seems fitting that i should again demand of your excellency the surrender of santiago and your excellency's army. i am authorized to state that should your excellency so desire, the government of the united states will transport your entire command to spain. i have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, william r. shafter, major-general, commanding. reply. army of the island of cuba, fourth corps, july , . to his excellency, the commander-in-chief of the forces of the united states, in the camp of the san juan. esteemed sir:--i have the honor to advise your eminence that your communication of this date is received, and in reply desire to confirm that which i said in my former communication, and also to advise you that i have communicated your proposition to the general-in-chief. reiterating my sentiments, i am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, (signed) jose toral, commander-in-chief of the fourth corps and military governor of santiago. headquarters fifth army corps, camp near santiago de cuba, july , . to his excellency, commander-in-chief of spanish forces, santiago de cuba. sir:--i have the honor to inform your excellency that i have already ordered a suspension of hostilities, and i will repeat that order, granting in this manner a reasonable time within which you may receive an answer to the message sent to the government of spain, which time will end to-morrow at o'clock noon. i think it my duty to inform your excellency that during this armistice i will not move any of my troops that occupy the advanced line, but the forces that arrived to-day and which are debarking at siboney require moving to this camp. i wish that your excellency would honor me with a personal interview to-morrow morning at o'clock. i will come accompanied by the commanding general of the american army, and by an interpreter, which will permit you to be accompanied by two or three persons of your staff who speak english. hoping for a favorable answer, i have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, william r. shafter, major-general, commanding. army of the island of cuba, fourth corps, santiago de cuba, july , -- p. m. to his excellency, the general of the american troops. esteemed sir:--i have the honor to answer your favor of this date, inform your excellency that in deference to your desires i will be much honored by a conference with his excellency, the commanding general of your army, and your excellency, to-morrow morning at the hour you have seen fit to appoint. very respectfully, your obedient servant, (signed) jose toral, commander-in-chief of the fourth army corps. preliminary agreement for the capitulation of the spanish forces which constitute the division of santiago de cuba, occupying the territory herein set forth, said capitulation authorized by the commander-in-chief of the island of cuba, agreed to by general toral and awaiting the approbation of the government at madrid, and subject to the following conditions: submitted by the undersigned commissioners-- brigadier-general don frederick escario, lieutenant-colonel of staff don ventura fontan and mr. robert mason, of the city of santiago de cuba, representing general toral, commanding spanish forces, to major-general joseph wheeler, u.s.v., major-general h.w. lawton, u.s.v., and first lieutenant j.d. miley, second artillery, a.d.c, representing general shafter, commanding american forces, for the capitulation of the spanish forces comprised in that portion of the island of cuba east of a line passing through aserradero, dos palmas, palma soriano, cauto abajo, escondida, tanamo and aguilera, said territory being known as the eastern district of santiago, commanded by general jose toral. . that pending arrangements for capitulation all hostilities between american and spanish forces in this district shall absolutely and unequivocally cease. . that this capitulation includes all the forces and war material in said territory. . that after the signing of the final capitulation the united states agrees, with as little delay as possible, to transport all the spanish troops in said district to the kingdom of spain, the troops, as near as possible, to embark at the port nearest the garrison they now occupy. . that the officers of the spanish army be permitted to retain their side arms, and both officers and enlisted men their personal property. . that after final capitulation the spanish authorities agree without delay to remove, or assist the american navy in removing, all mines or other obstructions to navigation now in the harbor of santiago and its mouth. . that after final capitulation the commander of the spanish forces deliver without delay a complete inventory of all arms and munitions of war of the spanish forces and a roster of the said forces now in the above-described district, to the commander of the american forces. . that the commander of the spanish forces, in leaving said district, is authorized to carry with him all military archives and records pertaining to the spanish army now in said district. . that all of that portion of the spanish forces known as volunteers, movilizados and guerillas, who wish to remain in the island of cuba are permitted to do so under parole not to take up arms against the united states during the continuance of the war between spain and the united states, delivering up their arms. . that the spanish forces will march out of santiago de cuba with honors of war, depositing their arms thereafter at a point mutually agreed upon, to await their disposition by the united states government, it being understood that the united states commissioners will recommend that the spanish soldier return to spain with the arms he so bravely defended. entered into this fifteenth day of july, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, by the undersigned commissioners, acting under instructions from their respecting commanding generals. (signed) joseph wheeler, _major-general u.s. vols._; h.w. lawton, _major-general u.s. vols._; j.d. miley, _ st lieut. d art., a.d.c. to general shafter._ frederico escario, ventura fontan, robert mason. army of the island of cuba, fourth corps, santiago de cuba, july , -- p.m. to his excellency, the general-in-chief of the american forces, esteemed sir:--as i am now authorized by my government to capitulate, i have the honor to so advise you, requesting you to designate the hour and place where my representatives should appear, to concur with those of your excellency to edit the articles of capitulation on the basis of what has been agreed upon to this date. in due time i wish to manifest to your excellency my desire to know the resolution of the united states government respecting the return of the arms, so as to note it in the capitulation; also for their great courtesy and gentlemanly deportment i wish to thank your grace's representatives, and in return for their generous and noble efforts for the spanish soldiers, i hope your government will allow them to return to the peninsula with the arms that the american army do them the honor to acknowledge as having dutifully defended. reiterating my former sentiments, i remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, jose toral, commander-in-chief of the fourth army corps. at neutral camp, near santiago, under a flag of truce, july , . recognizing the chivalry, courage and gallantry of generals linares and toral, and of the soldiers of spain who were engaged in the battles recently fought in the vicinity of santiago de cuba, as displayed in said battles, we, the undersigned officers of the united states army, who had the honor to be engaged in said battle, and are now a duly organized commission, treating with a like commission of officers of the spanish army, for the capitulation of santiago de cuba, unanimously join in earnestly soliciting the proper authority to accord to these brave and chivalrous soldiers the privilege of returning to their country bearing the arms they have so bravely defended. joseph wheeler, major-general, u.s. vols. h. w. lawton, major-general, u.s. vols. first lieut., d art., a.d.c. j. d. miley. army of the island of cuba, fourth corps, santiago de cuba, july , . to his excellency, the commander-in-chief of the forces of the united states. esteemed sir:--at half-past i received your communication of this date, and i am sorry to advise you that it is impossible for my representatives to come to the appointed place at midday, as you wish, as i must meet them and give them their instructions. if agreeable to you, will you defer the visit until p.m. to-day or until to-morrow morning, and in the meanwhile the obstacles to the entrance of the red cross will be removed from the harbor. i beg your honor will make clear what force you wish me to retire from the railroad, as, if it is that in aguadores, i would authorize the repair of the bridge at once by your engineers; and if it is that on the heights to the left of your lines, i beg you will specify with more precision. i have ordered those in charge of the aqueduct to proceed at once to repair it with the means at their command. awaiting your reply, i remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, jose toral, commander-in-chief of the fourth army corps. headquarters fifth army corps, camp, july , . to his excellency, general jose toral, commanding spanish forces in eastern cuba. sir:--i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's letter of this date, notifying me that the government at madrid approves your action, and requesting that i designate officers to arrange for and receive the surrender of the forces of your excellency. this i do, nominating major-general wheeler, major-general lawton, and my aide, lieutenant miley. i have to request that your excellency at once withdraw your troops from along the railway to aguadores, and from the bluff in rear of my left; also that you at once direct the removal of the obstructions at the entrance to the harbor or assist the navy in doing so, as it is of the utmost importance that i at once get vessels loaded with food into the harbor. the repair of the railroad will, i am told, require a week's time. i shall, as i have said to your excellency, urge my government that the gallant men your excellency has so ably commanded have returned to spain with them the arms they have wielded. with great respect, i remain, your obedient servant and friend, william r. shafter, general, commanding. terms of the military convention for the capitulation of the spanish forces occupying the territory which constitutes the division of santiago de cuba and described as follows: all that portion of the island of cuba east of a line passing through aserradero, dos palmas, cauto abajo, escondida, tanamo and aguilara, said troops being in command of general jose toral; agreed upon by the undersigned commissioners: brigadier-general don federico escario, lieutenant-colonel of staff don ventura fontan, and as interpreter, mr. robert mason, of the city of santiago de cuba, appointed by general toral, commanding the spanish forces, on behalf of the kingdom of spain, and major-general joseph wheeler, u.s.v., major-general h.w. lawton, u.s.v., and first lieutenant j.d. miley, second artillery, a.d.c., appointed by general shafter, commanding the american forces on behalf of the united states: . that all hostilities between the american and spanish forces in this district absolutely and unequivocally cease. . that this capitulation includes all the forces and war material in said territory. . that the united states agrees, with as little delay as possible, to transport all the spanish troops in said district to the kingdom of spain, the troops being embarked, as far as possible at the port nearest the garrison they now occupy. . that the officers of the spanish army be permitted to retain their side arms, and both officers and private soldiers their personal property. . that the spanish authorities agree to remove, or assist the american navy in removing, all mines or other obstructions to navigation now in the harbor of santiago and its mouth. . that the commander of the spanish forces deliver without delay a complete inventory of all arms and munitions of war of the spanish forces in above described district to the commander of the american forces; also a roster of said forces now in said district. . that the commander of the spanish forces, in leaving said district, is authorized to carry with him all military archives and records pertaining to the spanish army now in said district. . that all that portion of the spanish forces known as volunteers, movilizados and guerillas, who wish to remain in the island of cuba, are permitted to do so upon the condition of delivering up their arms and taking a parole not to bear arms against the united states during the continuance of the present war between spain and the united states. . that the spanish forces will march out of santiago de cuba with the honors of war, depositing their arms thereafter at a point mutually agreed upon, to await their disposition by the united states government, it being understood that the united states commissioners will recommend that the spanish soldier return to spain with the arms he so bravely defended. . that the provisions of the foregoing instrument become operative immediately upon its being signed. entered into this sixteenth day of july, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, by the undersigned commissioners, acting under instructions from their respective commanding generals and with the approbation of their respective governments. (signed) joseph wheeler, _major-general u.s. vols._; h.w. lawton, _major-general u.s. vols._; j.d. miley, _ st lieut. d art., a.d.c. to general shafter._ frederico escario, ventura fontan, robert mason. the following dispatch, sent by general linares, will show how desperate were the straits into which he had been driven and how earnestly he desired to be granted authority to avoid further fighting by the surrender of his forces at santiago: santiago de cuba, july , . the general-in-chief to the secretary of war. although prostrated in bed from weakness and pain, my mind is troubled by the situation of our suffering troops, and therefore i think it my duty to address myself to you, mr. secretary, and describe the true situation. the enemy's forces very near city; ours extended fourteen kilometres ( , yards). our troops exhausted and sickly in an alarming proportion. cannot be brought to the hospital--needing them in trenches. cattle without fodder or hay. fearful storm of rain, which has been pouring continuously for past twenty-four hours. soldiers without permanent shelter. their only food rice, and not much of that. they have no way of changing or drying their clothing. our losses were very heavy--many chiefs and officers among the dead, wounded and sick. their absence deprives the forces of their leaders in this very critical moment. under these conditions it is impossible to open a breach on the enemy, because it would take a third of our men who cannot go out, and whom the enemy would decimate. the result would be a terrible disaster, without obtaining, as you desire, the salvation of eleven maimed battalions. to make a sortie protected by the division at holguin, it is necessary to attack the enemy's lines simultaneously, and the forces of holguin cannot come here except after many long days' marching. impossible for them to transport rations. unfortunately, the situation is desperate. the surrender is imminent, otherwise we will only gain time to prolong our agony. the sacrifice would be sterile, and the men understand this. with his lines so near us, the enemy will annihilate us without exposing his own, as he did yesterday, bombarding by land elevations without our being able to discover their batteries, and by sea the fleet has a perfect knowledge of the place, and bombards with a mathematical accuracy. santiago is no gerona, a walled city, part of the mother country, and defended inch by inch by her own people without distinction--old men and women who helped with their lives, moved by the holy idea of freedom, and with the hope of help, which they received. here i am alone. all the people have fled, even those holding public offices, almost without exception. only the priests remain, and they wish to leave the city to-day, headed by their archbishop. these defenders do not start now a campaign full of enthusiasm and energy, but for three years they have been fighting the climate, privations and fatigue, and now they have to confront this critical situation when they have no enthusiasm or physical strength. they have no ideals, because they defend the property of people who have deserted them and those who are the allies of the american forces. the honor of arms has its limit, and i appeal to the judgment of the government and of the entire nation whether these patient troops have not repeatedly saved it since may th--date of first bombardment. if it is necessary that i sacrifice them for reasons unknown to me, or if it is necessary for some one to take responsibility for the issue foreseen and announced by me in several telegrams, i willingly offer myself as a sacrifice to my country, and i will take charge of the command for the act of surrender, as my modest reputation is of small value when the reputation of the nation is at stake. (signed) linares. thus surrendered to our forces about , spanish troops, of whom about , had been in the garrison of santiago, the others having been stationed in garrisons outside of the city, but belonging to the division of santiago. with them were also surrendered cannon, machine guns and over , rifles. the troops were all sent back to spain in vessels of their own nation and flying their own flag. we had lost in battles with them before the surrender officers killed and men; and officers and , men wounded. the black phalanx african american soldiers in the war of independence, the war of , and the civil war by joseph t. wilson late of the nd. reg't. la. native guard vols. th mass. vols. aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief g. a. b. author of "emancipation," "voice of a new race," "twenty-two years of freedom," etc., etc. new foreword by dudley taylor cornish da capo press new york library of congress cataloging in publication data wilson, joseph t. (joseph thomas), - . the black phalanx: african american soldiers in the war of independence, the war of , and the civil war / by joseph t. wilson; foreword by dudley taylor cornish.-- st da capo press ed. p. cm. previously published: hartford, conn.: american pub. co., . includes bibliographical references. isbn - - - . afro-american soldiers--history. . united states--history--civil war, - --participation, afro-american. . united states--history--revolution, - --participation, afro-american. . united states--history--war of --participation, afro-american. i. cornish, dudley taylor. ii. title. e . .w - . -dc cip first da capo press edition this da capo press paperback edition of _the black phalanx_ is an unabridged republication of the edition published in hartford, connecticut, in . it is here supplemented with a new foreword by dudley taylor cornish. foreword © by dudley taylor cornish published by da capo press, inc. a subsidiary of plenum publishing corporation spring street, new york, n.y. all rights reserved manufactured in the united states of america introduction. by way of introduction to the american public, of the author and editor of this book, we beg to say that mr. wilson is not altogether unknown to the literary world, having already published several works relative to the negro race. his services during the war of the rebellion secured for him a flattering recognition. he served in the nd regiment louisiana native guard volunteers, also the th massachusetts volunteers,--the most famous of the union negro regiments that engaged in the struggle, receiving several wounds. he was the first negro member of the national council of administration of the grand army of the republic, and a delegate to the national encampment, and was appointed colonel--a. d. c. to the commander-in-chief g. a. r. he was chosen by his comrades to be the historian of the negro soldiers, and has overcome many almost insurmountable difficulties in gathering the scattered facts, particularly those of the early wars of the united states, that were necessary to complete this work. the publishers. dedication. _to the brave men who commanded the black phalanx._ soldiers:--as a mark of esteem and respect for your patriotic devotion to the cause of human freedom, i desire to dedicate to you this record of the services of the negro soldiers, whom you led so often and successfully in the struggle for liberty and union during the great war of -' . your coming from the highest ranks of social life, undeterred by the prevailing spirit of caste prejudice, to take commands in the largest negro army ever enrolled beneath the flag of any civilized country, was in itself a brave act. the organization and disciplining of over two hundred thousand men, of a race that for more than two centuries had patiently borne the burdens of an unrequited bondage, for the maintenance of laws which had guaranteed to them neither rights nor protection, was indeed a magnificent undertaking. you were outlawed by the decrees of jefferson davis, criticised by many friends at home, and contemptuously received by brother officers at headquarters, in the field, in the trenches, and at the mess table; yet, you did not waver in your fidelity to principle or in your heroic leadership of those whose valor was denied until it was proven in carnage and victory. the record of the black phalanx invites the scrutiny of all who have been disposed to taunt you for associating with "armed barbarians." no massacre of vanquished foe stains the banners of those who followed you, giving quarter but receiving none. it was your teaching that served as a complete restraint against retaliation, though statesmen hinted that it would be just. your training developed patriotism and courage, but not revenge. ungrateful as republics are said to be, ours has aimed to recognize merit and reward it, and those who at first hailed you with contumely, are now glad to greet you as heroes and saviors of a common country. no true soldier desires to forget the price of his country's liberty, or that of his own; it is the recollection of the terrible bloody onset--the audacious charge--the enemy's repulse, which sweetens victory. and surely no soldiers can appreciate the final triumph with a keener sense of gladness than those who fought against such odds as did the black phalanx. beating down prejudice and upholding the national cause at the same time, they have inscribed upon their banners every important battle from april, , to april, . if what i have written here shall call to your minds, and present justly to the patriotic public, the indescribable hardships which you endured on the march, in the bivouac, and in the seething flames of the battle's front, my task will have served its purpose. in the name of and as a token of the gratitude of a freed race, this book is dedicated to you. joseph t. wilson. _navy hill, richmond, va._ preface. it was a dark, stormy night in the winter of , when less than a hundred men, all of whom had served their country in crushing the great rebellion of -' , gathered around a camp-fire. the white and the colored american were there; so were the german, frenchman, and irishman,--all american citizens,--all veterans of the last war. the empty sleeve, the absent leg, the sabred face, the bullet-scarred body of the many, told the story of the service they had seen. it was the annual encampment of the department of virginia, grand army of the republic, and the comrades of farragut post had tastefully arranged their quarters for the occasion. at midnight a sumptuous soldiers fare--baked beans, hot coffee and hard tack--was spread before the veterans, who ate and drank heartily as in the days when resting from the pursuit of the enemy. in the morning hour, when weary from the joy of song and toast, it was proposed that the history of the american negro soldier should be written, that posterity might have a fuller and more complete record of the deeds of the negro soldiers than had been given in the numerous already published histories of the conflicts in which they played so important a part. the task of preparing the history fell to my lot, and it is in obedience to the duty laid upon me by my former comrades, with whom i shared the toils and joys of camp, march, battle and siege, that this volume, the result of my efforts, is launched upon the sea of war literature. whether or not there is any merit in the work, the reader must judge. his charity is asked, however, toward such defects as may be apparent, and which, perhaps, might be expected in the literary work of one whose life has been largely spent amid the darkness of the south american countries and the isolation of the south sea islands. it was not until may, , while domiciled at the capitol of chili, that i first learned of the war in the united states, when, hastening to this country, i fell into the ranks with the first negro soldiers that left the touro building at new orleans, in november, , and marched out on the opelousas road, to serve in defence of the union. with whatever forebodings of failure i entered upon the work of collecting the literature of the war, from which to cull and arrange much of the matter contained herein,--which has required years of incessant search and appeal,--i can but _feel_ that it has been thoroughly done. the public libraries of the cities of boston, cincinnati, new bedford, new york, the war department at washington, and the private libraries of several eminent citizens, have alike been made use of by me. it seemed proper, also, that the memory of our forefathers should not be allowed to remain in longer obscurity; that it was fitting to recall _their_ deeds of heroism, that all might know the sacrifices they made for the freedom their descendants were so long denied from enjoying. in gathering together the scattered facts relating to the negroe's participation in the wars of and , difficulties well-nigh insurmountable have been overcome, and it has been only through patient and persistent effort that i have been able to prepare the chapters devoted to the early wars of the united states. descriptions of a number of the battles in which negro troops took part in the late war of the rebellion, are given to call attention to the unsurpassed carnage which occurred, and to give them proper place in the war's history rather than to present a critical account of the battles. my aim has been to write in the spirit which impelled the soldiers to go forth to battle, and to reverse the accounts given in the popular histories which ascribe to the generals and colonels who commanded, instead of the soldiers who did the fighting, victory or defeat. "the troops who do what can neither be expected nor required, are the ones which are victorious. the men, who, tired and worn and hungry and exhausted, yet push into battle, are those who win. they who persist against odds, against obstacles, against hope, who proceed or hold out reasonably, are the conquerors," says gen. grant's historian. with no desire of detracting from the commanders--if i were able--the honor due them, my aim is to credit the soldiers with whatever heroism they may have displayed. i acknowledge it has been a labor of love to fight many of the battles of the war of the rebellion over again, not because of a relish for blood and the destruction of human life, but for the memories of the past; of the bondage of a race and its struggle for freedom, awakening as they do the intense love of country and liberty, such as one who has been without either feels, when both have been secured by heroic effort. to those who have responded to my appeal for information regarding the negro soldier, i have aimed to give full credit; if any are omitted it is not intentionally done. to no one am i more indebted for assisting in collecting data, than to lt. j. m. trotter, of the th mass. reg't. nor am i unmindful of the kindness of hon. robert lincoln, late secretary of war, nor that of col. james d. brady, member of congress from virginia, for copies of public records; to col. h. c. corbin, for the record of the th reg't.; and to col. d. torrance for that of the th reg't. conn. i am also indebted to maj. gen. wm. mahone for a map of the defences of petersburg, showing the crater; to the librarian of the young men's mercantile library, of cincinnati, for the use of col. albert's carved map of fort wagner, and to col. g. m. arnold and hon. joseph jergenson for copies of historical papers; also to hon. libbey. j. t. w. contents. part i. _the wars for independence._ chapter i.--the war of . page. the sentiments of the colonists--the agreement of --the resolutions of ga.--the virginians boycotting a slaver--tories opposed to a negro army--caste prejudice not strong--the militia law of mass. in --negro sentinels at meeting houses--crispus attucks leads the whites to an attack upon british soldiers--resolution of the committee of safety--battle of bunker hill--peter salem kills the british maj. pitcairn--petition to the general court of mass. bay--biographical account of peter salem--manumitting of slaves to allow them to become soldiers--meeting of the committee of conference--gen. washington writes the president regarding negro soldiers--action of congress sustaining gen. washington--the first question of "color" in the army--negroes allowed in the s. c. militia--dr. hopkins' article concerning slavery--lord dunmore visits norfolk, --proclamation of lord dunmore--the dread of the colonists--an unreasonable fear--action of the conn. general assembly, --letter from gen. green to gen. washington--daring exploits of prince and other negroes at newport, r. i.--the storming of fort griswold--action of the state of r. i.--action of the state of new york, --proclamation of sir henry clinton--the colonists beginning to favor negro troops--gen. washington's emphatic language--re-enslavement of discharged negro soldiers--action of the legislature of virginia chapter ii.--the war of . the principal cause of the war--seizure of american negro sailors--outrages upon american ships--the declaration of war--the battle of lake erie--negroes on american privateers--action of the legislature of la.--review of negro troops in new orleans--the battle of new orleans part ii. _the war between the states._ chapter i.--public opinion. existing prejudice--no prejudice in europe--detocqueville's views--the new race--southern opinions--the negro's ambition--the coast pursuit in the navy--a change of policy--public opinions changed chapter ii.--recruiting and organizing. the unpleasant duties of a recruiting officer--henry wilson's bill in congress for the arming of negroes, --mr. stevens' amendment to the enrollment act, --orders for the enrollment of negroes in the miss. valley--curious way of keeping ranks full--the date of the first organization of colored troops--the organization of the th mass. regiment--their quarters at morris island--refusing to do menial service--short pay for negro troops--negroes enlisting for bounty--record of total number of negroes who served in the army chapter iii.--recruiting and organizing in south carolina. private miles o'reilly's account of gen. hunter's black troops--the first negro troops in the field--gen. hunter's humorous report to congress--jefferson davis declares gen. hunter and his officers outlaws--gen. hunter's suppressed letter to jefferson davis--miles o'reilly's humorous poem, "sambo's right to be kil't" chapter iv.--officers of the phalanx. officers of the phalanx--character and qualifications of the men who commanded negro troops--the examination of candidates for commissioners--some of the negroes who rose from the ranks--gen. banks' idea of officering the corps d'afrique chapter v.--department of the gulf. the surrender of confederate negro troops at new orleans--slaves flocking to the union camp--gen. phelps desires to arm them--butler refuses--gen. phelps' resignation--gen. butler converted to the policy of arming negroes--negroes enlisted at new orleans--gen. weitzel placed in command--the fight at mansfield--the battle of milliken's bend--indignities offered to phalanx soldiers--the affair at ship island--port hudson--the struggle--desperate fighting of the phalanx--a useless effort--perilous duties of the engineers--boker's poem on the fight at port hudson chapter vi.--the army of the frontier. iowa's splendid response to the call--refusal of the phalanx troops to accept the pay offered by the government--active times at helena--the confederate general dobbins makes an attack--a spirited fight--a critical situation--re-enforcement by white cavalry--the honor due to kansas--the report of the service of kansas negro troops--col. crawford's report for the nd kansas regiment chapter vii.--department of the south. gen. hunter's important action--organization of the st south carolina--an expedition up the st. mary's river--fort wagner--description of the fort--plans for the assault--the forming of the line--the assault--magnificent fighting--death of col. shaw--useless slaughter--the confederate account of the assault upon fort wagner--movements in florida--the landing at jacksonville--raids on the surrounding country--the advance towards tallahassee--the troops reach barbour's station--the battle of olustee--desperate fighting on both sides--a terrible defeat--the union troops routed--drawing away the wounded on railway cars--return to baldwin's--the th mass.--boykin's mill--the "swamp angel"--inquiries respecting negro troops--labor days of the negro troops chapter viii.--the army of the cumberland. services in the west--the mississippi river guarded by the phalanx--gen. morgan's historical sketch--the rendezvous at gallatin--the place threatened by guerillas--organizing a regiment--negro soldiers ordered to alabama--an incident--a school in camp--the battle at dalton, ga.--good behavior of the troops there--honors to the st colored--sharp fighting at pulaski, tenn.--an incident of the fight--an engagement at decatur--ordered to nashville--severe fighting at that place--a reconnoissance--the defeat of gen. hood--a pursuit to huntsville--a glorious record chapter ix.--the phalanx at marion, tenn. sherman's march to the sea--destruction of the confederate bridge over the big black river--confederates attack federals near morristown--gillem's troops driven into knoxville--the confederates retreat--federals pursued to marion--struggle for the possession of the salt works--the charge of the th regiment--gen. brisbin's account of the battle--the salt works destroyed--personal bravery chapter x.--the black flag. the phalanx acquiring a reputation--no blacks paroled--gen. grant's letter to the confederate general taylor--jefferson davis' proclamation respecting negro soldiers--mr. davis' third annual message--action of the confederate congress--negro soldiers captured by the confederates receive punishment--retaliation by the federal government--refusal to exchange captured negro troops--order from president lincoln in relation thereto--report of the congressional committee in regard to barbarities inflicted upon captured union prisoners--report of the congressional committee in regard to the fort pillow massacre--testimony given--sketches of prison life--schemes for escaping from confederate prisons--life in libby prison--the effect of the fort pillow massacre on the black soldiers--their desire to retaliate--correspondence between gens. forrest and washburn--a confederate account, written in --a confederate account of price's cross-roads--heavy fighting--gallant conduct of the federal cavalry--the rout of the federal force--the phalanx saves the white troops from capture--gen. sturgis criticised chapter xi.--the phalanx in virginia. transfer of negro troops from the west and south to virginia--preparations for a new campaign-- th army corps passing through washington--army of the potomac--battle at bailey's farm--siege of petersburg--digging a mine--phalanx troops preparing to lead the assault--disappointment--explosion of the mine--terrible slaughter--failure of the attempt to take the redoubt--new movement against richmond--new market heights--capture of petersburg--fall of richmond--appomattox--surrender of lee chapter xii.--the roll of honor. phalanx soldiers who received medals of honor from the united states government for heroism chapter xiii.--the roster of the black phalanx. complete list from the government records, as far as can be obtained, of negro military organizations in all branches of the service, with their chief commanders--battles--dates of organization and dismissal chapter xiv.--the confederate service. preparation in the south for hostilities--early organizations of battalions of free negroes--review of troops in new orleans--employment of negroes in constructing fortifications--early enacting of state laws authorizing the enrollment of negroes for military service--the appearance of a few negro troops announced by the press--apparent enthusiasm of some blacks--effect on the negroes of the change in northern policy--necessity for negro troops--strong opposition throughout the south--letters from gen. r. e. lee urging the organization of black regiments--exciting debates in the confederate congress--passage of the negro bill--the clerk's of the war department record--letter from jefferson davis--enlistment began, etc. part iii. _miscellany._ chapter i.--the phalanx at school. efforts of negro soldiers to educate themselves--studies pursued in the army--officers acting as teachers--contributions to educational institutions chapter ii.--benevolence and frugality. personal economy practiced for benevolent purposes--contributions to the lincoln institute as a monument--magnificent contributions to the lincoln monument--some figures in reference to the freemen's bank chapter iii.--bibliography. list of publications made use of appendix. illustrations . portrait--joseph t. wilson frontispiece. . death of crispus attucks face page . battle of bunker hill . on picket . naval battle . unshackled . portrait--robert smalls . " --william morrison " . " --a. gradine " . " --john smalls " . quarters for contrabands . driving government cattle . scene in and near a recruiting office . teamster of the army . headquarters of superintendent of the poor . provost guard securing conscripts . new recruits taking cars . scene at new berne, n. c. . mustering into service . organizing and drilling . fortifications at hilton head . building roads . off for the war . portrait--major martin r. delaney . portrait--capt. o. s. b. wall . portrait--capt. p. b. s. pinchback. . " --lt. james m. trotter " . " --surgeon a. t. augusta " . " --lt. w. h. dupree. " . portrait--serg't w. h. carney . washing in camp . cooking in camp . point isabel, texas . the recruiting office . battle of milliken's bend . unloading government stores . charge of the phalanx at port hudson . presentation of colors ( ) . repelling an attack . cavalry bringing in prisoners . capturing battery of artillery . the wooden horse . at fort wagner . brilliant charge of the phalanx . river picket duty . changed conditions . serving refreshments to union troops . scouting service . fighting bloodhounds . negroes feeding escaping union prisoners . massacre at fort pillow . phalanx regiment receiving its flags ( ) . parade of the th regiment u. s. c. t. in new york . scene in the army of the potomac . at work on river obstructions . phalanx charge at petersburg, va. . in the trenches . before petersburg, burying dead under flag of truce . a government blacksmith shop . general grant and the negro sentinel . abraham lincoln entering richmond . on duty for the confederates . a confederate sharpshooter . "paying off" part i. the wars for independence - . chapter i. the war of . the history of the patriotic negro americans who swelled the ranks of the colonial and continental armies has never been written, nor was any attempt made by the historians of that day to record the deeds of those who dared to face death for the independence of the american colonies. w. h. day, in addressing a convention of negro men at cleveland, o., in , truly said: "of the services and sufferings of the colored soldiers of the revolution, no attempt has, to our knowledge, been made to preserve a record. their history is not written; it lies upon the soil watered with their blood; who shall gather it? it rests with their bones in the charnel house; who shall exhume it?" upon reading these lines, it occurred to me that somewhere among the archives of that period there must exist at least a clue to the record of the negro patriots of that war. if i cannot exclaim _eureka_, after years of diligent search, i take pride in presenting what i _have_ found scattered throughout the pages of the early histories and literature, and from the correspondence of men who in that period discussed the topics of the day--who led and fashioned public opinion, many of whom commanded in the field. not a few biographers have contributed to my fund of knowledge. to avoid as much as possible the charge of plagiarism i have aimed to give credit to my informants for what shall follow regarding the colored patriots in the war of the revolution. i have reason to believe that i have gathered much that has been obscure; that i have exhumed the bones of that noble phalanx who, at bunker hill and yorktown, in various military employments, served their country. it is true they were few in number when compared to the host that entered the service in the late rebellion, but it must be remembered that their number was small at that time in the country, and that the seat of war was at the north, and not, as in the late war, at the south, where their numbers have always been large. of the three hundred thousand troops in the revolutionary war, it has been estimated that five thousand were colored, and these came principally from the north, whose colored population at that time was about , , while the southern colonies contained about , . the interest felt in the two sections for the success of the cause of independence, if referred to the army, can easily be seen. the northern colonies furnished two hundred and forty-nine thousand, five hundred and three, and the southern colonies one hundred and forty-seven thousand, nine hundred and forty soldiers, though the whole population of each section was within a few hundred of being equal. the love of liberty was no less strong with the southern than with the northern colored man, as their efforts for liberty show. at the north he gained his freedom by entering the american army; at the south, only by entering the british army, which was joined by more than fifteen thousand colored men. jefferson says , negroes from virginia alone went to the british army. i make the digression simply to assert that had the colored men at the south possessed the same opportunity as those at the north, of enlisting in the american army, a large force of colored men would have been in the field, fighting for america's independence. of the services of the little band, scattered as they were throughout the army, two or three in a company composed of whites, a squad in a regiment, a few companies with an army, made it quite impossible for their record, beyond this, to be distinct from the organizations they were attached to. however, enough has been culled from the history of that conflict, to show that they bore a brave part in the struggle which wrested the colonies from the control of great britain, and won for themselves and offspring, freedom, which many of them never enjoyed. i have studiously avoided narrating the conduct of those who cast their fortune with the british, save those who went with lord dunmore, for reasons too obvious to make mention of. the sentiments of a majority of the people of the colonies were in full accord with the declaration opposing slavery, and they sought to give it supremacy by their success in the conflict. slavery, which barred the entrance to the army of the colored man at the south, had been denounced by the colonist before the adoption of the articles of confederation, and was maintained solely by local regulations. as early as , all the colonies had agreed to, and their representatives to the congress had signed, the articles of the continental association, by which it was agreed, "that we will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of december next, ( ), after which we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactories to those who are concerned in it." georgia not being represented in this congress, consequently was not in the association, but as soon as her provincial congress assembled in july, , it passed the following resolutions: "_i._--_resolved_, that this congress will adopt and carry into execution all and singular the measures and recommendations of the late continental congress. "_iv._--_resolved_, that we will neither import or purchase any slave imported from africa or elsewhere after this day, (july, .") the sincerity with which this agreement was entered into may be seen by the action of the colonists at norfolk, virginia, where, in march, , a brig arrived from the coast of guinea, via jamaica, with a number of slaves on board consigned to a merchant of that town. to use a modern phrase the vessel was _boycotted_ by the committee, who published the following: "to the freemen of virginia. { committee chamber, { norfolk, march th, . "trusting to your sure resentment against the enemies of your country, we, the committee, elected by ballot for the borough of norfolk, hold up for your just indignation mr. john brown, merchant, of this place. "on thursday, the nd of march, this committee were informed of the arrival of the brig fanny, capt. watson, with a number of slaves for mr. brown; and, upon inquiry, it appeared they were shipped from jamaica as his property, and on his account; that he had taken great pains to conceal their arrival from the knowledge of the committee; and that the shipper of the slaves, mr. brown's correspondent, and the captain of the vessel, were all fully apprised of the continental prohibition against the article. "from the whole of this transaction, therefore, we, the committee for norfolk borough, do give it as our unanimous opinion, that the said john brown has wilfully and perversely violated the continental association, to which he had with his own hand subscribed obedience; and that, agreeable to the eleventh article, we are bound, forthwith, to publish the truth of the case, to the end that all such foes to the rights of british america may be publicly known and universally contemned as the enemies of american liberty, and that every person may henceforth break off all dealings with him." this was the voice of a majority of the colonists, and those who dissented were regarded as tories, and in favor of the crown as against the independence of the colonies, although there were many at the north and south who held slaves, and were yet loyal to the cause of the colonies; but the public sentiment was undoubtedly as strong against the institution as it was in . but the tories were numerous at the south, and by continually exciting the imagination of the whites by picturing massacre and insurrection on the part of the negros if they were armed, thwarted the effort of col. lauren's and of congress to raise a "negro army" at the south. the leaders were favorable to it, but the colonists, for the reason cited, were distrustful of its practicability. though a strong effort was made, as will be seen, the scare raised by the tories prevented its success. notwithstanding, hundreds of colored men, slave and free, at the south, not only followed the army but in every engagement took an active part on the side of the colonist. they were not enrolled and mustered into the army, it is true, but they rendered important service to the cause. the caste prejudice now so strong in the country was then in its infancy. a white man at that time lived with a colored woman without fear of incurring the ostracism of his neighbors, and with the same impunity he lived with an indian squaw. so common was this practice, that in order to correct it laws were passed forbidding it. the treatment of the slaves was not what it came to be after the war, nor had the spirit of resentment been stifled in them as it was subsequently. manifestations of their courage and manliness were not wanting when injustice was attempted to be practiced against them, consequently the spirit and courage with which they went into the conflict were quite equal to that of the whites, who were ever ready to applaud them for deeds of daring. it is only through this medium that we have discovered the meed of praise due the little phalanx, which linked its fortune with the success of the american army, and of whom the following interesting facts can now be recorded. it is well for the negro and for his descendants in america, cosmopolitan as it is, that his race retains its distinctive characteristics, color and features, otherwise they would not have, as now, a history to hand down to posterity so gloriously patriotic and interesting. his amalgamation with other races is attributable to the relation which it bore to them, although inter-marriage was not allowed. by the common consent of his enslavers, he was allowed to live clandestinely with the women of his own color; sometimes from humane considerations, sometimes from a standpoint of gain, but always as a slave or a subject of the slave code. reduced from his natural state of freedom by his misfortune in tribal war, to that of a slave, and then transported by the consent of his captors and enemies to these shores, and sold into an unrequited bondage, the fire of his courage,--like that of other races similarly situated, without hope of liberty; doomed to toil,--slackened into an apathetic state, and seeming willing servitude, which produced a resignation to fate from to , more than a century and a half. at the latter date, for the first time in the history of what is now the united states, the negro, inspired with the love of liberty, aimed a blow at the authority that held him in bondage. in numerous instances, when the indians attacked the white settlers, particularly in the northern colonies, negroes were summoned and took part in the defense of the settlements. as early as , the militia law of massachusetts required negroes, scotchmen and indians,--the indentured slaves of cromwell, who encountered his army at the battle of dunbar,--to train in the militia. nor was it an uncommon occurrence for them to be manumitted for meritorious and courageous action in defending their masters' families, often in the absence of the master, when attacked by the red men of the woods. it was not infrequent to find the negro as a sentinel at the meeting-house door; or serving as a barricade for the master's mansion. the indian was more of a terror to him than the boa-constrictor; though slaves, they knew that if captured by the indians their fate would be the same as that of the white man; consequently they fought with a desperation equal to that of the whites, against the common enemy. so accustomed did they become to the use of arms, that one of the first acts of the settlers after the indians were driven from the forest, was to disarm and forbid negroes keeping or handling fire-arms and weapons of every sort. this was done from a sense of self-preservation and fear that the negroes might (and many did) attempt to revenge themselves when cruelly treated, or rise in mutiny and massacre the whites. [illustration: death of crispus attucks. while leading an attack against british troops in boston.] but it was not until , when the fervor of rebellion had influenced the people of the colonies, and capt. preston, with the king's soldiers, appeared in king street, boston, to enforce the decree of the british parliament, that the people met the troops face to face. this lent force to the rebellious spirit against the mother country, which the people of the united northern colonies had felt called upon to manifest in public meetings and by written resolutions. the soldiers were regarded as invaders. and while the leading men of boston were discussing and deliberating as to what steps should be taken to drive the british troops out of the town, crispus attucks, a negro runaway slave,[ ] led a crowd against the soldiers, with brave words of encouragement. the soldiers fired upon them, killing the negro leader, attucks, first, and then two white men, and mortally wounding two others. a writer says: "the presence of the british soldiers in king street, excited the patriotic indignation of the people. the whole community was stirred, and sage counsellors were deliberating and writing and talking about the public grievances. but it was not for the 'wise and prudent' to be first to _act_ against the encroachments of arbitrary power. a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, irish jeazues, and outlandish jack tars, (as john adams described them in his plea in defence of the soldiers), could not restrain their emotion, or stop to enquire if what they _must_ do was according to the letter of the law. led by crispus attucks, the mulatto slave, and shouting, 'the way to get rid of these soldiers is to attack the main guard; strike at the root; this is the nest;' with more valor than discretion they rushed to king street, and were fired upon by capt. preston's company. crispus attucks was the first to fall; he and samuel gray and jonas caldwell were killed on the spot. samuel maverick and patrick carr were mortally wounded. the excitement which followed was intense. the bells of the town were rung. an impromptu town-meeting was held, and an immense assembly was gathered. three days after, on the th, a public funeral of the martyr took place. the shops in boston were closed, and all the bells of boston and the neighboring towns were rung. it is said that a greater number of persons assembled on this occasion, than ever before gathered on this continent for a similar purpose. the body of crispus attucks, the mulatto, had been placed in fanueil hall with that of caldwell; both being strangers in the city. maverick was buried from his mother's house in union street, and gray, from his brother's, in royal exchange lane. the four hearses formed a junction in king street, and then the procession marched in columns six deep, with a long file of coaches belonging to the most distinguished citizens, to the middle burying ground, where the four victims were deposited in one grave; over which a stone was placed with the inscription: 'long as in freedom's cause the wise contend, dear to your country shall your fame extend; while to the world the lettered stone shall tell where caldwell, attucks, gray and maverick fell.' "the anniversary of this event was publicly commemorated in boston by an oration and other exercises every year until our national independence was achieved, when the fourth of july was substituted for the fifth of march, as the more proper day for a general celebration. not only was the event commemorated, but the martyrs who then gave up their lives were remembered and honored." thus the first blood for liberty shed in the colonies was that of a real slave and a negro. as the news of the affray spread, the people became aroused throughout the land. soon, in every town and village, meetings were held, and the colonists urged to resist the oppressive and aggressive measures which the british parliament had passed, and for the enforcement of which troops had been stationed in boston, and as we see, had shot down those who dared to oppose them. in all the colonies slavery was at this time tolerated, though the number of slaves was by no means large in the northern colonies, nor had there been a general ill treatment of them, as in after years in the southern states. their war-like courage, it is true, had been slackened, but their manhood had not been crushed. crispus attucks was a fair representative of the colonial negro, as they evinced thereafter, during the prolonged struggle which resulted in the independence of the united states. when the tocsin sounded "to arms, to arms, ye who would be free," the negro responded to the call, and side by side with the white patriots of the colonial militia, bled and died. mr. bancroft in his history of the united states says: "nor should history forget to record, that as in the army at cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free negroes of the colony had their representatives. for the right of free negroes to bear arms in the public defense was, at that day, as little disputed in new england as other rights. they took their place, not in a separate corps, but in the ranks with the white men; and their names may be seen on the pension-rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers of the revolution." it was not the free only who took up arms in defence of america's independence; not alone those who, in preceding wars,--indian and french,--had gained their liberty, that swelled the ranks of the colonial militia; but slaves, inspired by the hope of freedom, went to the front, as attucks had done when he cut the gordian knot that held the colonies to great britain. "from that moment we may date the severance of the british empire," said daniel webster, in his bunker hill oration, referring to the massacre on the th of march, . the thirst for freedom was universal among the people of new england. with them liberty was not circumscribed by condition and now, since the slave attucks had struck the first blow for america's independence, thereby electrifying the colonies and putting quite a different phase upon their grievances, the people were called upon to witness a real slave struggling with his oppressors for his freedom. it touched the people of the colonies as they had never been touched before, and they arrayed themselves for true freedom. dr. joseph warren thus heralds the sentiment of the colonist, in his oration delivered at boston, march th, : "that personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefrom, are truths which common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction. and no man, or body of men, can, without being guilty of flagrant injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of any other man or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a right has arisen from some compact between the parties, in which it has been explicitly and freely granted." the year previous, john hancock was the orator on the occasion of the th anniversary of the shedding of the first blood for the independence of america, and he thus presents the case to a boston audience yet smarting under the insult and sting given them by the british soldiery: "but i forbear, and come reluctantly to the transactions of that dismal night, when in such quick succession, we felt the extremes of grief, astonishment and rage; when heaven, in anger, for a dreadful moment suffered hell to take the reins; when satan with his chosen band opened the sluices of new england's blood, and sacrilegiously polluted our land with the dead bodies of her guiltless sons. let this sad tale of death never be told without a tear; let the heaving bosom cause to burn with a manly indignation at the barbarous story, through the long tracts of future time; let every parent tell the shameful story to his listening children 'til tears of pity glisten in their eyes, and boiling passions shake their tender frames; and whilst the anniversary of that ill-fated night is kept a jubilee in the grim court of pandemonium, let all america join in one common prayer to heaven, that the inhuman, unprovoked murders of the th of march, , planned by hillsborough and a knot of treacherous knaves in boston, and executed by the cruel hand of preston and his sanguinary coadjutors, may ever stand in history without a parallel. but what, my countrymen, withheld the ready arm of vengeance from executing instant justice on the vile assassins? perhaps you feared promiscuous carnage might ensue, and that the innocent might share the fate of those who had performed the infernal deed. but were not all guilty? were you not too tender of the lives of those who came to fix a yoke on your necks? but i must not too severely blame you for a fault which great souls only can commit. may that magnificence of spirit which scorns the low pursuit of malice; may that generous compassion which often preserves from ruin, even a guilty villain, forever actuate the noble bosoms of americans! but let not the miscreant host vainly imagine that we feared their arms. no, those we despised; we dread nothing but slavery. death is the creature of a poltroon's brains; 'tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our country. we fear not death. that gloomy night, the pale-face moon, and the affrighted stars that hurried through the sky, can witness that we fear not death. our hearts, which, at the recollection, glow with rage that four revolving years have scarcely taught us to restrain, can witness that we fear not death; and happy it is for those who dared to insult us, that their naked bones are not now piled up an ever-lasting monument of massachusetts bravery. but they retired; they fled, and in that flight they found their only safety. we then expected that the hand of public justice would soon inflict that punishment upon the murderers, which, by the laws of god and man, they had incurred. but let the unbiassed pen of a robertson, or perhaps of some equally famed american, conduct this trial before the great tribunal of succeeding generations. and though the murderers may escape the just resentment of an enraged people; though drowsy justice, intoxicated by the poisonous draft prepared for her cup, still nods upon her rotten seat, yet be assured, such complicated crimes will meet their due reward. tell me, ye bloody butchers! ye villains high and low! ye wretches who contrived, as well as you who executed the inhuman deed! do you not feel the goads and stings of conscious guilt pierce through your savage bosoms? though some of you may think yourselves exalted to a height that bids defiance to human justice, and others shroud yourselves beneath the mask of hypocrisy, and build your hopes of safety on the low arts of cunning, chicanery and falsehood; yet do you not sometimes feel the gnawings of that worm which never dies; do not the injured shades of maverick, gray, cadwell, attucks and carr, attend you in your solitary walks; arrest you in the midst of your debaucheries and fill even your dreams with terror?" the orators of new england poured out upon this once slave,--now hero and martyr,--their unstinted praise. we have but to recall the recollection of the earliest conflicts which the colonist had with the british, in order to see the negro occupying a place in the ranks of the patriot army. their white fellow-citizens were only too glad to take ground to the left, in order that they could fall in on their colors. and they did good service whenever they fought, as the record shows. the committee of safety upon reviewing the situation and the army, before the first great battle of the revolution had been fought, adopted the following resolution: "_resolved_, that it is the opinion of this committee, that as the contest now between great britain and the colonies respects the liberties and privileges of the latter, which the colonies are determined to maintain, that the admission of any persons, as soldiers, into the army now raising, but such as are freeman, will be inconsistent with the principals that are supported, and reflect dishonor on this colony; and that no slaves be admitted into this army upon any consideration whatever." the exception was well taken, and this act of the committee, excluding slaves from the army, placed the rebels upon the basis of patriots, fighting for freedom. this, however, did not detract from those who had already distinguished themselves, by their bravery at bunker hill a few weeks previous, where peter salem, once a slave, fought side by side in the ranks with the white soldiers. when the british major pitcairn mounted the redoubt, upon that memorable occasion, shouting, "the day is ours!" peter salem poured the contents of his gun into that officer's body, killing him instantly, and checking, temporarily, the advance of the british. swett, in his "sketches of bunker hill battle," says: "major pitcairn caused the first effusion of blood at lexington. in that battle, his horse was shot under him, while he was separated from his troops. with presence of mind he feigned himself slain; his pistols were taken from his holsters, and he was left for dead, when he seized the opportunity and escaped. he appeared at bunker hill, and, says the historian, 'among those who mounted the works was the gallant major pitcairn, who exultingly cried out, 'the day is ours!' when a black soldier, named salem, shot him through and he fell. his agonized son received him in his arms, and tenderly bore him to the boats.' a contribution was made in the army for the colored soldier, and he was presented to washington as having performed this feat." mr. aaron white, of thompson, conn., in a letter to george livermore, esq., of the massachusetts historical society, writes: "with regard to the black hero of bunker hill, i never knew him personally, nor did i ever hear from his lips the story of his achievements; but i have better authority. about the year , i heard a soldier of the revolution, who was present at the bunker hill battle, relate to my father the story of the death of major pitcairn. he said the major had passed the storm of fire without, and had mounted the redoubt, when, waving his sword, he commanded, in a loud voice, the 'rebels' to surrender. his sudden appearance, and his commanding air, at first startled the men immediately before him. they neither answered nor fired; probably not being exactly certain what was next to be done. at this critical moment, a negro soldier stepped forward, and, aiming his musket directly at the major's bosom, blew him through. my informant declared that he was so near, that he distinctly saw the act. the story made quite an impression on my mind. i have frequently heard my father relate the story, and have no doubt of its truth. my father on the day of the battle was a mere child, and witnessed the battle and burning of charlestown from roxbury hill, sitting on the shoulders of the rev. mr. jackson, who said to him as he placed him on the ground, 'now, boy, do you remember this!' consequently, after such an injunction, he would necessarily pay particular attention to anecdotes concerning the first and only battle he ever witnessed." [illustration: battle of bunker hill. peter salem shooting the british major pitcairn.] salem was undoubtedly one of the chief heroes of that ever memorable battle. orator, historian, poet, all give this sable patriot credit for having been instrumental in checking the british advance and saving the day. at the unveiling of the statue erected to the memory of gen. joseph warren, who fell at bunker hill, the orator of the occasion, hon. edward everett, said: "it is the monument of the day of the event, of the battle of bunker hill; all of the brave men who shared its perils,--alike of prescott and putnam and warren, the chiefs of the day, and the colored man, salem, who, is reported to have shot the gallant pitcairn, as he mounted the parapet. cold as the clods on which it rests, still as the silent heaven to which it soars, it is yet vocal, eloquent, in their individual praise." the following is a copy of a petition now in the archive department of massachusetts: "to the honorable general court of the massachusetts' bay. "the subscribers beg leave to report to your honorable house, (which we do in justice to the character of so brave a man), that under our own observation, we declare that a negro man named salem poor, of col. frye's regiment, capt. ame's company, in the late battle at charleston, behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier. to set forth particulars of his conduct would be tedious. we only beg leave to say, in the person of this said negro, centers a brave and gallant soldier. the reward due to so great and distinguished a character, we submit to congress. "jona. brewer, col. thomas nixon, lt. col. wm. prescott, col. ephm. corey, lieut. joseph baker, lieut. joshua row, lieut. jonas richardson, capt eliphalet bodwell, sg't. thomas nixon, lt. col. wm. prescott, col. ephm. corey, lieut. joseph baker, lieut. joshua row, lieut. jonas richardson, capt. cambridge, dec. , . "in council dec. , .--read, and sent down. perez morton, dep'y sec'y." a biographical account of peter salem is given in the following newspaper extract: "april, , the town of framingham voted to place a memorial stone over the grave of peter salem, alias salem middlesex, whose last resting place in the old burial ground at framingham centre has been unmarked for years. for this purpose $ was appropriated by the town. the committee in charge of the matter has placed a neat granite memorial over his grave, and it bears the following inscription: "peter salem, a soldier of the revolution, died aug. , . concord, bunker hill, saratoga. erected by the town, ." peter salem was the colored man who particularly distinguished himself in the revolutionary war by shooting down major pitcairn at the battle of bunker hill, as he was mounting a redoubt and shouting, "the day is ours!" this being the time when pitcairn fell back into the arms of his son. peter salem served faithfully in the war for seven years in the companies of minute men under the command of capt. john nixon and capt. simon edgell of framingham, and came out of it unharmed. he was a slave, and was owned, originally, by capt. jeremiah belknap of framingham, being sold by him to major lawson buckminster of that town, he becoming a free man when he joined the army. salem was born in framingham, and, in , married katie benson, a granddaughter of nero, living for a time near what is now the state muster field. he removed to leicester after the close of the war, his last abode in that town being a cabin on the road leading from leicester to auburn. he was removed to framingham, where he had gained a settlement in and there he died." salem was not the only negro at the battle of bunker hill. says an authority: "col. trumbull in his celebrated historic picture of this battle, introduces conspicuously the colored patriot. at the time of the battle, the artist, then acting as adjutant, was stationed with his regiment at roxbury, and saw the action from this point. the picture was painted in when the event was fresh in his mind. it is a significant historical fact, pertinent to our present research, that, among the limited number of figures introduced on the canvas, more than one negro soldier can be distinctly seen." of the others who participated in the battle we have knowledge of salem poor, whose bravery won for him favorable comment. major wm. lawrence, who fought through the war for independence, from concord, until the peace of , participating in many of the severest battles of the war. says a memoir: "at bunker hill, where he was slightly wounded, his coat and hat were pierced with the balls of the enemy, and were preserved in the family for several years. at one time he commanded a company whose rank and file were all negroes, of whose courage, military discipline, and fidelity, he always spoke with respect. on one occasion, being out reconnoitering with his company, he got so far in advance of his command, that he was surrounded, and on the point of being made prisoner by the enemy. the men, soon discovering his peril, rushed to his rescue, and fought with the most determined bravery till that rescue was effectually secured. he never forgot this circumstance, and ever took special pains to show kindness and hospitality to any individual of the colored race, who came near his dwelling." the committee of safety having excluded slaves from the army, many were thereafter manumitted, that they might enlist. there was no law regulating enlistment in the army at the time which required the color of a soldier's skin to be recorded or regarded. a prejudice existed in the legislature that prompted that body to begin a series of special enactments, regarding negroes, which did not exclude them altogether from the army, but looked to their organization into exclusive companies, batallions and regiments. notwithstanding the record made by the negroes who had swollen the ranks of the american army a few weeks after the battle of bunker hill, general gates, then at cambridge, issued the following order to the officers, then recruiting for the service: "you are not to enlist any deserter from the ministerial army, nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or persons suspected of being an enemy to the liberty of america, nor any under eighteen years of age. as the cause is the best that can engage men of courage and principle to take up arms, so it is expected that none but such will be accepted by the recruiting officer. the pay, provision, &c., being so ample, it is not doubted but that the officers sent upon this service will, without delay, complete their respective corps, and march the men forthwith to camp. you are not to enlist any person that is not an american born, unless such person has a wife and family, and is a settled resident in this country. the persons you enlist must be provided with good and complete arms." this was in july, and on the th of the following september, edward rutledge, of south carolina, moved in the colonial congress that all negroes be discharged that were in the army. as might be expected, his proposition was strongly supported by the southern delegates, but the northern delegates being so much stronger, voted it down. the negroes were crowding so rapidly into the army, and the northern colonists finding their southern comrades so strongly opposing this element of strength, submitted the question of their enlistment to a conference committee in october, composed of such men as dr. franklin, benjamin harrison and thomas lynch, with the deputy governors of connecticut and rhode island. this committee met at cambridge, with a committee of the council of massachusetts bay. the object and duty of the meeting was to consider the condition of the army, and to devise means by which it could be improved. general washington was present at the meeting, and took part in the discussions. among others, the following subject was considered and reported upon: "'ought not negroes to be excluded from the new enlistment, especially those such as are slaves?' all were thought improper by the council of officers. '_agreed_, that they may be rejected altogether.'" in the organization of the new army, were many officers and men, who had served with negroes in the militia, and who had been re-enlisted in the colonial army. they protested against the exclusion of their old comrades, on account of color. so very strong were their protests that most of the rank and file of the northern troops regarded the matter as of serious import to the colonies, and of danger to the wives and families of those in the field. there was quite a large number of free negroes in the northern colonies at this time, and the patriotism displayed by those who had the opportunity of serving in the militia during the early stages of the war, aroused a feeling which prompted a great many masters to offer to the commander of the army the services of their slaves, and to the slaves their freedom, if their services were accepted. so weighty were the arguments offered, and to soften the gloom which hung about the homes and the camps of the soldiers, gen. washington wrote to the president of congress regarding the matter, from cambridge, in december, : "it has been represented to me that the free negroes who have served in this army are very much dissatisfied at being discarded. as it is to be apprehended that they may seek employment in the ministerial army, i have presumed to depart from the resolution respecting them, and have given license for their being enlisted. if this is disapproved by congress, i will put a stop to it."[ ] the letter was submitted to congress, and general washington's action was sustained by the passage of the following resolution: "that the free negroes, who had served faithfully in the army at cambridge, may be re-enlisted therein, but no others." the question of color first entered the army by order of washington's predecessor, gen. artemus ward, who in his first general order required the "complexion" of the soldier to be entered upon the roll. in october, , gen. thomas wrote the following letter to john adams. the general was in every way competent to draw a true picture of the army, and had the opportunity of observation. he says: "i am sorry to hear that any prejudices should take place in any southern colony, with respect to the troops raised in this. i am certain that the insinuations you mention are injurious, if we consider with what precipitation we are obliged to collect an army. in the regiments at roxbury, the privates are equal to any that i served with in the last war; very few old men, and in the ranks very few boys. our fifes are many of them boys. we have some negroes; but i look on them, in general, as equally serviceable with other men for fatigue; and in action many of them have proved themselves brave. i would avoid all reflection, or anything that may tend to give umbrage; but there is in this army from the southward, a number called riflemen, who are the most indifferent men i ever served with. these privates are mutinous, and often deserting to the enemy; unwilling for duty of any kind; exceedingly vicious; and i think the army here would be as well off without them. but to do justice to their officers, they are, some of them, likely men." despite all prejudice, the negro, as in all conflicts since, sought every opportunity to show his patriotism, and his unquenchable thirst for liberty; and no matter in what capacity he entered the service, whether as body-servant, hostler or teamster, he always displayed the same characteristic courage. in november of the same year the provincial congress of south carolina, by the passage of the following resolution, gave permission to her militia officers, to use slaves in the army for certain purposes: "on motion, _resolved_, that the colonels of the several regiments of militia throughout the colony have leave to enroll such a number of able male slaves, to be employed as pioneers and laborers, as public exegencies may require; and that a daily pay of seven shillings and six-pence be allowed for the service of each such slave while actually employed." the foregoing resolution must not in any way be understood as sanctioning the employment of negroes as soldiers, notwithstanding some of the ablest men of the state advocated the enlistment of negroes in the army; the opposition was too strong to carry the measure through either congress or the legislature. the feeling among the northern colonists may be shown by citing the views of some of their leading men, and none perhaps was better calculated to give a clear expression of their views, than the rev. dr. hopkins, of newport, r. i., who wrote a "dialogue concerning the slavery of the africans," published soon after the commencement of hostilities. here is an extract from a note to the dialogue: "god is so ordering it in his providence, that it seems absolutely necessary something should speedily be done with respect to the slaves among us, in order to our safety, and to prevent their turning against us in our present struggle, in order to get their liberty. our oppressors have planned to gain the blacks, and induce them to take up arms against us, by promising them liberty on this condition; and this plan they are prosecuting to the utmost of their power, by which means they have persuaded numbers to join them. and should we attempt to restrain them by force and severity, keeping a strict guard over them, and punishing them severely who shall be detected in attempting to join our oppressors, this will only be making bad worse, and serve to render our inconsistence, oppression, and cruelty more criminal, perspicuous, and shocking, and bring down the righteous vengeance of heaven on our heads. the only way pointed out to prevent this threatening evil is to set the blacks at liberty ourselves by some public acts and laws, and then give them proper encouragement to labor, or take arms in the defence of the american cause, as they shall choose. this would at once be doing them some degree of justice, and defeating our enemies in the scheme that they are prosecuting." therefore it will be observed that public opinion regarding the arming of negroes in the north and south, was controlled by sectional interest in the one, and the love of liberty in the other. that both desired america's independence, no one will doubt, but that one section was more willing than the other to sacrifice slavery for freedom, i think is equally as plain. while the colonists were debating with much anxiety the subject of what to do with the negroes, the new england states were endeavoring to draw the southern states or colonies into the war by electing george washington as commander of the army at cambridge, and accepting the mis-interpretations of the declarations of war. the punic faith with which the southern states entered the war for liberty humiliated the army, and wrung from its commander the letter written to congress, and its approval of his course in re-enlisting free negroes. meanwhile the british were actively engaged in recruiting and organizing negroes into their army and navy. in november, , lord dunmore visited norfolk, virginia,[ ] and, as governor, finding his authority as such not regarded by the whites, issued a proclamation offering freedom to the slaves who would join the british army. a full description of the state of affairs at that time, is thus given by an english historian: "in letters which had been laid before the english parliament, and published to the whole world, he (lord dunmore) had represented the planters as ambitious, selfish men, pursuing their own interest and advancement at the expense of their poorer countrymen, and as being ready to make every sacrifice of honesty and principle, and he had said more privately, that, since they were so anxious for liberty,--for more freedom than was consistent with the free institutions of the mother country and the charter of the colony,--that since they were so eager to abolish a fanciful slavery in a dependence on great britain, he would try how they liked abolition of real slavery, by setting free all their negroes and indentured servants, who were, in fact, little better than _white_ slaves. this to the virginians was like passing a rasp over a gangrened place; it was probing a wound that was incurable, or one which had not yet been healed. later in the year, when the battle of bunker's hill had been fought, when our forts on lake champlain had been taken from us, and when montgomery and arnold were pressing on our possessions in canada, lord dunmore carried his threat into execution. having established his headquarters at norfolk, he proclaimed freedom to all the slaves who would repair to his standard and bear arms for the king. the summons was readily obeyed by the most of the negroes who had the means of escape to him. he, at the same time, issued a proclamation, declaring martial law throughout the colony of virginia; and he collected a number of armed vessels, which cut off the coasting trade, made many prizes, and greatly distressed an important part of that province. if he could have opened a road to slaves in the interior of the province, his measures would have been very fatal to the planters. in order to stop the alarming desertion of the negroes, and to arrest his lordship in his career, the provincial assembly detached against him a strong force of more than a thousand men, who arrived in the neighborhood of norfolk in the month of december. having made a circuit, they came to a village called great bridge, where the river elizabeth was traversed by a bridge; but before their arrival the bridge had been made impassable, and some works, defended chiefly by negroes, had been thrown up." during the same month edmund pendleton wrote to richard henry lee that many slaves had flocked to the british standard: "the governor, * * * * marched out with three hundred and fifty soldiers, tories and _slaves_, to kemp's landing; and after setting up his standard, and issuing his proclamation, declaring all persons rebels who took up arms for the country, and inviting all slaves, servants and apprentices to come to him and receive arms, he proceeded to intercept hutchings and his party, upon whom he came by surprise, but received, it seems, so warm a fire, that the ragmuffins ran away. they were, however, rallied on discovering that two companies of our militia gave away; and left hutchings and dr. reid with a volunteer company, who maintained their ground bravely till they were overcome by numbers, and took shelter in a swamp. the slaves were sent in pursuit of them; and one of col. hutching's, with another, found him. on their approach, he discharged his pistol at his slave, but missed him; and he was taken by them, after receiving a wound in the face with a sword. the number taken or killed on either side is not ascertained. it is said the governor went to dr. reid's shop, and after taking the medicines and dressing necessary for his wounded men, broke all the others to pieces. letters mention that slaves flock to him in abundance: but i hope it is magnified." five months after he issued the proclamation, lord dunmore thus writes, concerning his success: [no. ] "_lord dunmore to the secretary of state._ {ship 'dunmore,' in elizabeth river, va., { th march, . "your lordship will observe by my letter, no. , that i have been endeavoring to raise two regiments here--one of white people, the other of black. the former goes on very slowly, but the latter very well, and would have been in great forwardness, had not a fever crept in amongst them, which carried off a great many very fine fellows." * * * * * [no. ] {"ship 'dunmore,' in gwin's island harbor, va., { june , . "i am extremely sorry to inform your lordship, that that fever of which i informed you in my letter no. has proved a very malignant one, and has carried off an incredible number of our people, especially the blacks. had it not been for this horrid disorder, i am satisfied i should have had no doubt of penetrating into the heart of this colony." the dread in which the colonists held the negro was equal to that with which they regarded the indians. the incendiary torch, massacre, pillage, and revolt, was ever presenting a gloomy and disastrous picture to the colonists at the south. their dreams at night; their thoughts by day; in the field and in the legislature hall, were how to keep the negro down. if one should be seen in a village with a gun, a half score of white men would rush and take it from him, while women in the street would take shelter in the nearest house. the wrongs which they continued to practice upon him was a terror to them through their conscience, though then, as in later years, many, and particularly the leaders, endeavored to impress others with their feigned belief of the natural inferiority of the negro to themselves. this doctrine served them, as the whistle did the boy in the woods; they talked in that way simply to keep their courage up, and their conscience down. the commander of the american army regarded the action of lord dunmore as a serious blow to the national cause. to take the negroes out of the field from raising produce for the army, and place them in front of the patriots as opposing soldiers, he saw was a danger that should be averted. with this in view he wrote to joseph reed in december, saying: "if the virginians are wise, that arch-traitor to the rights of humanity, lord dunmore, should be instantly crushed, if it takes the whole army to do it; otherwise, like a snowball in rolling, his army will get size, some through fear, some through promises, and some through inclination, joining his standard; but that which renders the measure indispensable is the negroes; for, if he gets formidable, numbers of them will be tempted to join, who will be afraid to do it without." notwithstanding this, the southern states still kept the negro out of the army. it was not until affairs became alarmingly dangerous, and a few weeks before the adoption of the declaration of independence, that the subject of arming the slaves came again before the people. in may, , the general assembly of connecticut postponed in one house and rejected in the other the report of a committee "that the effective negro and mulatto slaves be allowed to enlist with the continental battallions now raising in this state." but under a law passed at the same session "white and black, bond and free, if 'able bodied,' went on the roll together, accepted as the representatives of their 'class,' or as substitutes for their employers." at the next session (october, ), the law was so amended as to authorize the selectmen of any town, on the application of the master--after 'inquiry into the age, abilities, circumstances, and character' of the servant or slave, and being satisfied 'that it was likely to be consistent with his real advantage, and that he would be able to support himself,'--to grant liberty for his emancipation, and to discharge the master 'from any charge or cost which may be occasioned by maintaining or supporting the servant or slave made free as aforesaid.' mr. j. h. trumbull, of connecticut, in giving the foregoing facts, adds: "the slave (or servant for term of years) might receive his freedom; the master might receive exemption from draft, and a discharge from future liabilities, to which he must otherwise have been subjected. in point of fact, some hundreds of blacks,--slaves and freemen,--were enlisted, from time to time, in the regiments of state troops and of the connecticut line." the british were determined, it seems, to utilize all the available strength they could command, by enlisting negroes at the north as well as at the south. they conceived the idea of forming regiments of them at the north, as the letter of gen. greene to gen. washington will show: "camp on long island, july , , two o'clock. "sir:--colonel hand reports seven large ships are coming up from the hook to the narrows. "a negro belonging to one strickler, at gravesend, was taken prisoner (as he says) last sunday at coney island. yesterday he made his escape, and was taken prisoner by the rifle guard. he reports eight hundred negroes collected on staten island, this day to be formed into a regiment. i am your excellency's most obedient, humble servant, n. greene. "to his excellency gen. washington, headquarters, new york." occasionally the public would be startled by the daring and bravery of some negro in the american army, and then the true lovers of liberty, north and south, would again urge that negroes be admitted into the ranks of the army. when lt.-col. barton planned for the capture of the british maj.-gen. prescott, who commanded the british army at newport r. i., and whose capture was necessary in order to effect the release of gen. lee, who was then in the hands of the british, and of the same rank as that of gen. prescott, col. barton's plan was made a success through the aid of prince, a negro in col. barton's command. the daring of the exploit excited the highest patriotic commendations of the americans, and revived the urgent appeals that had been made for a place in the armed ranks for all men, irrespective of color. the pennsylvania evening _post_ of aug. th, , gives the following account of the capture: "they landed about five miles from newport, and three quarters of a mile from the house, which they approached cautiously, avoiding the main guard, which was at some distance. _the colonel went foremost, with a stout active negro close behind him, and another at a small distance; the rest followed so as to be near but not seen._ "a single sentinel at the door saw and hailed the colonel; he answered by exclaiming against and inquiring for, rebel prisoners, but kept slowly advancing. the sentinel again challenged him and required the countersign. he said he had not the countersign; but amused the sentry by talking about rebel prisoners, and still advancing till he came within reach of the bayonet, which, he presenting, the colonel struck aside, and seized him. he was immediately secured, and ordered to be silent, on pain of instant death. _meanwhile, the rest of the men surrounding the house, the negro, with his head, at the second stroke, forced a passage into it, and then into the landlord's apartment. the landlord at first refused to give the necessary intelligence; but, on the prospect of present death, he pointed to the general's chamber, which being instantly opened by the negro's head, the colonel, calling the general by name, told him he was a prisoner._" congress voted col. barton a magnificent sword, but the real captor of gen. prescott, so far as known, received nothing. a surgeon in the american army, dr. thacher, writes, under date of aug. d, , at albany: "the pleasing information is received here that lieut.-col. barton, of the rhode island militia, planned a bold exploit for the purpose of surprising and taking maj.-gen. prescott, the commanding officer of the royal army at newport. taking with him, in the night, about forty men, in two boats, with oars muffled, he had the address to elude the vigilance of the ships-of-war and guard boats; and, having arrived undiscovered at the quarters of gen. prescott, they were taken for the sentinels; and the general was not alarmed till the captors were at the door of his lodging chamber, which was fast closed. _a negro man, named prince, instantly thrust his beetle head through the panel door, and seized his victim while in bed._ this event is extremely honorable to the enterprising spirit of col. barton, and is considered an ample retaliation for the capture of gen. lee by col. harcourt. the event occasions great joy and exultation, as it puts in our possession an officer of equal rank with gen. lee, by which means an exchange may be obtained. congress resolved that an elegant sword should be presented to col. barton, for his brave exploit." to recite here every incident and circumstance illustrating the heroism and the particular services rendered the patriotic army by negroes, who served in regiments and companies with white soldiers, would fill this entire volume. yet, with the desire of doing justice to the memory of all those negroes who aided in achieving the independence of america, i cannot forbear introducing notices,--gathered from various sources,--of some prominent examples. ebenezer hill, a slave at stonington, conn., who served throughout the war, and who took part in the battles of saratoga and stillwater, and witnessed the surrender of burgoyne. prince whipple acted as bodyguard to general whipple, one of washington's aids. prince is the negro seen on horseback in the engraving of washington crossing the delaware, and again pulling the stroke oar in the boat which washington crossed in. at the storming of fort griswold, maj. montgomery was lifted upon the walls of the fort by his soldiers, and called upon the americans to surrender. john freeman, a negro soldier, with his pike, pinned him dead to the earth. among the american soldiers who were massacred by the british soldiers, after the surrender of the fort, were two negro soldiers, lambo latham and jordan freeman. quack matrick, a negro, fought through the revolutionary war, as a soldier, for which he was pensioned. also jonathan overtin, who was at the battle of yorktown. the grandfather of the historian wm. wells brown, simon lee, was also a soldier "in the times which tried men's souls." "samuel charlton was born in the state of new jersey, a slave, in the family of mr. m., who owned, also, other members belonging to his family--all residing in the english neighborhood. during the progress of the war, he was placed by his master (as a substitute for himself) in the army then in new jersey, as a teamster in the baggage train. he was in active service at the battle of monmouth, not only witnessing, but taking a part in, the great struggle of that day. he was also in several other engagements in different sections of that part of the state. he was a great admirer of general washington, and was, at one time, attached to his baggage train, and received the general's commendation for his courage and devotion to the cause of liberty. mr. charlton was about fifteen or seventeen years of age when placed in the army, for which his master rewarded him with a silver dollar. at the expiration of his time, he returned to his master, to serve again in bondage, after having toiled, fought and bled for liberty, in common with the regular soldiery. mr. m., at his death, by will, liberated his slaves, and provided a pension for charlton, to be paid during his lifetime. * * * * "james easton, of bridgewater, a colored man, participated in the erection of the fortifications on dorchester heights, under command of washington, which the next morning so greatly surprised the british soldiers then encamped in boston." "among the brave blacks who fought in the battles for american liberty was major jeffrey, a tennesseean, who, during the campaign of major-general andrew jackson in mobile, filled the place of "regular" among the soldiers. in the charge made by general stump against the enemy, the americans were repulsed and thrown into disorder,--major stump being forced to retire, in a manner by no means desirable, under the circumstances. major jeffrey, who was but a common soldier, seeing the condition of his comrades, and comprehending the disastrous results about to befall them, rushed forward, mounted a horse, took command of the troops, and, by an heroic effort, rallied them to the charge,--completely routing the enemy, who left the americans masters of the field. he at once received from the general the title of "major," though he could not, according to the american policy, so commission him. to the day of his death, he was known by that title in nashville, where he resided, and the circumstances which entitled him to it were constantly the subject of popular conversation. "major jeffrey was highly respected by the whites generally, and revered, in his own neighborhood, by all the colored people who knew him. "a few years ago receiving an indignity from a common ruffian, he was forced to strike him in self-defense; for which act, in accordance with the laws of slavery in that, as well as many other of the slave states, he was compelled to receive, on his naked person, _nine and thirty lashes with a raw hide!_ this, at the age of seventy odd, after the distinguished services rendered his country,--probably when the white ruffian for whom he was tortured was unable to raise an arm in its defense,--was more than he could bear; _it broke his heart_, and he sank to rise no more, till summoned by the blast of the last trumpet to stand on the battle-field of the general resurrection." jeffrey was not an exception to this kind of treatment. samuel lee died on a tobacco plantation after the war. the re-enslaving of the negroes who fought for american independence became so general at the south, that the legislature of virginia in , in compliance with her honor, passed an act directing the emancipation of certain slaves, who had served as soldiers of the state, and for the emancipation of the slave aberdeen. james armistead during the war acted as a scout and spy for lafayette during his campaign in virginia, and at one time gave information of an intended surprise to be made upon the forces of the marquis, thereby saving probably a rout of the army. armistead, after the surrender of cornwallis at yorktown, was returned to his master three years after the close of the war. he was manumitted by especial act of the virginia legislature, whose attention was called to the worthiness of the service rendered by armistead. the opposition to the employment of negroes as soldiers, by the persistency of its advocates and the bravery of those who were then serving in white regiments, was finally overcome, so that their enlistment became general and regulated by law. companies, battalions and regiments of negro troops soon entered the field and the struggle for independence and liberty, giving to the cause the reality of freedmen's fight. for three years the army had been fighting under the smart of defeats, with an occasional signal victory, but now the tide was about to be turned against the english. the colonists had witnessed the heroism of the negro in virginia at great bridge, and at norfolk; in massachusetts at boston and bunker hill, fighting, in the former, for freedom under the british flag, in the latter for liberty, under the banner of the colonies. the echoing shouts of the whites fell heavily upon the ears of the black people; they caught the strain as by martial instinct, and reverberated the appeal, "_liberty and independence_." the negro's ancestors were not slaves, so upon the altar of their hearts the fire of liberty was re-kindled by the utterances of the white colonists. they heard patrick henry and samuel adams, whose eloquence vehemently aroused their compatriots, and, like them, they too resolved to be free. they held no regular organized meetings; at the north they assembled with their white fellow-citizens; at the south each balmy gale that swept along the banks of the rivers were laden with the negro's ejaculations for freedom, and each breast was resolute and determined. the advocates and friends of the measure for arming all men for freedom, were on the alert, and now the condition of the army was such as to enable them to press the necessity of the measure upon the attention of the american people. washington needed reinforcements; nay, more, the perilous situation of the army as it lay in camp at valley forge, at the conclusion of the campaign of , was indeed distressing. the encampment consisted of huts, and there was danger of a famine. the soldiers were nearly destitute of comfortable clothing. "many," says the historian, "for want of shoes, walked barefoot on the frozen ground; few, if any, had blankets for the night. great numbers sickened; near three thousand at a time were incapable of bearing arms." within fifteen miles of them lay the city of philadelphia and the british army. these gloomy circumstances overshadowed the recent victory at bennington, and the surrender of burgoyne. under these circumstances, the difficulty of recruiting the patriot army may be easily imagined. a general enlistment bill had failed to pass the legislature in the spring, because, perhaps, the spirit of the patriots were up at the time; but now they were down, and the advocates of arming negroes sought the opportunity of carrying their plan. it was not attempted in connecticut, but in the general assembly of rhode island an act was passed for the purpose. here are some of the principal provisions of this act: "_it is voted and resolved_, that every able-bodied negro, mulatto, or indian man slave in this state, may enlist into either of the said two battalions to serve during the continuance of the present war with great britain; that every slave so enlisted shall be entitled to receive all the bounties, wages, encouragements allowed by the continental congress to any soldier enlisted into their service. "_it is further voted and resolved_, that every slave so enlisting shall, upon his passing muster before col. christopher greene, be immediately discharged from the service of his master or mistress, and be absolutely free, as though he had never been encumbered with any kind of servitude or slavery. and in case such slave shall, by sickness or otherwise, be unable to maintain himself, he shall not be chargable to his master or mistress, but shall be supported at the expense of the state. "and whereas slaves have been by the laws deemed the property of their owners; and therefore compensation ought to be made to the owners for the loss of their service,-- "_it is further voted and resolved_, that there be allowed, and paid by this state to the owners, for every such slave so enlisting, a sum according to his worth at a price not exceeding one hundred and twenty pounds for the most valuable slave, and in proportion for a slave of less value; _provided_ the owner of said slave shall deliver up to the officer who shall enlist him the clothes of said slave; or otherwise he shall not be entitled to said sum." [illustration: on picket] to speak of the gallantry of the negro soldiers recalls the recollection of some of their daring deeds at red bank, where four hundred men met and repulsed, after a terrible, sanguinary struggle, fifteen hundred hessian troops led by count donop. "the glory of the defence of red bank, which has been pronounced one of the most heroic actions of the war, belongs in reality to black men; yet who now hears them spoken of in connection with it? among the traits which distinguished the black regiment was devotion to their officers. in the attack made upon the american lines, near croton river, on the th of may, , col. greene, the commander of the regiment, was cut down and mortally wounded; but the sabres of the enemy only reached him through the bodies of his faithful blacks, who gathered around him to protect him, _and every one of whom was killed_." now the negro began to take the field; not scattered here and there throughout the army, filling up the shattered ranks of white regiments, but in organizations composed entirely of men of their own race, officered, however, by white officers, men of high social and military character and standing. the success of the measure in rhode island, emboldened the effort in massachusetts, where the advocates of separate negro organizations had been laboring zealously for its accomplishment. officers of the army in the field, expressed their desire to be placed in command of negro troops, in separate and distinct organizations. every effort, however, up to this time to induce massachusetts to consent to the proposition had failed. rhode island alone sent her negro regiments to the field, whose gallantry during the war more than met the most sanguine expectations of their warmest friends, and fully merited the trust and confidence of the state and country. as the struggle proceeded, re-enforcements were more frequently in demand; but recruits were scarce, and the question of arming negroes became again prominent in the colonies and the army. in april, , thomas kench, then serving in an artillery regiment, addressed letters to the massachusetts legislature urging the enlistment of negroes. he wrote: "a re-enforcement can quickly be raised of two or three hundred men. will your honors grant the liberty, and give me the command of the party? and what i refer to is negroes. we have divers of them in our service, mixed with white men. but i think it would be more proper to raise a body by themselves, than to have them intermixed with the white men; and their ambition would entirely be to outdo the white men in every measure that the fortunes of war calls a soldier to endure. and i could rely with dependence upon them in the field of battle or to any post that i was sent to defend with them; and they would think themselves happy could they gain their freedom by bearing a part of subduing the enemy that is invading our land, and clear a peaceful inheritance for their masters, and posterity yet to come, that they are now slaves to." the letter from which this extract was made was duly referred to a joint committee "to consider the same and report." some days later "a resolution of the general assembly of rhode island for enlisting negroes in the public service" was referred to the same committee. they duly reported the draft of a law, differing little from the rhode island resolution. a separate organization of negro companies, by kench, does not appear to have been deemed advisable at that time. the usage was continued of "taking," in the words of kench, "negroes in our service, intermixed with the white men." the negroes of boston and their abolition friends, rather insisted upon the intermingling of the races in the army, believing that this course had a greater tendency to destroy slavery, and the inequality of rights among the blacks and whites; though it deprived the negroes, as we now see, of receiving due credit for their valor, save in a few individual cases. it was not in massachusetts alone, but in many other states that the same idea prevailed; and now the facts connected with the services of the negroes are to be gathered only in fragments, from the histories of villages and towns, or among the archives of the state, in a disconnected and unsatisfactory form. the legislature of new york, two months after the murder of col. greene and his faithful negro troops at point's bridge, in that state, by the british, passed an act (march, ) looking to the raising of two regiments. the sixth section of the act reads as follows: "and it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that any person who shall deliver one or more of his able-bodied male slaves to any warrant officer, as aforesaid, to serve in either of the above regiments or independent corps, and produce a certificate thereof, signed by any person authorized to muster and receive the men to be raised by virtue of this act, and produce such certificate to the surveyor-general, shall, for every male slave so entered and mustered as aforesaid, be entitled to the location and grant of one right, in manner as in and by this act is directed; and shall be, and hereby is discharged from any further maintenance of such slave, any law to the contrary notwithstanding. and such slave so entering as aforesaid, who shall serve for the term of three years or until regularly discharged, shall, immediately after such service or discharge, be, and is hereby declared to be, a free man of this state." in , in the convention which revised the constitution of new york, mr. clark, speaking in favor of allowing negroes to vote, said in the course of his remarks: "my honorable colleague has told us, that, as the colored people are not required to contribute to the protection or defence of the state, they are not entitled to an equal participation in the privileges of its citizens. but, sir, whose fault is this? have they ever refused to do military duty when called upon? it is haughtily asked, who will stand in the ranks shoulder to shoulder with a negro? i answer, no one, in time of peace; no one, when your musters and trainings are looked upon as mere pastimes; no one, when your militia will shoulder their muskets and march to their trainings with as much unconcern as they would go to a sumptuous entertainment or a splendid ball. but, sir, when the hour of danger approaches, your white 'militia' are just as willing that the man of color should be set up as a mark to be shot at by the enemy, as to be set up themselves. in the war of the revolution, these people helped to fight your battles by land and by sea. some of your states were glad to turn out corps of colored men, and to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with them. "in your late war, they contributed largely towards some of your most splendid victories. on lakes erie and champlain, where your fleets triumphed over a foe superior in numbers and engines of death, they were manned, in a large proportion, with men of color. and, in this very house, in the fall of , a bill passed, receiving the approbation of all the branches of your government, authorizing the governor to accept the services of a corps of two thousand free people of color. sir, these were times which tried men's souls. in these times it was no sporting matter to bear arms. these were times, when a man who shouldered his musket did not know but he bared his bosom to receive a death wound from the enemy ere he laid it aside; and in these times, these people were found as ready and as willing to volunteer in your service as any other. they were not compelled to go; they were not drafted. no, your pride had placed them beyond your compulsory power. but there was no necessity for its exercise; they were volunteers; yes, sir, volunteers to defend that very country from the inroads and ravages of a ruthless and vindictive foe, which had treated them with insult, degradation and slavery. "volunteers are the best of soldiers. give me the men, whatever be their complexion, that willingly volunteer, and not those who are compelled to turn out. such men do not fight from necessity, nor from mercenary motives, but from principle." hon. mr. martindale, who represented a district of the state of new york, in congress in , thus speaks of the negro soldiers: "slaves, or negroes who have been slaves, were enlisted as soldiers in the war of the revolution; and i myself saw a battalion of them, as fine martial-looking men as i ever saw, attached to the northern army." up to this time the east had been the theatre of the war, with now and then a battle in some one of the middle colonies, but the british discovering that the people of the south acted indifferently in maintaining and recruiting the army, transferred their operations to that section. maryland then stood as a middle state or colony. her statesmen, seeing the threatened danger of the invasion of pennsylvania, endeavored to prepare to meet it, and taking council from her sister states at the east, accepted the negro as a soldier. in june, , john cadwater, writing from annapolis, md., to gen. washington, says: "we have resolved to raise, immediately, seven hundred and fifty negroes, to be incorporated with the other troops; and a bill is now almost completed." it does not appear that the negroes were formed into separate organizations in this state, but filled the depleted ranks of the continental regiments, where their energy and daring was not less than that displayed by their white comrades, with whom they fought, shoulder to shoulder. the advocates of arming the negroes were not confined to the eastern and middle sections; some of the best men of the south favored and advocated the enlistment of free negroes, and made many, though for a long time unsuccessful, efforts to obtain legal sanction for such enlistment throughout the south. but their advice was not listened to, even in the face of certain invasion, and then the whites would not, and could not be induced to rally to the defence of their own particular section and homes. for fear that i may be accused of too highly coloring the picture of the southern laxity of fervor and patriotism, i quote from the valuable essay which accompanies the history of the american loyalists: "the whole number of regulars enlisted for the continental service, from the beginning to the close of the struggle, was , . of these, i have once remarked, , were from massachusetts; and i may now add, that every state south of pennsylvania provided but , , or , _less_ than this single state." the men of massachusetts did not more firmly adhere to their policy of mixed troops as against separate organizations, based upon color, than did the men of the south to their peculiar institution, and against the arming of negroes, free or slave. the war having fairly set in upon southern soil, and so urgent the necessity for recruiting the army, that congress again took up the subject of enrolling negroes as soldiers. it was decided that the general government had no control over the states in the matter, but a series of resolutions were adopted recommending to the states of georgia and south carolina, the arming of three thousand able-bodied negroes. now began an earnest battle for the carrying out of the policy, as recommended by congress. its friends were among the bravest and truest to the cause of freedom in the states. hon. henry laurens lead in the effort. even before the matter was brought to the attention of congress, he wrote to gen. washington, as follows: "our affairs in the southern department are more favorable than we had considered them a few days ago; nevertheless, the country is greatly distressed, and will be so unless further re-inforcements are sent to its relief. had we arms for three thousand such black men as i could select in carolina, i should have no doubt of success in driving the british out of georgia, and subduing east florida before the end of july." washington knew the temper of the southerners. he was well aware that slaves could not be entrusted with arms within sight of the enemy's camp, and within hearing of his proclamation of freedom to all who would join his majesty's standard, unless equal inducements were offered them by the colonists, and to this he knew the southern colonist would not consent. in his reply to mr. laurens, he said: "the policy of our arming slaves, is, in my opinion a moot point, unless the enemy set the example. for, should we begin to form battallions of them, i have not the smallest doubt, if the war is to be prosecuted, of their following us in it, and justifying the measure upon our own ground. the contest then must be, who can arm fastest. and where are our arms? besides, i am not clear that a discrimination will not render slavery more irksome to those who remain in it. most of the good and evil things in this life are judged of by comparison; and i fear a comparison in this case will be productive of much discontent in those who are held in servitude. but, as this is a subject that has never employed much of my thoughts, these are no more than the first crude ideas that have struck me upon the occasion." washington certainly had no doubts as to the value of the negro as a soldier, but for the reasons stated, did not give the weight of his influence, at this important juncture, to the policy of their enlistment, while so many of the leading men of the colonies were favorable to the action. among those who advocated the raising of negro troops was col. john laurens, a native of south carolina and a brave patriot, who had acted as aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief, and had seen service in rhode island and elsewhere. he was the son of hon. henry laurens, at one time president of congress, and was noted for his high qualities of character. a commission of lieutenant-colonel was granted to him by congress, and he proceeded to south carolina to use his personal influence to induce the legislature to authorize the enlistment of negroes. his services in rhode island had given him an opportunity to witness the conduct and worth of the negro soldier. alexander hamilton in the course of a long letter to john jay, relating to the mission of col. laurens to south carolina, says: "i foresee that this project will have to combat much opposition from prejudice and self-interest. the contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part company with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability or pernicious tendency of a scheme which requires such a sacrifice. but it should be considered, that, if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out will be to offer them ourselves. an essential part of the plan is to give them their freedom with their muskets. this will secure their fidelity, animate their courage, and, i believe, will have a good influence upon those who remain, by opening a door to their emancipation. this circumstance, i confess has no small weight in inducing me to wish the success of the project; for the dictates of humanity and true policy, equally interest me in favor of this unfortunate class of men." the patriotic zeal of col. laurens for the accomplishment of his design was earnest and conscientious. he wrote to his friend hamilton in these words: "ternant will relate to you how many violent struggles i have had between duty and inclination--how much my heart was with you, while i appeared to be most actively employed here. but it appears to me, that i should be inexcusable in the light of a citizen, if i did not continue my utmost efforts for carrying the plan of the black levies into execution, while there remains the smallest hope of success." the condition of the colonies and the continental army at that time was critical in the extreme. the campaign of had closed gloomily for the americans. the british had not only been active in raiding in virginia and destroying property, but in organizing negro troops. lord dunmore, as we have seen, as early as november, , had issued a proclamation, inviting the negroes to join the royal forces, to which a great many slaves responded, and were organized into companies. a regiment had been organized by the british on long island in , and now, sir henry clinton invited them by the following proclamation: "by his excellency sir henry clinton, k. b., general and commander-in-chief of all his majesty's forces, within the colonies lying on the atlantic ocean, from nova scotia to west florida, inclusive, &c., &c. proclamation. "whereas the enemy have adopted a practice of enrolling _negroes_ among their _troops_, i do hereby give notice _that_ all negroes taken in arms, or upon any military _duty_, shall be purchased for _the public service_ at a stated _price_; the money to be paid to the _captors_. "but i do most strictly forbid any _person_ to sell or claim _right_ over any negro, the property of a rebel, who may take refuge in any part of this _army_: and i do promise to every negro who shall desert the _rebel standard_, full security to follow within these _lines_, any occupation which he shall think proper. "given under my hand at head-quarters, philipsburg, the th day of june, . h. clinton. "by his excellency's command, john smith, secretary." it is highly probable that many negroes made their way to the british camp. col. laurens wrote to general washington, under date of february, , six months after the issuing of sir henry clinton's proclamation, as follows: "private accounts say that general provost is left to command at savannah; that his troops consist of hessians and loyalists that were there before, _re-inforced by a corps of blacks and a detachment of savages_. it is generally reported that sir. henry clinton commands the present expedition." clinton left new york in the latter part of , for the reduction of charleston, which he completed in may, three months after the date of col. laurens' letter. gen. lincoln, who commanded the american forces at charleston, joined in the effort to arm the negroes. in a letter to gov. rutledge, dated charleston, march th, , he says: "give me leave to add once more, that i think the measure of raising a black corps a necessary one; that i have great reason to believe, if permission is given for it, that many men would soon be obtained. i have repeatedly urged this matter, not only because congress has recommended it, and because it thereby becomes my duty to attempt to have it executed, but because my own mind suggests the utility and importance of the measure, as the safety of the town makes it necessary." the project of raising negro troops gained some friends in all sections, and statesmen, both south and north, as they talked about it, became more free to express their approbation of the measure. they had witnessed the militia from virginia and north carolina, at the battle of camden, throw down their arms before the enemy;[ ] they had seen black and white troops under command of gen. provost occupy savannah; the surrender of charlestown had become necessary; and these evils were all brought about by the apathy of the white inhabitants. among those who spoke out in favor of col. laurens' and gen. lincoln's plan, was hon. james madison, who, on the th of november, , wrote to joseph jones: "i am glad to find the legislature persisting in their resolution to recruit their line of the army for the war; though, without deciding on the expediency of the mode under their consideration, would it not be as well to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves, as to make them instruments for enlisting white soldiers? it would certainly be more consonant with the principles of liberty: and, with white officers and a majority of white soldiers, no imaginable danger could be feared from themselves; as there certainly could be none from the effect of the example on those who should remain in bondage; experience having shown that a freedman immediately loses all attachment and sympathy with his former fellow slaves." no circumstances under which the south was placed, could induce either their legislators or the people to adopt the recommendations of congress or the advice of the patriots and statesmen of their section. the opposition to the arming of the negroes was much stronger than the love for independence. the british, however, adopted the plan, and left no stone unturned to augment the strength of their army. thousands of negroes flocked to the royal standard at every opportunity, just as in the war of the rebellion in -' , they sought freedom under the national banner. it has ever been the rule among american historians to omit giving credit to those negroes who sought to gain their freedom by joining the british. they have generally also failed to acknowledge the valor of those who swelled the ranks of the continental army. enough, however, can be gathered, mostly from private correspondence, to show that the hope of success for the americans rested either in the docility of the negroes at the south, or in their loyalty to the cause of independence. at all events, upon the action of the blacks more than upon the bravery and valor of the american troops, depended the future status of the colonies; hence the solicitude of officers and of the leading citizens; and it was not the love of universal freedom, which prompted their efforts for arming negroes; not at all, but their keen appreciation of the value of a neutral power, which could be utilized for the benefit of america's independence. nor do i attribute other than the same motive to the british, who did arm and did free a great many of the negroes, who joined their service, especially at the south, where they must have organized quite a large force,--not less than , . early in , (feb'y) gen. greene, then in command in north carolina, writing to general washington about the doings of the enemy in south carolina, where he formally commanded, says: "the enemy have ordered two regiments of negroes to be immediately embodied, and are drafting a great portion of the young men of that state [south carolina], to serve during the war." a few days after writing this letter, gen. greene met the british at guilford court house, and again witnessed the cowardice of the southern militia,[ ] whose conduct gave victory to the british, under cornwallis. the persistency of col. laurens in his effort to organize negro troops, was still noteworthy. having returned from france, whither he went on important business, connected with the welfare of the states, he resumed his "favorite pursuit." under date of may, , , in a letter addressed to washington, he says: "the plan which brought me to this country was urged with all the zeal which the subject inspired, both in our privy council and assembly; but the single voice of reason was drowned by the howling of a triple-headed monster, in which prejudice, avarice, and pusillanimity were united. it was some degree of consolation to me, however, to perceive that the truth and philosophy had gained some ground; the suffrages in favor of the measure being twice as numerous as on a former occasion. some hopes have been lately given me from georgia; but i fear, when the question is put, we shall be out-voted there with as much disparity as we have been in this country. * * * * "i earnestly desire to be where any active plans are likely to be executed, and to be near your excellency on all occasions in which my services can be acceptable. the pursuit of an object which, i confess, is a favorite one with me, because i always regarded the interests of this country and those of the union as intimately connected with it, has detached me more than once from your family, but those sentiments of veneration and attachments with which your excellency has inspired me, keep me always near you, with the sincerest and most zealous wishes for a continuance of your happiness and glory." here ended the project of arming negroes in south carolina, and before an earnest effort could be made in georgia, the brave man laid his life upon the altar of american liberty. but to show the state of public opinion at the south, as understood by the commander-in-chief of the american army, we have but to read washington's reply to col. laurens' last letter, in which he speaks of "making a last effort" in georgia. gen. washington uses this emphatic language: "i must confess that i am not at all astonished at the failure of your plan. that spirit of freedom, which, at the commencement of this contest, would have gladly sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place. it is not the public but private interest which influences the generality of mankind; nor can the americans any longer boast an exception. under the circumstances, it would rather have been surprising if you had succeeded; nor will you, i fear, have better success in georgia." this letter settles forever any boast of the southerners, that to them is due the credit of gaining the independence of the united states. it is true cornwallis' surrender at yorktown, va., was the last of the series of battles fought for independence.[ ] but we must remember that the french were at yorktown. it cannot be doubted but that from charleston to yorktown the americans met negro troops more than once fighting under the royal flag; while at the east, in every important engagement between the two enemies,--british and american,--the negro was found fighting with the americans. this division of the negroes can easily be accounted for, since at the north and east the object of the war was acknowledged to be set forth in the declaration of independence; at the south only so much of the declaration was accepted as demanded independence from great britain. therefore, though in separate and opposing armies, the object of the negro was the same--liberty. it is to be regretted that the historians of the revolutionary period did not more particularly chronicle the part taken by negroes at the south, though enough is known to put their employment beyond doubt. johnson, the author of the life of gen. greene, speaking of greene's recommendation to the legislature of south carolina to enroll negroes, says: "there is a sovereign, who, at this time, draws his soldiery from the same class of people; and finds a facility in forming and disciplining an army, which no other power enjoys. nor does his immense military force, formed from that class of his subjects, excite the least apprehension; for the soldier's will is subdued to that of his officer, and his improved condition takes away the habit of identifying himself with the class from which he has been separated. military men know what mere machines men become under discipline, and believe that any men, who may be obedient, may be made soldiers; and that increasing their numbers increases the means of their own subjection and government." cornwallis doubtless had gathered within his lines a large number of negroes, to whose energy and labor, the erection of his breastworks were mainly due. lafayette feeling satisfied that the position of his army before yorktown would confine the british, and make the escape of cornwallis impossible without battle, wrote to gen. washington in september: "i hope you will find we have taken the best precautions to lessen his lordship's escape. i hardly believe he will make the attempt. if he does, he must give up ships, artillery, baggage, part of his horses, and all the negroes." all this time in some of the northern states an opposition as strong as at the south had existed against organizing negro troops, and in some instances even against employing them as soldiers. the effort for separate organizations had been going on, but with only the little success that has been already noticed. in a biographical sketch of col. david humphreys, in the "national portrait gallery of distinguished americans," is the following: "in november, , he was, by resolution of congress, commissioned as a lieutenant-colonel, with order that his commission should bear date from the rd of june, , when he received his appointment as aid-de-camp to the commander-in-chief. he had, when in active service, given the sanction of his name and influence in the establishment of a company of colored infantry, attached to meigs', afterwards butler's, regiment, in the connecticut line. he continued to be the nominal captain of that company until the establishment of peace." though the legislature of connecticut had taken up the subject of arming negroes generally, as early as , and a bill, as we have seen, was presented to that legislature, for their enrollment, the advocates of the measure, in every attempt to pass it, had been beaten. nevertheless, as appears by the record given above, col. humphrey took charge and organized a company, with which he served until the close of the war. but this company of fifty odd men were not all that did service in the army from connecticut, for in many of her white regiments, negroes, bond and free, stood in the ranks with the whites. and, notwithstanding the unsuccessful attempts of col. laurens and the advocates of negro soldiery at the south, the negro was an attache of the southern army, and rendered efficient aid during the struggle, in building breastworks, driving teams and piloting the army through dense woods, swamps, and across rivers. not a few were spies and drummers. to select or point out a particular battle or siege, in which they rendered active service to the british, would not be a difficult task, though the information at hand is too limited for a detailed account of the part which they bore in these struggles. the true patriots of the revolution were not slow in according to their black compatriots that meed of praise which was their due. in almost every locality, either north or south, after the war, there lived one or two privileged negroes, who, on great occasions,--days of muster, th of july, washington's birthday, and the like,--were treated with more than ordinary courtesy by the other people. that a great and dastardly wrong was committed upon many, in like manner in which simon lee[ ] was treated, is true. many negroes at the south, who fought for american independence were re-enslaved, and this is so far beyond a doubt that no one denies it. the re-enslaving of these soldiers,--not by those who took part in the conflict, but the _stay-at-home's_,--was so flagrant an outrage that the legislature of virginia, in , in order to give freedom to those who had been re-enslaved, and to rebuke the injustice of the treatment, passed the following act: _an act directing the emancipation of certain slaves who had served as soldiers in this state, and for the emancipation of the slave, aberdeen._ "i. whereas, it hath been represented to the present general assembly, that, during the course of the war, many persons in this state had caused their slaves to enlist in certain regiments or corps, raised within the same, having tendered such slaves to the officers appointed to recruit forces within the state, as substitutes for free persons whose lot or duty it was to serve in such regiments or corps, at the same time representing to such recruiting officers that the slaves, so enlisted by their direction and concurrence, were freemen; and it appearing further to this assembly, that on the expiration of the term of enlistment of such slaves, that the former owners have attempted again to force them to return to a state of servitude, contrary to the principles of justice, and to their own solemn promise; "ii. and whereas it appears just and reasonable that all persons enlisted as aforesaid, who have faithfully served agreeable to the terms of their enlistment, and have hereby of course contributed towards the establishment of american liberty and independence, should enjoy the blessings of freedom as a reward for their toils and labors. "_be it therefore enacted_, that each and every slave, who, by the appointment and direction of his owner, hath enlisted in any regiment or corps raised within this state, either on continental or state establishment, and hath been received as a substitute for any free person whose duty or lot it was to serve in such regiment or corps, and hath served faithfully during the term of such enlistment, or hath been discharged from such service by some officer duly authorized to grant such discharge, shall, from and after the passing of this act, be fully and completely emancipated, and shall be held and deemed free, in as full and ample a manner as if each and every one of them were specially named in this act; and the attorney-general for the commonwealth is hereby required to bring an action, _in forma pauperis_, in behalf of any of the persons above described who shall, after the passage of this act, be detained in servitude by any person whatsoever; and if, upon such prosecution, it shall appear that the pauper is entitled to his freedom in consequence of this act, a jury shall be empaneled to assess the damages for his detention. "iii. and whereas it has been represented to this general assembly, that aberdeen, a negro man slave, hath labored a number of years in the public service at the lead mines, and for his meritorious services is entitled to freedom; "_be it therefore enacted_, that the said slave aberdeen, shall be, and he is hereby, emancipated and declared free in as full and ample a manner as if he had been born free." in an act was passed to emancipate a negro slave who had acted as a spy for lafayette. this practice was not perhaps wholly confined to the south. although massachusetts abolished slavery in , her territory was, it seems, still subject to slave hunts, and her negro soldiers to the insult of an attempt to re-enslave them. but gen. washington, though himself a slave-holder, regarded the rights of those who fought for liberty and national independence, with too much sacredness and the honor of the country with too much esteem, to permit them to be set aside, merely to accommodate those who had rendered the nation's cause no help or assistance. gen. putnam received the following letter, which needs no explanation: "headquarters, feb. , . "sir:--mr. hobby having claimed as his property a negro man now serving in the massachusetts regiment, you will please to order a court of inquiry, consisting of five as respectable officers as can be found in your brigade, to examine the validity of the claim and the manner in which the person in question came into service. having inquired into the matter, with all the attending circumstances, they will report to you their opinion thereon; which you will report to me as soon as conveniently may be. "i am, sir, with great respect, your most obedient servant, "george washington. "p. s.--all concerned should be notified to attend. "brig.-gen. putnam." not only did some of the negro soldiers who fought in the american army receive unjust treatment at the close of the war, but those who served under the royal standard, also shared a fate quite different from what they supposed it would be when the proclamations of lord dunmore, clinton and cornwallis, were inviting them to cast their lot with the british. the high character of thomas jefferson induces me to reproduce his letter to dr. gordon, or rather that portion of it which refers to the treatment of the negroes who went with the british army. mr. jefferson says: "from an estimate i made at that time, on the best information i could collect, i supposed the state of virginia lost, under lord cornwallis' hand, that year, about thirty thousand slaves; and that, of these, twenty-seven thousand died of the small-pox and camp fever; the rest were partly sent to the west indies, and exchanged for rum, sugar, coffee and fruit; and partly sent to new york, from whence they went, at the peace, either to nova scotia or to england. from this last place, i believe they have lately been sent to africa. history will never relate the horrors committed by the british army in the southern states of america." the heroism of the negro soldier has ever been eulogized by the true statesmen of our country, whenever the question of the american patriots was the theme. and i find no better eulogy to pronounce upon them than that hon. charles pinckney, of south carolina, delivered in the united states house of representatives in , and that of hon. wm. eustis, of massachusetts, during the same debate. mr. pinckney said: "it is a remarkable fact, that notwithstanding, in the course of the revolution, the southern states were continually overrun by the british, and that every negro in them had an opportunity of leaving their owners, few did; proving thereby not only a most remarkable attachment to their owners, but the mildness of the treatment, from whence their affection sprang. they then were, as they still are, as valuable a part of our population to the union as any other equal number of inhabitants. they were in numerous instances the pioneers, and in all the laborers, of your armies. to their hands were owing the erection of the greatest part of the fortifications raised for the protection of our country; some of which, particularly fort moultrie, gave, at the early period of the inexperience and untried valor of our citizens, immortality to american arms; and, in the northern states, numerous bodies of them were enrolled into, and fought, by the side of the whites, the battles of the revolution."--_annals of congress._ and said mr. eustis: "at the commencement of the revolutionary war, there were found in the middle and northern states, many blacks, and other people of color, capable of bearing arms; a part of them free, the greater part slaves. the freemen entered our ranks with the whites. the time of those who were slaves was purchased by the states; and they were induced to enter the service in consequence of a law by which, on condition of their serving in the ranks during the war, they were made freemen. "the war over, and peace restored, these men returned to their respective states; and who could have said to them, on their return to civil life, after having shed their blood in common with the whites in the defence of the liberties of their country, 'you are not to participate in the liberty for which you have been fighting?' certainly no white man in massachusetts." such is the historic story of the negro in the american revolution, and it is a sad one as regards any benefit to his own condition by his connection with either side. but it is one of the most memorable of all history on exhibition of the fidelity of a race to the cause of the freedom of all men. footnotes: [ ] "ran away from his master, william brown, of framingham, on the th of sept. last, a mullato fellow, about years of age, named _crispus_, feet inches high, short, curl'd hair, his knees nearer together than common; had on a light coloured bearskin coat, plain brown fustain jacket, or brown all wool one, new buck skin breeches, blue yarn stockings, and a checked woolen shirt. whoever shall take up said runaway, and convey him to his abovesaid master, shall have _ten pounds_, old tenor reward, and all necessary charges paid. and all masters of vessels and others, are hereby cautioned against concealing or carrying off said servant on penalty of the law. boston, october , ."--_boston gazette._ [ ] mr. sparks appends to this letter the following note: "at a meeting of the general officers, previously to the arrival of the committee from congress in camp, it was unanimously resolved, that it was not expedient to enlist slaves in the new army; and by a large majority, negroes of every description were excluded from enlistment. when the subject was referred to the committee in conference, the resolve was not adhered to, and probably for the reason here mentioned by washington. many black soldiers were in the service during all stages of the war."--spark's washington, vol. iii. pp. - . [ ] dunmore after destroying norfolk, sailed with his fleet of men-of-war and more than fifty transports, on board of which were many armed negroes and royal troops, to the mouth of the piankatank river, and took possession of gwynn's island, where he landed his troops and entrenched. here he was attacked by gen. lewis' men from the opposite shore. one of dunmore's ships was badly damaged by cannon balls, and he drew off and sailed up the potomoc river, and occupied st. georgia's island, after having burned a mansion at the mouth of aqua creek. he was here attacked by a militia force and retired. misfortune followed him; disease, shipwreck and want of provisions. he soon made sail, and with his negroes reached england, where he remained. [ ] at the first onset, a large body of the virginia militia, under a charge of the british infantry with fixed bayonets, threw down their arms and fled. a considerable part of the north carolina militia followed their unworthy example. but the continentals evinced the most unyielding firmness, and pressed forward with unusual ardor. never did men acquit themselves more honorably. they submitted only when forsaken by their brethren in arms, and when overpowered by numbers. [ ] "the british loss, in this battle, exceeded five hundred in killed and wounded, among whom were several of the most distinguished officers. the american loss was about four hundred, in killed and wounded, of which more than three-fourths fell upon the continentals. though the numerical force of gen. greene nearly doubled that of cornwallis, yet, when we consider the difference between these forces; the shameful conduct of the north carolina militia, who fled at the first fire; the desertion of the second maryland regiment, and that a body of reserve was not brought into action, it will appear that our numbers, actually engaged, but little exceeded that of the enemy."--_grimshaw's u. s. history._ [ ] the burlington _gazette_, in an issue of some time ago, gives the following account of an aged negro revolutionary patriot: "the attention of many of our citizens has doubtless been arrested by the appearance of an old colored man, who might have been seen, sitting in front of his residence, in east union street, respectfully raising his hat to those who might be passing by. his attenuated frame, his silvered head, his feeble movements, combine to prove that he is very aged: and yet, comparatively few are aware that he is among the survivors of the gallant army who fought for the liberties of our country. "on monday last, we stopped to speak to him, and asked how old he was. he asked the day of the month, and upon being told that it was the th of may, replied, with trembling lips, 'i am very old--i am a hundred years old to-day.' "his name is oliver cromwell, and he says that he was born at the black horse, (now columbus), in this county, in the family of john hutchins. he enlisted in a company commanded by capt. lowry, attached to the second new jersey regiment, under the command of col. israel shreve. he was at the battles of trenton, brandywine, princetown, monmouth, and yorktown, at which latter place, he told us, he saw the last man killed. although his faculties are failing, yet he relates many interesting reminiscences of the revolution. he was with the army at the retreat of the delaware, on the memorable crossing of the th of december, , and relates the story of the battle on the succeeding day, with enthusiasm. he gives the details of the march from trenton to princetown, and told us, with much humor, that they 'knocked the british around lively,' at the latter place. he was also at the battle of springfield, and says that he saw the house burning in which mrs. caldwell was shot, at connecticut farms." "i further learn, (says the author of the 'colored patriots of the revolution'), that cromwell was brought up a farmer, having served his time with thomas hutchins, esq., his maternal uncle. he was, for six years and nine months under the immediate command of washington, whom he loved affectionately." "his discharge," says dr. m'cune smith, "at the close of the war, was in washington's own handwriting, of which he was very proud, often speaking of it. he received annually, ninety-six dollars pension. he lived a long and honorable life. had he been of a little lighter complexion, (he was just half white), every newspaper in the land would have been eloquent in praise of his many virtues." [ ] simon lee, the grandfather of william wells brown, on his mother's side, was a slave in virginia, and served in the war of the revolution. although honorably discharged, with the other virginia troops, at the close of the war, he was sent back to his master, where he spent the remainder of his life toiling on a tobacco plantation.--_patriotism of colored americans._ chapter ii. the war of . while there is no intention of entering into an examination of the causes of the war between the united states and great britain in , yet in order to carry out the design of the author to show that in this war,--like all others in which the government of the united states has been engaged,--the negro, as a soldier, took part, it is deemed necessary to cite at least one of the incidents, perhaps _the_ incident, which most fired the national heart of america, and hastened the beginning of hostilities. the war between england and france gave to the american merchant marine interest an impetus that increased the number of vessels three-fold in a few years; it also gave command of the carrying trade of the west indies, from which napoleon's frigates debarred the english merchantmen. in consequence england sought and used every opportunity to cripple american commerce and shipping. one plan was to deprive american ships of the service of english seamen. her war vessels claimed and exercised the right of searching for english seamen on board american vessels. during the year , the english admiral berkeley, in command of the north american station, issued instructions to commanders of vessels in his fleet to look out for the american frigate chesapeake, and if they fell in with her at sea, to board her and search for deserters, as all english seamen in the american service were regarded by england. with the instructions, were the descriptions of four sailors, three negroes and one white man, who were missing. the persons who deserted from the melampus, then lying in hampton roads, were william ware, daniel martin, john strachan, john little and ambrose watts. within a month from their escape from the melampus, the first three of these deserters offered themselves for enlistment, and were received on board the chesapeake, then at norfolk, va., preparing for sea. the british consul at norfolk, being apprized of the circumstance, wrote a letter to the american naval officer, requesting the men to be returned. with this request, the officer refused to comply, and the british lost no time in endeavoring to procure an order from the american government for their surrender. on receipt of the application, the secretary of the navy ordered an examination into the characters and claims of the men in question. the examination resulted in proof that the three negroes, ware, martin and strachan were natives of america. the two former had "_protections_," or notarial certificates of their citizenship;[ ] strachan had no "_protection_," but asserted that he lost it previous to his escape. such being the circumstances, the government refused to give the men up, insisting that they were american citizens, and though, they had served in the british navy, they were pressed into the service and had a right to desert it. the chesapeake was one of the finest of the frigates in the american navy, and after receiving an outfit requiring six months to complete at the gosport navy yard, at norfolk, va., started for the mediterranean. the english frigate leopard, which lay in the harbor at norfolk when the chesapeake sailed, followed her out to sea, hailed her and sent a letter to her commander, commodore james barron, demanding the surrender of the deserters. barron sent a note refusing to comply with the demand, whereupon the leopard fired several broadsides into the chesapeake. barron struck his colors without firing a shot, and permitted the officers of the leopard to board his vessel and search her. the british captain refused to accept the surrender of the chesapeake, but took from her crew the three men who had been demanded as deserters; also a fourth, john wilson, a white man, claimed as a runaway from a merchant ship. the white sailor, it was admitted by the american government, was a british subject, and his release was not demanded; he was executed for deserting the british navy. of the negroes, two only were returned by the british government, the other one having died in england. says an american historian: "an outrage like this, inflicted not by accident or the brutality of a separate commander, naturally excited the whole nation to the utmost. "president jefferson very soon interdicted american harbors and waters to all vessels of the english navy, and forbade intercourse with them. he sent a vessel of war with a special minister to demand satisfaction. the english admiral hanged the deserter, and dismissed the three black men with a reprimand, blaming them for _disturbing the peace of two nations_. that the outrage did not end in immediate war, was due partly to the fact that the americans had no navy to fight with." nearly four years elapsed before the final settlement of the chesapeake affair, and then the english government insisted upon its right to, and issued orders for the search for british sailors to be continued; thus a cause for quarrel remained. the principal grounds of war, set forth in a message of the president to congress, june st, , and further explained by the committee on foreign relations, in their report on the subject of the message, were summarily: "the impressment of american seamen by the british; the blockade of her enemy's ports, supported by no adequate force, in consequence of which the american commerce had been plundered in every sea, and the great staples of the country cut off from their legitimate markets; and the british orders in council." [illustration: a naval battle.] on these grounds, the president urged the declaration of war. in unison with the recommendation of the president, the committee on foreign relations concluded their reports as follows: "your committee, believing that the freeborn sons of america are worthy to enjoy the liberty which their fathers purchased at the price of much blood and treasure, and seeing by the measures adopted by great britain, a course commenced and persisted in, which might lead to a loss of national character and independence, feel no hesitation in advising resistance by force, in which the americans of the present day will prove to the enemy and the world, that we have not only inherited that liberty which our fathers gave us, but also the will and power to maintain it. relying on the patriotism of the nation, and confidently trusting that the lord of hosts will go with us to battle in a righteous cause, and crown our efforts with success, your committee recommend an immediate appeal to _arms_." war was declared by congress on the th of june, and proclaimed by the president on the second day following. the struggle was principally carried on upon the water, between the armed vessels of the two nations, consequently no great armies were called into active service upon the field. this was indeed fortunate for america, whose military establishments at the time were very defective. congress called for twenty thousand men, but a very few enlisted. the president was authorized to raise fifty thousand volunteers and to call out one hundred thousand militia for the defence of the seacoast and frontiers; but officers could not be found to nominally command the few thousand that responded to the call; which state of affairs was no doubt largely due to the opposition to the war, which existed in the new england states. since the peace of , a class of marine merchants at the north had vied with each other in the african slave trade, in supplying the southern planters. consequently the increase in negro population was great; in it was , , , and in , two years before war was declared, , , , an increase of , . of the , , , there were , , slaves, and , free. of course their increase was not due solely to the importation by the slave trade, but the aggregate increase was large, compared with the increase of the white population for the same period. the free negroes were mainly residents of the northern states, where they enjoyed a nominal freedom. they entered the service with alacrity; excluded from the army, they enlisted in the navy, swelling the number of those who, upon the rivers, lakes, bays and oceans, manned the guns of the war vessels, in defense of free trade, sailor's rights and independence on the seas as well as on the land. it is quite impossible to ascertain the exact number of negroes who stood beside the guns that won for america just recognition from the maritime powers of the world. like the negro soldiers in the revolutionary war who served with the whites, so the negro sailors in the war of served in the american navy; in the mess, at the gun, on the yard-arm and in the gangway, together with others of various nationalities, they achieved many victories for the navy of our common country. the best evidence i can give in substantiation of what has been written, is the following letter from surgeon parsons to george livermore, esq., of the massachusetts historical society: "providence, october , . "my dear sir:--in reply to your inquiries about the employing of blacks in our navy in the war of , and particularly in the battle of lake erie, i refer you to documents in mackenzie's 'life of commodore perry,' vol. i. pp. and . "in , our fleet sailed to the upper lakes to co-operate with colonel croghan at mackinac. about one in ten or twelve of the crews were black. "in , i was surgeon of the 'java,' under commodore perry. the white and colored seamen messed together. about one in six or eight were colored. "in , i was surgeon of the 'guerriere,' under commodore macdonough; and the proportion of blacks was about the same in her crew. there seemed to be an entire absence of prejudice against the blacks as messmates among the crew. what i have said applies to the crews of the other ships that sailed in squadrons. "yours very respectfully, "usher parsons." dr. parsons had reference to the following correspondence between captain perry and commodore chauncey, which took place in , before the former's victory on lake erie. as will be seen, perry expressed dissatisfaction as to the recruits sent him to man the squadron then on lake erie, and with which he gained a decisive victory over the british fleet, under command of capt barley: "sir,--i have this moment received, by express, the enclosed letter from general harrison. if i had officers and men,--and i have no doubt you will send them,--i could fight the enemy, and proceed up the lake; but, having no one to command the 'niagara,' and only one commissioned lieutenant and two acting lieutenants, whatever my wishes may be, going out is out of the question. the men that came by mr. champlin are a motley set,--blacks, soldiers, and boys. i cannot think you saw them after they were selected. i am, however, pleased to see any thing in the shape of a man."--_mackenzie's life of perry_, vol. i. pp. , . commodore chauncey then rebuked him in his reply, and set forth the worth of the negro seaman: "sir,--i have been duly honored with your letters of the twenty-third and twenty-sixth ultimo, and notice your anxiety for men and officers. i am equally anxious to furnish you; and no time shall be lost in sending officers and men to you as soon as the public service will allow me to send them from this lake. i regret that you are not pleased with the men sent you by messrs champlin and forest; for, to my knowledge, a part of them are not surpassed by any seamen we have in the fleet: and i have yet to learn that the color of the skin, or the cut and trimmings of the coat, can effect a man's qualifications or usefulness. i have nearly fifty blacks on board of this ship, and many of them are among my best men; and those people you call soldiers have been to sea from two to seventeen years; and i presume that you will find them as good and useful as any men on board of your vessel; at least if you can judge by comparison; for those which we have on board of this ship are attentive and obedient, and, as far as i can judge, many of them excellent seamen: at any rate, the men sent to lake erie have been selected with a view of sending a fair proportion of petty officers and seamen; and i presume, upon examination, it will be found that they are equal to those upon this lake."--_mackenzie's life of perry_, vol. i. pp. , . the battle of lake erie is the most memorable naval battle fought with the british; of it rossiter johnson, in his "history of the war of ," in the description of the engagement, says: "as the question of the fighting qualities of the black man has since been considerably discussed, it is worth noting that in this bloody and brilliant battle a large number of perry's men were negroes." it was not left to commodores chauncey and perry, solely, to applaud them; there was not an american war vessel, perhaps, whose crew, in part, was not made up of negroes, as the accounts of various sea fights prove. and they are entitled to no small share of the meed of praise given the american seamen, who fought and won victory over the british. not only in the navy, but on board the privateers,[ ] the american negro did service, as the following extract will show: "_extract of a letter from nathaniel shaler, commander of the private-armed schooner gov. tompkins, to his agent in new york._ at sea, jan. , . "before i could get our light sails on, and almost before i could turn round, i was under the guns, not of a transport, but of a large _frigate_! and not more than a quarter of a mile from her. * * her first broadside killed two men and wounded six others * * my officers conducted themselves in a way that would have done honor to a more permanent service * * * the name of one of my poor fellows who was killed ought to be registered in the book of fame, and remembered with reverence as long as bravery is considered a virtue. he was a black man by the name of john johnson. a twenty-four pound shot struck him in the hip, and took away all the lower part of his body. in this state, the poor brave fellow lay on the deck, and several times exclaimed to his shipmates, '_fire away, my boy: no haul a color down_' the other was a black man, by the name of john davis, and was struck in much the same way. he fell near me, and several times requested to be thrown overboard, saying he was only in the way of others. "when america has such tars, she has little to fear from the tyrants of the ocean."--_nile's weekly register, saturday, feb. , ._ as in the late war of the rebellion, the negroes offered their services at the outset when volunteers were called for, and the true patriots at the north sought to have their services accepted; but the government being in the control of the opponents of universal freedom and the extension of the rights of citizenship to the negro, the effort to admit him into the ranks of the army, even in separate organizations, was futile. at the same time american whites would not enlist to any great extent, and but for the tide of immigration, which before the war had set in from ireland, the fighting on shore would probably not have lasted six months; certainly the invasion of canada would not have been attempted. the reverses which met the american army in the first year of the war, slackened even the enlistment that was going on and imperiled the safety of the country, and the defences of the most important seaports and manufacturing states. battle after battle had been lost, the invasion of canada abandoned, and the british had turned their attention southward. the war in europe had been brought to a close, and napoleon was a captive. england was now at liberty to reinforce her fleet and army in america, and fears were entertained that other european powers might assist her in invading the united states. the negro soldier again loomed up, and as the british were preparing to attack new orleans with a superior force to that of gen. jackson's, he sought to avail himself of every possible help within his reach. accordingly he issued the following proclamation: general jackson's proclamation to the negroes. headquarters, seventh military district, mobile, september , . _to the free colored inhabitants of louisiana_: through a mistaken policy, you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. this no longer shall exist. as sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessing. as americans, your country looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous support, as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable government. as fathers, husbands, and brothers, you are summoned to rally around the standard of the eagle, to defend all which is dear in existence. your country, although calling for your exertions, does not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the services rendered. your intelligent minds are not to be led away by false representations. your love of honor would cause you to despise the man who should attempt to deceive you. in the sincerity of a soldier and the language of truth i address you. to every noble-hearted, generous freeman of color volunteering to serve during the present contest with great britain, and no longer, there will be paid the same bounty, in money and lands, now received by the white soldiers of the united states, viz: one hundred and twenty-four dollars in money, and one hundred and sixty acres of land. the non-commissioned officers and privates will also be entitled to the same monthly pay, and daily rations, and clothes, furnished to any american soldier. on enrolling yourselves in companies, the major-general commanding will select officers for your government from your white fellow-citizens. your non-commissioned officers will be appointed from among yourselves. due regard will be paid to the feelings of freeman and soldiers. you will not, by being associated with white men in the same corps, be exposed to improper comparisons or unjust sarcasm. as a distinct, independent battalion or regiment, pursuing the path of glory, you will, undivided, receive the applause and gratitude of your countrymen. to assure you of the sincerity of my intentions, and my anxiety to engage your invaluable services to our country, i have communicated my wishes to the governor of louisiana, who is fully informed as to the manner of enrollment, and will give you every necessary information on the subject of this address. andrew jackson, _major-general commanding._ [_niles register, vol. vii. p. ._] when the news of gen. jackson arming the free negroes reached the north it created no little surprise, and greatly encouraged those, who, from the commencement of hostilities, had advocated it. the successes of the summer were being obliterated by the victories which the british were achieving. the national capitol was burned; maine had virtually fallen into their hands; gloom and disappointment prevailed throughout the country. enlistment was at a stand-still, and as the british were threatening with annihilation the few troops then in the field, it became evident that the states would have to look to their own defence. new york again turned her attention to her free negro population; a bill was prepared and introduced in the legislature looking to the arming of her negroes, and in october, a month after gen. jackson issued his appeal to the negroes of louisiana, the legislature passed a bill of which the following are the most important sections: "_an act to authorize the raising of two regiments of men of color; passed oct. , ._ "sect. . be it enacted by the people of the state of new york, represented in senate and assembly, that the governor of the state be, and he is hereby authorized to raise, by voluntary enlistment, two regiments of free men of color, for the defence of the state for three years, unless sooner discharged. "sect. . and be it further enacted, that each of the said regiments shall consist of one thousand and eighty able-bodied men; and the said regiments shall be formed into a brigade, or be organized in such manner, and shall be employed in such service, as the governor of the state of new york shall deem best adapted to defend the said state. "sect. . and be it further enacted, that all the commissioned officers of the said regiments and brigade shall be white men; and the governor of the state of new york shall be, and he is hereby, authorized to commission, by brevet, all the officers of the said regiments and brigade, who shall hold their respective commissions until the council of appointment shall have appointed the officers of the said regiments and brigade, in pursuance of the constitution and laws of the said state. "sect. . and be it further enacted, that it shall be lawful for any able-bodied slave, with the written assent of his master or mistress, to enlist into the said corps; and the master or mistress of such slave shall be entitled to the pay and bounty allowed him for his service: and, further, that the said slave, at the time of receiving his discharge, shall be deemed and adjudged to have been legally manumitted from that time, and his said master or mistress shall not thenceforward be liable for his maintenance.--_laws of the state of new york, passed at the thirty-eighth session of the legislature_, chap. xviii." the organization of negro troops was now fairly begun; at the south enlistment was confined to the free negroes as set forth in gen. jackson's proclamation. in new york, the slaves who should enlist with the consent of their owners were to be free at the expiration of their service, as provided in the sixth section of the law quoted above. animated by that love of liberty and country which has ever prompted them, notwithstanding the disabilities under which they labored, to enter the ranks of their country's defenders whenever that country has been assailed by foes without or traitors within, the negroes responded to the call of general jackson and to that of new york, with a zeal and energy characteristic only of a brave and patriotic people. inspired by the hope of impartial liberty, they rallied to the support of that banner which commodore barron lowered when he failed to protect them from british aggression, but which commodore decatur gallantly and successfully defended. the forcible capture and imprisonment of ware, martin and strachan, the three negroes taken from the chesapeake, and who were recognized by the united states authorities as citizens of the republic, was sounded as the key-note and rallying cry of the war; the outrage served greatly to arouse the people. the fact that the government sought to establish the liberty of the free negroes, and the further fact that she regarded them as citizens, heightened their indignation at the outrage committed by the british, and appealed to their keenest patriotic sensibilities. new york was not long in raising her two battalions, and sending it forward to the army, then at sacket's harbor. on the th of december, , following the issuing of his proclamation, gen. jackson reviewed the troops under his command at new orleans, amounting to about six thousand, and of this force about five hundred were negroes, organized into two battalions, commanded by maj. lacoste and maj. savory. these battalions, at the close of the review, says parton, in his life of jackson, had read to them by edward livingston, a member of jackson's staff, the following address, from the commander of the american forces: "to the embodied militia.--_fellow citizens and soldiers:_ the general commanding in chief would not do justice to the noble ardor that has animated you in the hour of danger, he would not do justice to his own feeling, if he suffered the example you have shown to pass without public notice. * * * * "fellow-citizens, of every description, remember for what and against whom you contend. for all that can render life desirable--for a country blessed with every gift of nature--for property, for life--for those dearer than either, your wives and children--and for liberty, without which, country, life, property, are no longer worth possessing; as even the embraces of wives and children become a reproach to the wretch who could deprive them by his cowardice of those invaluable blessings. * * * * "to the men of color.--soldiers! from the shores of mobile i collected you to arms,--i invited you to share in the perils and to divide the glory of your white countrymen. i expected much from you; for i was not uninformed of those qualities which must render you so formidable to an invading foe. i knew that you could endure hunger and thirst, and all the hardships of war. i knew that you loved the land of your nativity, and that, like ourselves, you had to defend all that is most dear to man. but you surpass my hopes. i have found in you, united to these qualities, that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds. "soldiers! the president of the united states shall be informed of your conduct on the present occasion; and the voice of the representatives of the american nation shall applaud your valor, as your general now praises your ardor. the enemy is near. his sails cover the lakes. but the brave are united; and, if he finds us contending among ourselves, it will be for the prize of valor, and fame its noblest reward."--_niles's register_, vol. vii. pp. , . thus in line with the white troops on the soil of louisiana, amid a large slave population, the negro soldiers were highly praised by the commanding general. the british had already made their appearance on the coast near the mouth of the mississippi, and at the time of their landing, general jackson went out to meet them with two thousand one hundred men; the british had two thousand four hundred. this was on the rd of december. the two armies met and fought to within a few miles of the city, where the british general, pakenham, who had arrived with reinforcements, began on the st to lay siege. on jan. th the short but terrible struggle took place which not only taxed the energies and displayed the great courage of both forces, but made the engagement one of historic interest. in the short space of twenty-five minutes seven hundred of the british were killed; fourteen hundred were wounded and four hundred were taken prisoners. the american army was so well protected that only four were killed and thirteen wounded. it was in this great battle that two battalions of negroes participated, and helped to save the city, the coveted prize, from the british. the two battalions numbered four hundred and thirty men, and were commanded by maj. lacoste and maj. savory. great britain also had her negro soldiers there,--a regiment imported from the west indies which headed the attacking column against jackson's right,--they led her van in the battle; their failure, with that of the irish regiment which formed also a part of the advance column, lost the british the battle. the conduct of the negro soldiers in gen. jackson's army on that occasion has ever been applauded by the american people. mr. day, in nell's "colored patriots of the american revolution," says: "from an authenticated chart, belonging to a soldier friend, i find that, in the battle of new orleans, major-general andrew jackson, commander-in-chief, and his staff, were just at the right of the advancing left column of the british, and that very near him were stationed the colored soldiers. he is numbered , and the position of the colored soldiers . the chart explanation of no. reads thus:--' . captains dominique and bluche, two pounders; major lacoste's battalion, formed of the men of color of new orleans and, major daquin's battalion, formed of the men of color of st. domingo, under major savary, second in command.' "they occupied no mean place, and did no mean service. "from other documents in my possession, i am able to state the number of the 'battalion of st. domingo men of color' to have been one hundred and fifty; and of 'major lacoste's battalion of louisiana men of color,' two hundred and eighty. "thus were over four hundred 'men of color' in that battle. when it is remembered that the whole number of soldiers claimed by americans to have been in that battle reached only , it will be seen that the 'men of color' were present in much larger proportion than their numbers in the country warranted. "neither was there colorphobia then. major planche's battalion of uniformed volunteer companies, and major lacoste's 'men of color,' fought together; so, also, did major daquin's 'men of color,' and the th, under captain baker." hon. robert c. winthrop, in his speech in congress on the imprisonment of colored seamen, september, , bore this testimony to their gallant conduct: "i have an impression, that, not, indeed, in these piping times of peace, but in the time of war, when quite a boy, i have seen black soldiers enlisted, who did faithful and excellent service. but, however it may have been in the northern states, i can tell the senator what happened in the southern states at this period. i believe that i shall be borne out in saying, that no regiments did better service, at new orleans, than did the black regiments, which were organized under the direction of general jackson himself, after a most glorious appeal to the patriotism and honor of the people of color of that region; and which, after they came out of the war, received the thanks of general jackson, in a proclamation which has been thought worthy of being inscribed on the pages of history." perhaps the most glowing account of the services of these black american soldiers, appeared in an article in the new orleans _picayune_: "not the least interesting, although the most novel feature of the procession yesterday, was the presence of ninety of the colored veterans who bore a conspicuous part in the dangers of the day they were now for the first time called to assist in celebrating, and who, by their good conduct in presence of the enemy, deserved and received the approbation of their illustrious commander-in-chief. during the thirty-six years that have passed away since they assisted to repel the invaders from our shores, these faithful men have never before participated in the annual rejoicings for the victory which their valor contributed to gain. their good deeds have been consecrated only in their memories, or lived but to claim a passing notice on the page of the historian. yet, who more than they deserve the thanks of the country, and the gratitude of succeeding generations? who rallied with more alacrity in response to the summons of danger? who endured more cheerfully the hardships of the camp, or faced with greater courage the perils of the fight? if, in that hazardous hour, when our homes were menaced with the horrors of war, we did not disdain to call upon the colored population to assist in repelling the invading horde, we should not, when the danger is passed, refuse to permit them to unite with us in celebrating the glorious event, which they helped to make so memorable an epoch in our history. we were not too exalted to mingle with them in the affray; they were not too humble to join in our rejoicings. "such, we think, is the universal opinion of our citizens. we conversed with many yesterday, and, without exception, they expressed approval of the invitation which had been extended to the colored veterans to take part in the ceremonies of the day, and gratification at seeing them in a conspicuous place in the procession. "the respectability of their appearance, and the modesty of their demeanor, made an impression on every observer, and elicited unqualified approbation. indeed, though in saying so we do not mean disrespect to any one else, we think that they constituted decidedly the most interesting portion of the pageant, as they certainly attracted the most attention." it was during the rebellion of - that the author saw one of the colored drummer boys of that column beating his drum at the head of a negro united states regiment marching through the streets of new orleans in . the new york battalion was organized and marched to the reinforcement of the american army at sacket's harbor, then threatened by the enemy. this battalion was said to be a fine looking body of men, well drilled and disciplined. in congress mr. martindale, of new york, said, in a speech delivered on the nd january , before that body: "slaves or negroes who had been slaves were enlisted as soldiers in the war of the revolution: and i myself saw a battalion of them,--as fine martial looking men as i ever saw attached to the northern army in the last war ( ),--on its march from plattsburg to sacket's harbor, where they did service for the country with credit to new york and honor to themselves." as in the dark days of the revolution, so now in another period of national danger, the negroes proved their courage and patriotism by service in the field. however, the lamentable treatment of major jeffrey[ ] is evidence that these services were not regarded as a protection against outrage. in the two wars in which the history of the negroes has been traced in these pages, there is nothing that mitigates against his manhood, though his condition, either bond or free, was lowly. but on the contrary the honor of the race has been maintained under every circumstance in which it has been placed. footnotes: [ ] so indiscriminate were english officers in these outrages, that it sometimes happened that black men were seized as english seamen. at that time the public opinion of the world was such, that few statesmen troubled themselves much about the rights of negroes. but in another generation, when it proved convenient in the united states to argue that free negroes had never been citizens, it was remembered that the cabinets of jefferson and madison, in their diplomatic discussions with great britain, had been willing to argue that the impressment of a free negro was the seizure of an american citizen.--_bryant's history of the united states._ [ ] "hammond golar, a colored man who lived in lynn for many years, died a few years since at the age of years. he was born a slave, was a privateer "powder boy" in the war of , and was taken to halifax as a prisoner. the english government did not exchange colored prisoners because they would then be returned to slavery, and golar remained a prisoner until the close of the war." [ ] see page part ii. the war between the states. . [illustration: unshackled.] chapter i. public opinion. it seems proper, before attempting to record the achievements of the negro soldiers in the war of the rebellion, that we should consider the state of public opinion regarding the negroes at the outbreak of the war; also, in connection therewith, to note the rapid change that took place during the early part of the struggle. for some cause, unexplained in a general sense, the white people in the colonies and in the states, came to entertain against the colored races therein a prejudice, that showed itself in a hostility to the latter's enjoying equal civil and political rights with themselves. various reasons are alleged for it, but the difficulty of really solving the problem lies in the fact that the early settlers in this country came without prejudice against color. the negro, egyptian, arab, and other colored races known to them, lived in european countries, where no prejudice, on account of color existed. how very strange then, that a feeling antagonistic to the negroes should become a prominent feature in the character of the european emigrants to these shores and their descendants. it has been held by some writers that the american prejudice against the negroes was occasioned by their docility and unresenting spirit. surely no one acquainted with the indian will agree that he is docile or wanting in spirit, yet occasionally there is manifested a prejudice against him; the recruiting officers in massachusetts refused to enlist indians, as well as negroes, in regiments and companies made up of white citizens, though members of both races, could sometimes be found in white regiments. during the rebellion of - , some western regiments had one or two negroes and indians in them, but there was no general enlistment of either race in white regiments.[ ] the objection was on account of color, or, as some writers claim, by the fact of the races--negro and indian[ ]--having been enslaved. be the cause what it may, a prejudice, strong, unrelenting, barred the two races from enjoying with the white race equal civil and political rights in the united states. so very strong had that prejudice grown since the revolution, enhanced it may be by slavery and docility, that when the rebellion of burst forth, a feeling stronger than law, like a chinese wall only more impregnable, encircled the negro, and formed a barrier betwixt him and the army. doubtless peace--a long peace--lent its aid materially to this state of affairs. wealth, chiefly, was the dream of the american from to , nearly half a century; a period in which the negro was friendless, save in a few strong-minded, iron-hearted men like john brown in kansas, wendell philips in new england, charles sumner in the united states senate, horace greeley in new york and a few others, who dared, in the face of strong public sentiment, to plead his cause, even from a humane platform. in many places he could not ride in a street car that was not inscribed, "_colored persons ride in this car_." the deck of a steamboat, the box cars of the railroad, the pit of the theatre and the gallery of the church, were the locations accorded him. the church lent its influence to the rancor and bitterness of a prejudice as deadly as the sap of the upas. to describe public opinion respecting the negro a half a century ago, is no easy task. it was just budding into maturity when detocqueville visited the united states, and, as a result of that visit, he wrote, from observation, a pointed criticism upon the manners and customs, and the laws of the people of the united states. for fear that i might be thought over-doing--heightening--giving too much coloring to the strength, and extent and power of the prejudice against the negro i quote from that distinguished writer, as he clearly expressed himself under the heading, "_present and future condition of the three races inhabiting the united states_." he said of the negro: "i see that in a certain portion of the united states at the present day, the legal barrier which separates the two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in the manners of the country. slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary. whosoever has inhabited the united states, must have perceived, that in those parts of the united states, in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in nowise drawn nearer the whites; on the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in those states which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still exists. and, nowhere is it so intolerant as in the states where servitude has never been known. it is true, that in the north of the union, marriages may be legally contracted between negroes and whites, but public opinion would stigmatize a man, who should content himself with a negress, as infamous. if oppressed, they may bring an action at law, but they will find none but whites among their judges, and although they may legally serve as jurors, prejudice repulses them for that office. in theatres gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters, in hospitals they lie apart. they _are_ allowed to invoke the same divinity as the whites. the gates of heaven are not closed against those unhappy beings; but their inferiority is continued to the very confines of the other world. the negro is free, but he can share, neither the rights, nor the labor, nor the afflictions of him, whose equal he has been declared to be, and he cannot meet him upon fair terms in life or death." detocqueville, as is seen, wrote with much bitterness and sarcasm, and, it is but fair to state, makes no allusion to any exceptions to the various conditions of affairs that he mentions. in all cases matters might not have been exactly as bad as he pictures them, but as far as the deep-seated prejudice against the negroes, and indifference to their rights and elevation are concerned, the facts will freely sustain the views so forcibly presented. the negro had no remembrance of the country of his ancestry, africa, and he abjured their religion. in the south he had no family; women were merely the temporary sharer of his pleasures; his master's cabins were the homes of his children during their childhood. while the indian perished in the struggle for the preservation of his home, his hunting grounds and his freedom, the negro entered into slavery as soon as he was born, in fact was often purchased in the womb, and was born to know, first, that he was a slave. if one became free, he found freedom harder to bear than slavery; half civilized, deprived of nearly all rights, in contact with his superiors in wealth and knowledge, exposed to the rigor of a tyrannical prejudice moulded into laws, he contented himself to be allowed to live. the negro race, however, it must be remembered, is the only race that has ever come in contact with the european race, and been able to withstand its atrocities and oppression; all others, like the indian, whom they could not make subservient to their use, they have destroyed. the negro race, like the israelites, multiplied so rapidly in bondage, that the oppressor became alarmed, and began discussing methods of safety to himself. the only people able to cope with the anglo-american or saxon, with any show of success, must be of _patient fortitude, progressive intelligence, brave in resentment and earnest in endeavor_. in spite of his surroundings and state of public opinion the african lived, and gave birth, largely through amalgamation with the representatives of the different races that inhabited the united states, to a new race,--the _american negro_. professor sampson in his mixed races says: "the negro is a new race, and is not the direct descent of any people that have ever flourished. the glory of the negro race is yet to come." as evidence of its capacity to acquire glory, the record made in the late struggle furnishes abundant proof. at the sound of the tocsin at the north, negro waiter, cook, barber, boot-black, groom, porter and laborer stood ready at the enlisting office; and though the recruiting officer refused to list his name, he waited like the "patient ox" for the partition--_prejudice_--to be removed. he waited two years before even the door of the partition was opened; then he did not hesitate, but walked in, and with what effect the world knows. [illustration: robert smalls, (pilot). william morrison, (sailor). a. gradine, (engineer). john smalls, (sailor). four of the crew who, while the white officers were ashore in charleston. s. c., ran off with the confederate war steamer, "planter," passed fort sumter and delivered the vessel to the united states authorities. on account of the daring exploit a special act of congress was passed ordering one-half the value of the captured vessel to be invested in u. s. bonds, and the interest thereof to be annually paid them or their heirs. robert smalls joined the union army, and after the war became active and prominent in politics.] the war cloud of still more aroused the bitter prejudice against the negro at both the north and south; but he was safer in south carolina than in new york, in richmond than in boston. it is a natural consequence, when war is waged between two nations, for those on either side to forget local feuds and unite against the common enemy, as was done in the revolutionary war. how different was the situation now when the threatened war was not one between nations, but between states of the same nation. the feeling of hostility toward the negro was not put aside and forgotten as other troublesome matters were, but the bitterness became intensified and more marked. the confederate government though organized for the perpetual enslavement of the negro, fostered the idea that the docility of the negroes would allow them to be used for any purpose, without their having the least idea of becoming freemen. some idea may be formed of public opinion at the south at the beginning of the war by what mr. pollard, in his history, gives as the feeling at the south at the close of the second year of the struggle: "indeed, the war had shown the system of slavery in the south to the world in some new and striking aspects, and had removed much of that cloud of prejudice, defamation, falsehood, romance and perverse sentimentalism through which our peculiar institution had been formerly known to europe. it had given a better vindication of our system of slavery than all the books that could be written in a generation. it had shown that slavery was an element of strength to us; that it had assisted us in our struggle; that no servile insurrections had taken place in the south, in spite of the allurements of our enemy; that the slave had tilled the soil while his master had fought; that in large districts, unprotected by our troops, and with a white population, consisting almost exclusively of women and children, the slave had continued his work, quiet, faithful, and cheerful; and that, as a conservative element in our social system, the institution of slavery had withstood the shocks of war, and been a faithful ally of our army, although instigated to revolution by every art of the enemy, and prompted to the work of assassination and pillage by the most brutal examples of the yankee soldiers." with this view, the whole slave population was brought to the assistance of the confederate government, and thereby caught the very first hope of freedom. an innate reasoning taught the negro that slaves could not be relied upon to fight for their own enslavement. to get to the breastworks was but to get a chance to run to the yankees; and thousands of those whose elastic step kept time with the martial strains of the drum and fife, as they marched on through city and town, enroute to the front, were not elated with the hope of southern success, but were buoyant with the prospects of reaching the north. the confederates found it no easy task to watch the negroes and the yankees too; their attention could be given to but one at a time; as a slave expressed it, "when marsa watch the yankee, nigger go; when marsa watch the nigger, yankee come." but the yankees did not always receive him kindly during the first year of the war. in his first inaugural, mr. lincoln declared "that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the new incoming administration." the union generals, except fremont and phelps and a few subordinates, accepted this as public opinion, and as their guide in dealing with the slavery question. that opinion is better expressed in the doggerel, sung in after months by the negro troops as they marched along through dixie: "mcclellan went to richmond with two hundred thousand braves, he said, '_keep back the niggers and the union he would save_.' little mac. he had his way, still the union is in tears, and they call for the help of the colored volunteers." the first two lines expressed the sentiment at the time, not only of the army of the potomoc, but the army commanders everywhere, with the exceptions named. the administration winked at the enforcement of the fugitive slave bill by the soldiers engaged in capturing and returning the negroes coming into the union lines.[ ] undoubtedly it was the idea of the government to turn the course of the war from its rightful channel, or in other words,--in the restoration of the union,--to eliminate the anti-slavery sentiment, which demanded the freedom of the slaves. [illustration: quarters provided for contrabands.] hon. elisha r. potter, of rhode island,--"who may," said mr. greeley, "be fairly styled the hereditary chief of the democratic party of that state,"--made a speech on the war in the state senate, on the th of august , in which he remarked: "i have said that the war may assume another aspect, and be a short and bloody one. and to such a war--_an anti-slavery war_--it seems to me we are _inevitably_ drifting. it seems to me hardly in the power of human wisdom to prevent it. we may commence the war without meaning to interfere with slavery; but let us have one or two battles, and get our blood excited, and we shall not only not restore any more slaves, but shall proclaim freedom wherever we go. and it seems to me almost judicial blindness on the part of the south that they do not see that this must be the inevitable result, if the contest is prolonged." this sentiment became bolder daily as the thinking union men viewed the army turning aside from its legitimate purposes, to catch runaway negroes, and return them. party lines were also giving away; men in the army began to realize the worth of the negroes as they sallied up to the rebel breastworks that were often impregnable. they began to complain, finding the negro with his pick and spade, a greater hinderance to their progress than the cannon balls of the enemy; and more than one said to the confederates, when the pickets of the two armies picnicked together in the battle's lull, as frequently they did: "we can whip you, if you keep your negroes out of your army." quite a different course was pursued in the navy. negroes were readily accepted all along the coast on board the war vessels, it being no departure from the regular and established practice in the service. the view with which the loyal friends of the union began to look at the negro and the rebellion, was aptly illustrated in an article in the montgomery (ala.) _advertiser_ in , which said: "the slaves as a military element in the south.--the total white population of the eleven states now comprising the confederacy is , , , and, therefore, to fill up the ranks of the proposed army ( , ) about ten per cent of the entire white population will be required. in any other country than our own such a draft could not be met, but the southern states can furnish that number of men, and still not leave the material interests of the country in a suffering condition. those who are incapacitated for bearing arms can oversee the plantations, and the negroes can go on undisturbed in their usual labors. in the north the case is different; the men who join the army of subjugation are the laborers, the producers, and the factory operatives. nearly every man from that section, especially those from the rural districts, leaves some branch of industry to suffer during his absence. the institution of slavery in the south alone enables her to place in the field a force much larger in proportion to her white population than the north, or indeed any country which is dependent entirely on free labor. the institution is a tower of strength to the south, particularly at the present crisis, and our enemies will be likely to find that the 'moral cancer' about which their orators are so fond of prating, is really one of the most effective weapons employed against the union by the south. whatever number of men may be needed for this war, we are confident our people stand ready to furnish. we are all enlisted for the war, and there must be no holding back until the independence of the south is fully acknowledged." the facts already noted became apparent to the nation very soon, and then came a change of procedure, and the war began to be prosecuted upon quite a different policy. gen. mcclellan, whose loyalty to the new policy was doubted, was removed from the command of the army of the potomac, and slave catching ceased. the xxxvii congress convened in dec. , in its second session, and passed the following additional article of war: "all officers are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due. any officer who shall be found guilty by court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service." this was the initatory measure of the new policy, which progressed to its fulfillment rapidly. and then what mr. cameron, secretary of war, had recommended in december, , and to which the president objected, very soon developed, through a series of enactments, in the arming of the negro; in which the loyal people of the whole country acquiesced, save the border states people, who fiercely opposed it as is shown in the conduct of mr. wickliffe, of kentucky; salisbury, of delaware, and others in congress. [illustration: driving govt. cattle] public opinion was now changed, congress had prohibited the surrender of negroes to the rebels, the president issued his emancipation proclamation, and more than , negroes were fighting for the union. the republican party met in convention at chicago, and nominated mr. lincoln for the second term as president of the united states; the course of his first administration was now to be approved or rejected by the people. in the resolutions adopted, the fifth one of them related to emancipation and the negro soldiers. it was endorsed by a very large majority of the voters. a writer in one of the magazines, prior to the election, thus reviews the resolutions: "the fifth resolution commits us to the approval of two measures that have aroused the most various and strenuous opposition, the proclamation of emancipation and the use of negro troops. in reference to the first, it is to be remembered that it is a war measure. the express language of it is: 'by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the united states in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the united states, and as a _fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion_.' considered thus, the proclamation is not merely defensible, but it is more; it is a proper and efficient means of weakening the rebellion which every person desiring its speedy overthrow must zealously and perforce uphold. whether it is of any legal effect beyond the actual limits of our military lines, is a question that need not agitate us. in due time the supreme tribunal of the nation will be called to determine that, and to its decision the country will yield with all respect and loyalty. but in the mean time let the proclamation go wherever the army goes, let it go wherever the navy secures a foothold on the outer border of the rebel territory, and let it summon to our aid the negroes who are truer to the union than their disloyal masters; and when they have come to us and put their lives in our keeping, let us protect and defend them with the whole power of the nation. is there anything unconstitutional in that? thank god, there is not. and he who is willing to give back to slavery a single person who has heard the summons and come within our lines to obtain his freedom, he who would give up a single man, woman, or child, once thus actually freed, is not worthy the name of american. he may call himself confederate, if he will. "let it be remembered, also that the proclamation has had a very important bearing upon our foreign relations. it evoked in behalf of our country that sympathy on the part of the people in europe, whose is the only sympathy we can ever expect in our struggle to perpetuate free institutions. possessing that sympathy, moreover, we have had an element in our favor which has kept the rulers of europe in wholesome dread of interference. the proclamation relieved us from the false position before attributed to us of fighting simply for national power. it placed us right in the eyes of the world, and transferred men's sympathies from a confederacy fighting for independence as a means of establishing slavery, to a nation whose institutions mean constitutional liberty, and, when fairly wrought out, must end in universal freedom." the change of policy and of public opinion was so strongly endorsed that it affected the rebels, who shortly passed a congressional measure for arming , negroes themselves. what a reversal of things; what a change of sentiment, in less than twenty-four months![ ] mr. lincoln, in justifying the change, is reported to have said to judge mills, of wisconsin: "the slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with democratic strategy. it would sacrifice all the white men of the north to do it. there are now in the service of the united states near two hundred thousand able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring union territory. the democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. the black men who now assist union prisoners to escape, they are to be converted into our enemies in the vain hope of gaining the good will of their masters. we shall have to fight two nations instead of one. you cannot conciliate the south if you guarantee to them ultimate success; and the experience of the present war proves their success is inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side of the scale. will you give our enemies such military advantages as insure success, and then depend on coaxing, flattery, and concession to get them back into the union? abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black men; take two hundred thousand men from our side and put them in the battle-field or cornfield against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks. we have to hold territory in inclement and sickly places; where are the democrats to do this? it was a free fight, and the field was open to the war democrats to put down this rebellion by fighting against both master and slave, long before the present policy was inaugurated. there have been men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery the black warriors of port hudson and olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. should i do so, i should deserve to be dammed in time and eternity. come what will, i will keep my faith with friend and foe. my enemies pretend i am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. so long as i am president, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the union. but no human power can subdue this rebellion without the use of the emancipation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and physical forces of the rebellion. freedom has given us two hundred thousand men raised on southern soil. it will give us more yet. just so much it has subtracted from the enemy; and instead of alienating the south, there are now evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our men and the rank and file of the rebel soldiers. let my enemies prove to the country that the destruction of slavery is not necessary to the restoration of the union. i will abide the issue." but the change of policy did not change the opinion of the southerners, who, notwithstanding the use which the confederate government was making of the negro, still regarded him, in the _united states_ uniform, as a vicious brute, to be shot at sight. i prefer, in closing this chapter, to give the southern opinion of the negro, in the words of a distinguished native of that section. mr. george w. cable, in his "silent south," thus gives it: "he was brought to our shores a naked, brutish, unclean, captive, pagan savage, to be and remain a kind of connecting link between man and the beasts of burden. the great changes to result from his contact with a superb race of masters were not taken into account. as a social factor he was intended to be as purely zero as the brute at the other end of his plow line. the occasional mingling of his blood with that of the white man worked no change in the sentiment; one, two, four, eight, multiplied upon or divided in to zero, still gave zero for the result. generations of american nativity made no difference; his children and children's children were born in sight of our door, yet the old notion held fast. he increased to vast numbers, but it never wavered. he accepted our dress, language, religion, all the fundamentals of our civilization, and became forever expatriated from his own land; still he remained, to us, an alien. our sentiment went blind. it did not see that gradually, here by force and there by choice, he was fulfilling a host of conditions that earned at least a solemn moral right to that naturalization which no one at first had dreamed of giving him. frequently he even bought back the freedom of which he had been robbed, became a tax-payer, and at times an educator of his children at his own expense; but the old idea of alienism passed laws to banish him, his wife, and children by thousands from the state, and threw him into loathsome jails as a common felon for returning to his native land. it will be wise to remember that these were the acts of an enlightened, god fearing people." [illustration: scene in and near a recruiting office.] footnotes: [ ] i arrived in new york in august, , from valparaiso, chili, on the steamship "bio-bio," of boston, and in company with two spaniards, neither of whom could speak english, enlisted in a new york regiment. we were sent to the rendezvous on one of the islands in the harbor. the third day after we arrived at the barracks, i was sent with one of my companions to carry water to the cook, an aged negro, who immediately recognized me, and in such a way as to attract the attention of the corporal, who reported the matter to the commanding officer, and before i could give the cook the hint, he was examined by the officer of the day. at noon i was accompanied by a guard of honor to the launch, which landed me in new york. i was a negro, that was all; how it was accounted for on the rolls i cannot say. i was honorably discharged, however, without receiving a certificate to that effect. [ ] the indians referred to are many of those civilized and living as citizens in the several states of the union. [ ] see appendix, "a." [ ] "those who have declaimed loudest against the employment of negro troops have shown a lamentable amount of ignorance, and an equally lamentable lack of common sense. they know as little of the military history and martial qualities of the african race as they do of their own duties as commanders. "all distinguished generals of modern times who have had opportunity to use negro soldiers, have uniformly applauded their subordination, bravery, and powers of endurance. washington solicited the military services of negroes in the revolution, and rewarded them. jackson did the same in the war of . under both those great captains, the negro troops fought so well that they received unstinted praise."--_charles sumner._ chapter ii. recruiting and organizing. the recruiting officer, in the first year of the enlistment of negroes, did not have a pleasant service to perform. at new orleans there was no trouble in recruiting the regiments organized under butler's command, for, beside the free negroes, the slave population for miles around were eager to enlist, believing that with the united states army uniform on, they would be safe in their escape from "ole master and the rebs." and then the action of the confederate authorities in arming the free negroes lent a stimulant and gave an ambition to the whole slave population to be soldiers. could arms have been obtained, a half a dozen regiments could have been organized in sixty days just as rapidly as were three. quite early in , while the negroes in new orleans were being enrolled in the confederate service, under gov. moore's proclamation, in separate and distinct organizations from the whites, the indians and negroes were enlisting in the union service, on the frontier, in the same company and regiments, with white officers to command them. in the "kansas home guard," comprising two regiments of indians, were over negroes, and these troops were under custer, blunt and herron. they held fort gibson twenty months against the assaults of the enemy. two thousand five hundred negroes served in the federal army from the indian nations, and these, in all probability, are a part of , "not accounted for" on the adjutant general's rolls. quite a different state of things existed in south carolina; rumors were early afloat, when recruiting began, that the government officers were gathering up the negroes to ship away to cuba, africa and the west indies. these reports for a long time hindered the enlistment very much. then there was no large city for contrabands to congregate in; besides they had no way of traveling from island to island except on government vessels. before the proclamation of freedom was issued, the city of washington, with virginia and maryland as additional territory to recruit from, afforded an officer a better field to operate in than any other point except new orleans. the conduct of the government in revoking gen. fremont's proclamation, and of mcclellan's with the army of the potomac, in catching and returning escaped slaves, also had a tendency for some time to keep back even the free negroes of virginia and maryland. but this class of people never enlisted to any great numbers, either before or after , and there finally came to be a general want of spirit with them, while with the slave class there was a ready enthusiasm to enlist. senator wilson, of massachusetts, was chairman of the committee of military affairs, and reported from that committee on the th of july , a bill authorizing the arming of negroes as a part of the army. the bill finally passed both houses and received the approval of the president on the th of july, . the battle for its success is as worthy of record as any fought by the phalanx. the debate was characterized by eloquence and deep feeling on both sides. says an account of the proceedings in henry wilson's "anti-slavery measures of congress": [illustration: teamster of the army] "mr. sherman (rep.) of ohio said, "the question arises, whether the people of the united states, struggling for national existence, should not employ these blacks for the maintenance of the government. the policy heretofore pursued by the officers of the united states has been to repel this class of people from our lines, to refuse their services. they would have made the best spies; and yet they have been driven from our lines."--"i tell the president," said mr. fessenden (rep.) of maine, "from my place here as a senator, i tell the generals of our army, they must reverse their practices and their course of proceeding on this subject. * * * i advise it here from my place,--treat your enemies as enemies, as the worst of enemies, and avail yourselves like men of every power which god has placed in your hands to accomplish your purpose within the rules of civilized warfare." mr. rice, (war dem.) of minnesota, declared that "not many days can pass before the people of the united states north must decide upon one of two questions: we have either to acknowledge the southern confederacy as a free and independent nation, and that speedily; or we have as speedily to resolve to use all the means given us by the almighty to prosecute this war to a successful termination. the necessity for action has arisen. to hesitate is worse than criminal. mr. wilson said, "the senator from delaware, as he is accustomed to do, speaks boldly and decidedly against the proposition. he asks if american soldiers will fight if we organize colored men for military purposes. did not american soldiers fight at bunker hill with negroes in the ranks, one of whom shot down major pitcairn as he mounted the works? did not american soldiers fight at red bank with a black regiment from your own state, sir? (mr. anthony in the chair.) did they not fight on the battle-field of rhode island with that black regiment, one of the best and bravest that ever trod the soil of this continent? did not american soldiers fight at fort griswold with black men? did they not fight with black men in almost every battle-field of the revolution? did not the men of kentucky and tennessee, standing on the lines of new orleans, under the eye of andrew jackson, fight with colored battalions whom he had summoned to the field, and whom he thanked publicly for their gallantry in hurling back a british foe? it is all talk, idle talk, to say that the volunteers who are fighting the battles of this country are governed by any such narrow prejudice or bigotry. these prejudices are the results of the teachings of demagogues and politicians, who have for years undertaken to delude and deceive the american people, and to demean and degrade them." mr. grimes had expressed his views a few weeks before, and desired a vote separately on each of these sections. mr. davis declared that he was utterly opposed, and should ever be opposed, to placing arms in the hands of negroes, and putting them into the army. mr. rice wished "to know if gen. washington did not put arms into the hands of negroes, and if gen. jackson did not, and if the senator has ever condemned either of those patriots for doing so." "i deny," replied mr. davis, "that, in the revolutionary war, there ever was any considerable organization of negroes. i deny, that, in the war of , there was ever any organization of negro slaves. * * * in my own state, i have no doubt that there are from eighty to a hundred thousand slaves that belong to disloyal men. you propose to place arms in the hands of the men and boys, or such of them as are able to handle arms, and to manumit the whole mass, men, women, and children, and leave them among us. do you expect us to give our sanction and our approval to these things? no, no! we would regard their authors as our worst enemies; and there is no foreign despotism that could come to our rescue, that we would not joyously embrace, before we would submit to any such condition of things as that. but, before we had invoked this foreign despotism, we would arm every man and boy that we have in the land, and we would meet you in a death-struggle, to overthrow together such an oppression and our oppressors." mr. rice remarked in reply to mr. davis, "the rebels hesitate at nothing. there are no means that god or the devil has given them that they do not use. the honorable senator said that the negroes might be useful in loading and swabbing and firing cannon. if that be the case, may not some of them be useful in loading, swabbing, and firing the musket?" on the th of february, , mr. stevens (republican) of pennsylvania, in the house of representatives, moved an amendment to the enrollment act. says the same authority before quoted: the enrollment bill was referred to a conference committee, consisting of mr. wilson of massachusetts, mr. nesmet of oregon, and mr. grimes of iowa, on the part of the senate; and mr. schenck of ohio, mr. deming of connecticut, and mr. kernan of new york, on the part of the house. in the conference committee, mr. wilson stated that he never could assent to the amendment, unless the drafted slaves were made free on being mustered into the service of the united states. mr. grimes sustained that position; and the house committee assented to it. the house amendment was then modified so as to read, "that all able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, whether citizens or not, resident in the united states, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this act, and of the act to which this is an amendment, and form part of the national forces; and, when a slave of a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the united states, his master shall have a certificate thereof; and thereupon such slave shall be free; and the bounty of a hundred dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man, shall be paid to the person to whom such drafted person was owing service or labor at the time of his muster into the service of the united states. the secretary of war shall appoint a commission in each of the slave states represented in congress, charged to award, to each loyal person to whom a colored volunteer may owe service, a just compensation, not exceeding three hundred dollars, for each such colored volunteer, payable out of the fund derived from commutation; and every such colored volunteer, on being mustered into the service, shall be free." "the report of the conference committee was agreed to; and it was enacted that every slave, whether a drafted man or a volunteer, shall be free on being mustered into the military service of the united states, not by the act of the master, but by the authority of the federal government." [illustration: headquarters of vincent collyer, supt. of the poor at newberne n. c. distributing clothing, captured from the confederates, to the free negroes.] when gen. banks took command of the gulf department, dec. , he very soon after found the negro troops an indispensable quantity to the success of his expeditions; consequently he laid aside his prejudice, and endeavored to out-herod gen. lorenzo thomas, adjutant general of the army,--who in march had been dispatched on a military inspection tour through the armies of the west and the mississippi valley, and also to organize a number of negro regiments[ ]--by issuing in may the following order: general orders} no. .} _corps d'afrique._ headquarters, department of the gulf. th army corps, _opelousas_, may , . the major general commanding the department proposes the organization of a corps d'armee of colored troops, to be designated as the "corps d'afrique." it will consist ultimately of eighteen regiments, representing all arms--infantry, artillery, and cavalry, organized in three divisions of three brigades each, with appropriate corps of engineers and flying hospitals for each division. appropriate uniforms, and the graduation of pay to correspond with value of services, will be hereafter awarded. in the field, the efficiency of every corps depends upon the influence of its officers upon the troops engaged, and the practicable limits of one direct command is generally estimated at one thousand men. the most eminent military historians and commanders, among others thiers and chambray, express the opinion, upon a full review of the elements of military power, that the valor of the soldier is rather acquired than natural. nations whose individual heroism in undisputed, have failed as soldiers in the field. the european and american continents exhibit instances of this character, and the military prowess of every nation may be estimated by the centuries it has devoted to military contest, or the traditional passion of its people for military glory. with a race unaccustomed to military service, much more depends on the immediate influence of officers upon individual members, than with those that have acquired more or less of warlike habits and spirit by centuries of contest. it is deemed best, therefore, in the organization of the corps d'afrique, to limit the regiments to the smallest number of men consistent with efficient service in the field, in order to secure the most thorough instruction and discipline, and the largest influence of the officers over the troops. at first they will be limited to five hundred men. the average of american regiments is less than that number. _the commanding general desires to detail for temporary or permanent duty the best officers of the army, for the organization, instruction and discipline of this corps._ with their aid, he is confident that the corps will render important service to the government. it is not established upon any dogma of equality or other theory, but as a practical and sensible matter of business. the government makes use of mules, horses, uneducated and educated white men, in the defense of its institutions. why should not the negro contribute whatever is in his power for the cause in which he is as deeply interested as other men? we may properly demand from him whatever service he can render. the chief defect in organizations of this character has arisen from incorrect ideas of the officers in command. their discipline has been lax, and in some cases the conduct of the regiments unsatisfactory and discreditable. controversies unnecessary and injurious to the service have arisen between them and other troops. the organization proposed will reconcile and avoid many of these troubles. officers and soldiers will consider the exigencies of the service in this department, and the absolute necessity of appropriating every element of power to the support of the government. the prejudices or opinions of men are in nowise involved. the co-operation and active support of all officers and men, and the nomination of fit men from the ranks, and from the lists of non-commissioned and commissioned officers, are respectfully solicited from the generals commanding the respective divisions. by command of major general banks: richard b. irwin, _assistant adjutant general._ war department, _washington city_, march th, . his plan of organization is here given, but it was never fully consummated: general orders} no. } corps d'afrique. headquarters department of the gulf. th army corps, _before port hudson_, june th, . i.--the regiments of infantry of the corps d'afrique, authorized by general orders no. , current series, will consist of ten companies each, having the following minimum organization: captain, first lieutenant, second lieutenant, first sergeant, sergeants, corporals, buglers, privates. to the above may be added hereafter, at the discretion of the commanding general, four corporals and forty-two privates; thus increasing the strength to the maximum fixed by law for a company of infantry. the regimental organization will be that fixed by law for a regiment of infantry. ii.--the commissary and assistant commissaries of musters will muster the second lieutenant into service as soon as he is commissioned; the first lieutenant when thirty men are enlisted; and the captain when the minimum organization is completed. iii.--the first, second, third and fourth regiments of louisiana native guards will hereafter be known as the first, second, third and fourth regiments of infantry of the corps d'afrique. iv.--the regiment of colored troops in process of organization in the district of pensacola will be known as the fifth regiment of infantry of the corps d'afrique. v.--the regiments now being raised under the direction of brigadier general daniel ullman, and at present known as the first, second, third, fourth and fifth regiments of ullman's brigade, will be respectively designated as the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth regiments of infantry of the corps d'afrique. vi.--the first regiment of louisiana engineers, colonel justin hodge, will hereafter be known as the first regiment of engineers of the corps d'afrique. by command of major general banks: richard b. irwin, _assistant adjutant general._ official: _nathaniel burbank, acting assistant adjutant general._ general banks' treatment of the negroes was so very different from that which they had received from gen. butler,--displacing the negro officers of the first three regiments organized,--that it rather checkmated recruiting, so much so that he found it necessary to resort to the provost guard to fill up regiments, as the following order indicates: [illustration: provost guard securing conscripts. compelling all able-bodied men to join the army.] commission of enrollment. general orders headquarters, department of the gulf, no. . _new orleans_, august , . i. colonel john s. clark, major b. rush plumly and colonel george h. hanks, are hereby appointed a commission to regulate the enrollment, recruiting and employment and education of persons of color. all questions concerning the enlistment of troops for the corps d'afrique, the regulation of labor, or the government and education of negroes, will be referred to the decision of this commission, subject to the approval of the commanding general of the department. ii. no enlistments for the corps d'afrique will be authorized or permitted, except under regulations approved by this commission. iii. _the provost marshal general will cause to be enrolled all able-bodied men of color in accordance with the law of conscription, and such number as may be required for the military defence of the department, equally apportioned to the different parishes, will be enlisted for the military service under such regulations as the commission may adopt. certificates of exemption will be furnished to those not enlisted, protecting them from arrest or other interference, except for crime._ iv. soldiers of the corps d'afrique will not be allowed to leave their camps, or to wander through the parishes, except upon written permission, or in the company of their officers. v. unemployed persons of color, vagrants and camp loafers, will be arrested and employed upon the public works, by the provost marshal's department, without other pay than their rations and clothing. vi. arrests of persons, and seizures of property, will not be made by colored soldiers, nor will they be charged with the custody of persons or property, except when under the command, and accompanied by duly authorized officers. vii. any injury or wrong done to the family of any soldier, on account of his being engaged in military service, will be summarily punished. viii. as far as practicable, the labor of persons not adapted to military service will be provided in substitution for that of enlisted men. ix. all regulations hitherto established for the government of negroes, not inconsistent herewith, will be enforced by the provost marshals of the different parishes, under the direction of the provost marshal general. by command of major general banks: richard b. irwin, _assistant adjutant general._ in the department the actual number of negroes enlisted was never known, from the fact that a practice prevailed of putting a live negro in a dead one's place. for instance, if a company on picket or scouting lost ten men, the officer would immediately put ten new men in their places and have them answer to the dead men's names. i learn from very reliable sources that this was done in virginia, also in missouri and tennessee. if the exact number of men could be ascertained, instead of , it would doubtless be in the neighborhood of , who entered the ranks of the army. an order was issued which aimed to correct the habit and to prevent the drawing, by collusion, of the dead men's pay. the date of the first organization of colored troops is a question of dispute, but it seems as if the question might be settled, either by the records of the war department or the personal knowledge of those interested. of course the muster of a regiment or company is the record of the war department, but the muster by no means dates the organization of the troops.[ ] for example, a colonel may have been commissioned july, , and yet the muster of his regiment may be september , and even later, by two months, as is the case in more than one instance. it is just as fair to take the date of a soldier's enlistment as the date of the organization of a regiment, as that of the date of the order detailing an officer to recruit as the date of the colonel's commission. the writer's discharge from the second reg't. louisiana native guards credits him as enlisting on the st day of september, ; at this date the st reg't. la. n. g. was in the field, in november the second regiment took the field, so that the date of the organization of the first regiment of colored troops was in september, . col. higginson, says in his volume: "except the louisiana soldiers mentioned,--of whom no detailed reports have, i think, been published,--my regiment was unquestionably the first mustered into the service of the united states; the first company mustered bearing date, november , , and the others following in quick succession." save the regiments recruited in kansas, south carolina and new orleans during the year , nothing was done towards increasing the negro army, but in january , when the policy of the government was changed and the emancipation proclamation foreshadowed the employment of negroes in the armed service, an activity such as had not been witnessed since the beginning of the war became apparent. many officers without commands, and some with, but who sought promotion, were eager to be allowed to organize a regiment, a battalion or a brigade of negro troops. mr. lincoln found it necessary in less than six months after issuing his proclamation of freedom, to put the whole matter of negro soldiers into the hands of a board.[ ] ambition, as ambition will, smothered many a white man's prejudice and caused more than one west pointer to forget his political education. this order was issued: adjutant general's office, _washington, d. c._, january th, . brigadier general d. ullman, washington, d. c. sir:--by direction of the secretary of war you are hereby authorized to raise a brigade of (four regiments) of louisiana volunteer infantry, to be recruited in that state to serve for three years or during the war. each regiment of said brigade will be organized as prescribed in general orders no. , series of , from this office. the recruitment will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the service, and the orders of the war department, and by the said department all appointments of officers will be made. all musters will be made in strict conformity to paragraph revised mustering regulations of . i am, very respectfully your obedient servant, thomas m. vincent, _asst. adjt. gen'l._ adjutant general's office, _washington, d. c._, march , . brig. general ullman, washington, d. c. general:--by direction of the secretary of war, you are hereby authorized to raise a battalion (six companies) of louisiana volunteer infantry to be used for scouting purposes, to be recruited in that state, and to serve for three years or during the war. the said force will be organized as prescribed in paragraph , mustering regulations. the recruitment will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the service, and the orders of the war department, and by the said department all appointments of officers will be made. all musters will be made in accordance with the orders given in reference to the troops authorized by the instructions from this office of january , . i am, general very respectfully your obedient servant, thomas m. vincent, _asst. adjt. general._ in furtherance of the order general ullman proceeded to new orleans and assumed command of seven thousand troops already organized. it was said that he had arranged to place white officers in command of the troops in louisiana. in october thereafter general banks issued the following order, which fully explains itself: recruiting for the corps d'afrique. general orders headquarters, department of the gulf. no. . _new orleans_, october , . i. all persons of color coming within the lines of the army, or following the army when in the field, other than those employed in the staff department of the army, or as servants of officers entitled by the regulations to have servants, or cooks, will be placed in charge of and provided for by the several provost marshals of the parishes, or if the army be on the march, or in the field, by the provost marshal of the army. ii. the several provost marshals of the parishes and of the army will promptly forward to the nearest recruiting depot all able bodied males for service in the corps d'afrique. iii. recruits will be received for the corps d'afrique of all able bodied men from sections of the country not occupied by our forces, and beyond our lines, without regard to the enrollment provided for in general orders no. and , from these headquarters. iv. instructions will be given by the president of the commission of enrollment to the superintendent of recruiting, to govern in all matters of detail relating to recruiting, and officers will be held to a strict accountability for the faithful observance of existing orders and such instructions; but no officer will be authorized to recruit beyond the lines without first having his order approved by the officer commanding the nearest post, or the officer commanding the army in the field, who will render such assistance as may be necessary to make the recruiting service effective. by command of major general banks: g. norman lieber, _act. asst. adjt. gen'l._ at the north where negroes had been refused admission to the army, the president's proclamation was hailed with delight. gov. andrew, of massachusetts, at once began the organization of the th regiment of his state, composed entirely of negroes, and on the th of may the regiment being ready to take the field, embarked for south carolina. other northern states followed. pennsylvania established camp wm. penn, from which several regiments took their departure, while connecticut and rhode island both sent a regiment. [illustration: new recruits taking cars for camp.] the taste with which the negro soldiers arranged their quarters often prompted officers of white regiments to borrow a detail to clean and beautify the quarters of their commands. an occurrence of this kind came very near causing trouble on morris island, s.c. the matter was brought to the commanding general's attention and he immediately issued this order: department of the south, headquarters in the field. general orders, _morris island, s.c._, sept. th, . no. . . it has come to the knowledge of the brig. gen. commanding that detachments of colored troops, detailed for fatigue duty, have been employed in one instance at least, to prepare camps and perform menial duty for white troops. such use of these details is unauthorized and improper, and is hereafter expressly prohibited. commanding officers of colored regiments are directed to report promptly, to the headquarters, any violations of this order which may come to their knowledge. by order of gen. q. a. gillmore, official: ed. w. smith, _asst. adjt. gen'l._ _israel z. sealey, capt. th n.y. vols., act. asst. adjt. general._ the southern troops generally made no objection to cleaning the quarters of their white allies, but when a detail from the th mass. reg't., on its way to the front, was re-detailed for that purpose, they refused to obey. the detail was placed under arrest. when this information reached the regiment it was only by releasing the prisoners that a turbulent spirit was quieted. there were about ten thousand negro troops in and about morris island at that time, and they quickly sneezed at the th's snuff. the negro barbers in this department had been refusing to shave and to cut the hair of negro soldiers in common with the whites. corporal kelley of the th mass. regiment, who had been refused a shave at a shop located near one of the brigade headquarters, went there one evening accompanied by a number of the members of company c. the men gathered around the barber's place of business, which rested upon posts a little up from the ground; the negro barbers were seated in their chairs resting from their labors and listening to the concert, which it was customary for a band to give each evening. as the last strains of music were being delivered, one side of the barber shop was lifted high and then suddenly dropped; it came down with a crash making a wreck of the building and its contents, except the barbers, who escaped unhurt, but who never made their appearance again. the episode resulted in the issuing of an order forbidding discrimination on account of color. the washington authorities established recruiting stations throughout the south. of the difficulties under which recruiting officers labored some idea may be formed by reading the following, written by the historian of the th regiment: "the position of recruiting officer for colored troops was by no means a sinecure; on the contrary, it was attended with hardships, annoyances and difficulties without number. moving about from place to place; often on scant rations, and always without transportation, save what could be pressed into service; sleeping in barns, out-houses, public buildings,--wherever shelter could be found, and meeting from the people everywhere opposition and dislike. to have been an officer of colored troops was of itself sufficient to ostracize, and when, in addition, one had to take from them their slaves, dislike became absolute hatred. there were, of course, exceptions, and doubtless every officer engaged on this disagreeable duty can bear testimony to receiving at times a hospitality as generous as it was unexpected, even from people whom duty compelled them to despoil. but this was always from "_union men_," for it must be confessed that a large proportion of the property-holders on both the eastern and western shores of the chesapeake were as deeply in sympathy with the rebellion as their brethren over the virginia border. "perhaps the most disagreeable feature of this recruiting duty was that gen. birney (supt. of recruiting of negro troops in maryland) seldom saw fit to give his subordinates anything but _verbal_ instructions. officers were ordered to open recruiting stations; to raid through the country, carrying off slaves from under the eyes of their masters; to press horses for their own use and that of their men, and teams and vehicles for purposes of transportation; to take forage when needed; to occupy buildings and appropriate fuel; in short, to do a hundred things they had really no legal right to do, and had they been called upon, as was likely to happen at any time, for the authority under which they were acting, they would have had nothing to show but their commissions; and if, in carrying out these verbal instructions from their chief, they had become involved in serious difficulty, they had little reason to suppose that they would be sustained by him. "when it is remembered that slavery was at that time still a recognized institution, and that the duty of a recruiting officer often required him to literally strip a plantation of its field hands, and that, too, at a time of the year when the crops were being gathered, it is perhaps to be wondered that the bitter feelings of the slave-owners did not often find vent in open resistence and actual violence. that this delicate and disagreeable duty was performed in a manner to avoid serious difficulty certainly speaks well for the prudence and good judgment of the officers and men engaged in it. "the usual method of proceeding was, upon reaching a designated point, to occupy the most desirable public building, dwelling-house, warehouse, or barn found vacant, and with this as a rendezvous, small parties were sent into the surrounding country, visiting each plantation within a radius of twenty or thirty miles. the parties, sometimes under charge of an officer, usually consisted of a non-commissioned officer and ten or twelve men. "in these journeys through the country the recruiting officer often met with strange experiences. recruits were taken wherever found, and as their earthly possessions usually consisted of but what they wore upon their backs, they required no time to settle their affairs. the laborer in the field would throw down his hoe or quit his plow and march away with the guard, leaving his late owner looking after him in speechless amazement. on one occasion the writer met a planter on the road, followed by two of his slaves, each driving a loaded wagon. the usual questions were asked and the whilom slaves joined the recruiting party, leaving their teams and late master standing in the highway. at another time a negro was met with a horse and wagon. having expressed his desire to "'list," he turned his horse's head toward home, and marched away in the opposite direction. "on one occasion the writer visited a large plantation near capeville, va., and calling upon the proprietor asked him to call in his slaves. he complied without a word, and when they came and were asked if they wished to enlist, replied that they did, and fell into the ranks with the guard. as they started away the old man turned to me, and with tears in his eyes, said, "will you take them all? here i am, an old man; i cannot work; my crops are ungathered; my negroes have all enlisted or run away, and what am i to do?" a hard question, truly. another officer was called upon by a gentleman with this question, "you have taken all my able-bodied men for soldiers, the others have run away, and only the women and children are left;--what do you propose to do with them?" another hard question. "at another time, when the _balloon_ was lying at the mouth of the pocomoke, accompanied by lieut. brown and with a boat's crew, we pulled up the river to the plantation of a mrs. d., a noted rebel sympathizer. we were met, as we expected, with the most violent abuse from the fair proprietoress, which was redoubled when three of her best slaves, each of whom had probably been worth a couple of thousand dollars in _ante-bellum_ days, took their bundles and marched off to the boat. we bade the lady farewell, and pushed off amid the shouts and screams of a score of negro women and children, and the tears and execrations of the widow. "to illustrate the unreasonable orders gen. birney was sometimes in the habit of giving to officers engaged under him on recruiting service, the writer well remembers being placed by him, at pungoteague, va., in charge of some recruits he had forcibly taken from an officer recruiting under col. nelson's orders, and receiving from him (gen. birney) the most positive orders under no circumstances to allow col. nelson to get possession of them,--col. nelson's steamer was hourly expected--and that i should be held personally responsible that they were put on board his own steamer, and this when i had neither men nor muskets to enforce the order. fortunately (for myself) gen. birney's steamer arrived first and the men were safely put on board. some days later, lieut. brown, who was then in charge of the same station, had a squad of recruits taken from him by col. nelson, in retaliation. "many a hap-hazard journey was undertaken in search of recruits and recruiting stations. on one occasion an officer was ordered by gen. birney to take station at a town(?) not many miles from port tobacco, on the potomac. after two days' careful search he discovered that the town he was in search of had been a post-office twenty years before, but then consisted of one house, uninhabited and uninhabitable, with not another within the circuit of five miles." when the government decided to arm the negroes and ordered the organization of a hundred regiments, it was with great difficulty the equipment department met the requisitions. it necessitated a departure from the accustomed uniform material for volunteers, and helped to arouse the animosity of the white troops. instead of the coarse material issued at first, the phalanx was clothed in a fine blue-black dress coat for the infantry, and a superb dark blue jacket for the artillery and cavalry, all neatly trimmed with brass buttons and white, red and yellow cord, representing the arm of service; heavy sky blue pantaloons, and a flannel cap, or high crown black felt hat or _chapeau_ with a black feather looped upon the right side and fastened with a brass eagle. for the infantry and for the cavalry two swords crossed; for the artillery two cannons on the front of the _chapeau_ crossed, with the letters of the company, and number of the regiment to which the soldier belonged. on the caps these insignias were worn on the top of the crown. the uniform of the phalanx put the threadbare clothes of the white veterans in sad contrast, and was the cause of many a black soldier being badly treated by his white comrades.[ ] at the outbreak of the rebellion, the pay of soldiers (volunteers) was the same as soldiers of the regular army, by law, $ per month. the soldiers of the phalanx enlisted under the same law and regulations as did the white volunteers, as to pay and term of service, but the secretary of war, after a few regiments were in the field, decided, and so ordered, that negro troops should be paid ten dollars per month. the instructions given to general saxton on the th day of august, , had stated that the pay would be the same as that of the other troops: "in view of the small force under your command, and the inability of the government at the present time to increase it, in order to guard the plantations and settlements occupied by the united states, from invasion, and to protect the inhabitants thereof from captivity and murder by the enemy, you are also authorized to arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the united states, such number of volunteers of african descent as you may deem expedient, not exceeding five thousand, and may detail officers to instruct them in military drill, discipline and duty, and to command them. _the persons so received into service, and their officers, to be entitled to, and receive, the same pay and rations as are allowed, by law, to volunteers in the service._" as to the white officers they were paid in full, but the privates and non-commissioned officers were allowed but $ per month, three of which were deducted on account of clothing. in several instances the paymaster not having received special instructions to that effect, disregarded the general orders, and paid the negro soldiers in full, like other volunteers; but the order was generally recognized, though many of the regiments refused to receive the $ per month, which was particularly the case of regiments from the northern states. the order at one time in the department of the gulf, came very near causing a mutiny among the troops, because white troops, and conscripts at that, and those who had done provost duty about the cities, were paid $ per month,--congress having raised the pay,--while the phalanx regiments in the field and fortifications were offered $ . the dissatisfaction was so strongly manifested as to cause twelve members of the phalanx to lose their lives, which were not the only ones lost by the bad faith on the part of the government. however, in no instance did the phalanx refuse to do its duty when called upon, and at the sound of the long roll, though the black flag was raised against them, and many of their families were suffering at home, their patriotic ardor never abated in the least. at the north, provisions were made by the states to relieve the families of the brave men. massachusetts sent paymasters to make good the promises of the government, but the deficiency was rejected. her regiments, although a year without pay, refused to accept, and demanded full pay from the government. the loyal people of the country, at public meetings and the press,[ ] severely criticised the government, while the patriotic black men continued to pour out their blood and to give their lives for liberty and the union. [illustration: scene at new berne, n. c. enthusiasm of the blacks at the prospect of their being allowed to enlist as u.s. soldiers.] the matter being one for congress to adjust, henry wilson, of massachusetts, on the th of jan. , introduced in the senate of the united states, a bill to promote enlistments in the army, and in this measure justice to the black soldiers was proposed. after months of debate, it was finally passed; not only placing the phalanx soldiers on a footing with all other troops, but made free, the mothers, wives and children of the noble black troops. the fight of the phalanx for equal pay and allowance with the white troops, was a long one. the friends of the black soldiers in congress fought it, however, to the successful issue. senator wilson, of massachusetts, took the lead in the matter in the senate, as he did in the amending of the enrolling acts, and the act calling out the militia, whereby negroes were enrolled. in the winter of ' gen. butler began the organization of the army of the james and the enlistment of negro troops. a camp was established near fortress monroe, where a great many men enlisted. the secretary of war gave permission to the several northern states to send agents south, and to enlist negroes to fill up their quotas of troops needed. large bounties were then being paid and many a negro received as much as $ to enlist; while many who went as substitutes received even more than that. the recruiting officers or rather agents from the different states established their headquarters largely within gen. butlers departments, where negro volunteers were frequently secured at a much less price than the regular bounty offered, the agent putting into his own pocket the difference, which often amounted to $ or even $ on a single recruit. to correct this wrong, gen. butler issued the following order: headquarters dep't. virginia & north carolina, general orders, in the field, va., _august th, ._ no. . with all the guards which the utmost vigilance and care have thrown around the recruitment of white soldiers, it is a fact, as lamentable as true, that a large portion of the recruits have been swindled of part, if not all, of their bounties. can it be hoped that the colored man will be better able to protect himself from the infinite ingenuity of fraud than the white? therefore, to provide for the families of the colored recruits enlisted in this department--to relieve the united states, as far as may be, from the burden of supporting the families,--and to insure that at least a portion of the bounty paid to the negro shall be received for his use and that of his family; _it is ordered_: i--that upon the enlistment of any negro recruit into the service of the united states for three ( ) years, by any state agent or other person not enlisting recruits under the direct authority of the war department, a sum of one hundred ( ) dollars, or one-third ( / ) of the sum agreed to be paid as bounty, shall be paid if the amount exceeds three times that sum, into the hands of the superintendent of recruiting, or an officer to be designated by him, and in the same proportion for any less time; and no mustering officer will give any certificate or voucher for any negro recruit mustered into the service of the united states, so that he may be credited to the quota of any state, or as a substitute, until a certificate is filed with him that the amount called for by this order has been paid, to the satisfaction of the superintendent of recruiting of the district wherein the recruit was enlisted; but the mustering officer will, in default of such payment, certify upon the roll that the recruit is not to be credited to the quota of any state, or as a substitute. ii--the amount as paid to the superintendent of recruiting shall be turned over, on the last day of each month, to the superintendent of negro affairs, to be expended in aid of the families of negro soldiers in this department. the certificates filed with commissary of musters will be returned to said superintendent of negro affairs, on the first day of every month, so that the superintendent may vouch for the accounts of the superintendent of recruiting, for the amounts received by him. and the superintendent of negro affairs will account monthly to the financial agent of this department for the amounts received and expended by him. iii--as there are unfilled colored regiments in this department sufficient to receive all the negro recruits therein, no negro male person above the age of sixteen ( ) years, shall be taken out or attempted to be taken out of this department, either as a recruit, as officer's servant, or otherwise, in any manner whatever, without a pass from these head quarters. any officer, master of transportation, provost marshal, or person, who shall aid, assist or permit any male negro of the age of sixteen ( ) years or upwards, to go out of this department, in contravention of this order, will be punished, on conviction thereof before the provost court, by not less than six ( ) months imprisonment at hard labor, under the superintendent of prison labor, at norfolk, and if this offence is committed by or with the connivance of any master of steamboat, schooner, or other vessel, the steamboat or other vessel shall be seized and sold, and the proceeds be paid to the superintendent of negro affairs, for the use of the destitute negroes supported by the government. by command of major general b. f. butler: _r. s. davis, major and asst. adjt. general._ official: h. t. schroeder, lt. & a. a. a. gen'l. official: wm. m. pratt, lt. & aide-de-camp. [illustration: mustering into service phalanx soldiers taking the oath of allegiance to the united states.] the chief result of butler's order was the establishment of the freedmens' savings bank. at the close of the war, there were in the hands of the superintendent of negro affairs, eight thousand dollars unclaimed bounties, belonging, the most of it without doubt, to _dead men_; it was placed in a bank at norfolk, va. this sum served as a nucleus for the freedmens' bank, which, after gathering large sums of the freedmens' money, collapsed suddenly. at camp hamilton several regiments were organized, including two of cavalry. the general enlistment ordered by the war department was pushed most actively and with great results, till more than one hundred and seventy-eight thousand, by the records, were enlisted into the army. the opposition to negro soldiers did not cease with many of the union generals even after the government at washington issued its mandate for their enlistment and impressment, and notwithstanding that the many thousands in the service, with their display of gallantry, dash and courage, as exhibited at port hudson, milliken's bend, wagner, and in a hundred other battles, had astonished and aroused the civilized world. in view of all this, and, even more strangely, in the face of the fort pillow butchery, general sherman wrote to the washington authorities, in september, , protesting against negro troops being organized in his department. if whitelaw reid's "ohio in the war," is to be relied upon, sherman's treatment of the negroes in his march to the sea was a counterpart of the fort pillow massacre. his opposition was in keeping with that of the authorities of his state,[ ] notwithstanding it has credited to its quota of troops during the war , negroes, but one regiment was raised in the state, out of a negro population of , by the canvas of . according to the statistics on file in the adjutant general's office, the states are accredited with the following number of negroes who served in the army during the rebellion: alabama, , louisiana, , new hampshire, massachusetts, , connecticut, , new jersey, , delaware, district of columbia, , north carolina, , south carolina, , florida, , tennessee, , michigan, , indiana, , missouri, , iowa, kansas, , colorado territory, mississippi, , maine, vermont, rhode island, , new york, , pennsylvania, , maryland, , virginia, , west virginia, georgia, , arkansas, , kentucky, , ohio, , illinois, , minnesota, wisconsin, texas, not accounted for, , total, , . the losses these troops sustained from sickness, wounds, killed in battle and other casualties incident to war, was , . the aggregate negro population in the u. s. in was , , , of which , , were slaves. [illustration: phalanx soldiers organizing and drilling.] footnotes: [ ] general:--the exigencies of the service require that an inspection should be made of the armies, military posts and military operations in the west; you will therefore make arrangements immediately to perform that service. without entering into any minute details, i beg to direct your attention to the following subjects of investigation: first. on arriving at cairo, you will make a careful examination of the military condition of that post, in the various branches of service, and report to this department, the result of your investigation, suggesting whatever in your opinion, the service may require. you will observe particularly the condition of that class of population known as contrabands; the manner in which they are received, provided for and treated by the military authorities, and give such directions to the commissary and quartermaster departments, and to the officers commanding, as shall, in your judgement, be necessary to secure to them humane and proper treatment, in respect to food, clothing, compensation for their service, and whatever is necessary to enable them to support themselves, and to furnish useful service in any capacity to the government. second. you will make similar observation at columbus, memphis and other posts in your progress to the headquarters of general grant's army. third. the president desires that you should confer freely with major general grant, and the officers with whom you may have communication, and explain to them the importance attached by the government to the use of the colored population emancipated by the president's proclamation, and particularly for the organization of their labor and military strength. you will cause it to be understood that no officer in the united states service is regarded as in the discharge of his duties under the acts of congress, the president's proclamation, and orders of this department, who fails to employ to the utmost extent, the aid and co-operation of the loyal colored population in performing the labor incident to military operations, and also in performing the duties of soldiers under proper organization, and that any obstacle thrown in the way of these ends, is regarded by the president as a violation of the acts of congress, and the declared purposes of the government in using every means to bring the war to an end. fourth. you will ascertain what military officers are willing to take command of colored troops; ascertain their qualifications for that purpose, and if troops can be raised and organized, you will, so far as can be done without prejudice to the service, relieve officers and privates from the service in which they are engaged, to receive commissions such as they may be qualified to exercise in the organization of brigades, regiments and companies of colored troops. you are authorized in this connection, to issue in the name of this department, letters of appointment for field and company officers, and to organize such troops for military service to the utmost extent to which they can be obtained in accordance with the rules and regulations of the service. you will see, more over, and expressly enjoin upon the various staff departments of the service, that such troops are to be provided with supplies upon the requisition of the proper officers, and in the same manner as other troops in the service. * * * * * very respectfully your obedient servant, edward m. stanton, _sec. of war._ brig. gen. l. thomas, adjt. gen'l. u.s. army. [ ] col. thomas wentworth higginson in an appendix to his "army life in a black regiment," gives some account of the organization of negro troops, from which is condensed the following: "it is well known that the first systematic attempt to organize colored troops during the war of the rebellion was the so-called "hunter regiment." the officer originally detailed to recruit for this purpose was sergeant c. t. trowbridge, of the new york volunteer engineers (col. serrell.) his detail was dated may , , s. o. , dept. south. "the second regiment in order of muster was the first kansas colored, dating from january , . the first enlistment in the kansas regiment goes back to august , ; while the earliest technical date of enlistment in my regiment was october , , although, as was stated above, one company really dated its organization back to may, . my muster as colonel dates back to november , , several months earlier than any other of which i am aware, among colored regiments, except that of col. stafford, (first louisiana native guards,) sept. , . colonel williams, of the first kansas colored, was mustered as lt. colonel on jan. , ; as col., march , . these dates i have (with the other facts relating to the regiment) from col. r. j. hinton, the first officer detailed to recruit it. "the first detachment of the second south carolina volunteers (col. montgomery) went into camp at port royal island, february , , numbering one hundred and twenty men. i do not know the date of his muster; it was somewhat delayed, but was probably dated back to about that time. "recruiting for the fifty-fourth massachusetts (colored) began on february , , and the first squad went into camp at readville, massachusetts, on february , , numbering twenty-five men. col. shaw's commission--and probably his muster--was dated april , . (report of adjutant general of massachusetts for , pp. - .) these were the earliest colored regiments, so far as i know." [ ] general orders} war department, adjutant general's office, no. . } _washington_, may , . i.--a bureau is established in the adjutant general's office for the record of all matters relating to the organization of colored troops. an officer will be assigned to the charge of the bureau, with such number of clerks as may be designated by the adjutant general. ii.--three or more field officers will be detailed as inspectors to supervise the organization of colored troops at such points as may be indicated by the war department in the northern and western states. iii.--boards will be convened at such posts as may be decided upon by the war department to examine applicants for commissions to command colored troops, who, on application to the adjutant general, may receive authority to present themselves to the board for examination. iv--no persons shall be allowed to recruit for colored troops except specially authorized by the war department; and no such authority will be given to persons who have not been examined and passed by a board; nor will such authority be given any one person to raise more than one regiment. v.--the reports of boards will specify the grade of commission for which each candidate is fit, and authority to recruit will be given in accordance. commissions will be issued from the adjutant general's office when the prescribed number of men is ready for muster into service. vi.--colored troops may be accepted by companies, to be afterwards consolidated in battalions and regiments by the adjutant general. the regiments will be numbered _seriatim_, in the order in which they are raised, the numbers to be determined by the adjutant general. they will be designated: "---- regiment of u. s. colored troops." vii.--recruiting stations and depots will be established by the adjutant general as circumstances shall require, and officers will be detailed to muster and inspect the troops. viii.--the non-commissioned officers of colored troops may be selected and appointed from the best men of their number in the usual mode of appointing non-commissioned officers. meritorious commissioned officers will be entitled to promotion to higher rank if they prove themselves equal to it. ix.--all personal applications for appointments in colored regiments, or for information concerning them, must be made to the chief of the bureau; all written communications should be addressed to the chief of the bureau, to the care of the adjutant general. by order of the secretary of war: e. d. townsend. _asst. adjt. general._ [ ] i attempted to pass jackson square in new orleans one day in my uniform, when i was met by two white soldiers of the th conn. they halted me and then ordered me to undress. i refused, when they seized me and began to tear my coat off. i resisted, but to no good purpose; a half a dozen others came up and began to assist. i recognized a sergeant in the crowd, an old shipmate on board of a new bedford, mass., whaler; he came to my rescue, my clothing was restored and i was let go. it was nothing strange to see a black soldier _a la adam_ come into the barracks out of the streets. this conduct led to the killing of a portion of a boat's crew of the u. s. gunboat _jackson_, at ship island, miss., by members of a phalanx regiment stationed there. [ ] the injustice done the phalanx, in discriminating between the northern and southern negro, may be clearly seen by the following letters: "new victories and old wrongs.--_to the editors of the evening post_: on the d of july, at james island, s. c., a battery was taken by three regiments, under the following circumstances: "the regiments were the one hundred and third new york (white), the thirty-third united states (formerly first south carolina volunteers), and the fifty-fifth massachusetts, the two last being colored. they marched at one a. m., by the flank, in the above order, hoping to surprise the battery. as usual the rebels were prepared for them, and opened upon them as they were deep in one of those almost impassable southern marshes. the one hundred and third new york, which had previously been in twenty battles, was thrown into confusion; the thirty-third united states did better, being behind; the fifty-fifth massachusetts being in the rear, did better still. all three formed in line, when colonel hartwell, commanding the brigade, gave the order to retreat. the officer commanding the fifty-fifth massachusetts, either misunderstanding the order, or hearing it countermanded, ordered his regiment to charge. this order was at once repeated by major trowbridge, commanding the thirty-third united states, and by the commander of the one hundred and third new york, so that the three regiments reached the fort in reversed order. the color-bearers of the thirty-third united states and of the fifty-fifth massachusetts had a race to be first in, the latter winning. the one hundred and third new york entered the battery immediately after. "these colored regiments are two of the five which were enlisted in south carolina and massachusetts, under the written pledge of the war department that they should have the same pay and allowances as white soldiers. that pledge has been deliberately broken by the war department, or by congress, or by both, except as to the short period, since last new year's day. every one of those killed in this action from these two colored regiments--under a fire before which the veterans of twenty battles recoiled--_died defrauded by the government of nearly one-half of his petty pay_. "mr. fessenden, who defeated in the senate the bill for the fulfillment of the contract with these soldiers, is now secretary of the treasury. was the economy of saving six dollars per man worth to the treasury the ignominy of the repudiation? "mr. stevens, of pennsylvania, on his triumphal return to his constituents, used to them this language: 'he had no doubt whatever as to the final result of the present contest between liberty and slavery. the only doubt he had was whether the nation had yet been satisfactorily chastised for their cruel oppression of a harmless and long-suffering race.' inasmuch as it was mr. stevens himself who induced the house of representatives, most unexpectedly to all, to defeat the senate bill for the fulfilment of the national contract with these soldiers, i should think he had excellent reasons for the doubt. very respectfully, t. w. higginson, july , . _col. st s. c. vols. (now d u. s.)_ * * * * * "_to the editor of the new york tribune_: no one can possibly be so weary of reading of the wrongs done by government toward the colored soldiers as i am of writing about them. this is my only excuse for intruding on your columns again. "by an order of the war department, dated aug , , it is at length ruled that colored soldiers shall be paid the full pay of soldiers from date of enlistment, provided they were free on april , ,--not otherwise; and this distinction is to be noted on the pay-rolls. in other words, if one half of a company escaped from slavery on april , , they are to be paid thirteen dollars per month and allowed three dollars and a half per month for clothing. if the other half were delayed two days, they receive seven dollars per month and are allowed three dollars per month for precisely the same articles of clothing. if one of the former class is made first sergeant, his pay is put up to twenty-one dollars per month; but if he escaped two days later, his pay is still estimated at seven dollars. "it had not occurred to me that anything could make the pay-rolls of these regiments more complicated than at present, or the men more rationally discontented. i had not the ingenuity to imagine such an order. yet it is no doubt in accordance with the spirit, if not with the letter, of the final bill which was adopted by congress under the lead of mr. thaddeus stevens. "the ground taken by mr. stevens apparently was that the country might honorably save a few dollars by docking the promised pay of those colored soldiers whom the war had made free. _but the government should have thought of this before it made the contract with these men and received their services._ when the war department instructed brigadier-general saxton, august , , to raise five regiments of negroes in south carolina, it was known very well that the men so enlisted had only recently gained their freedom. but the instructions said: 'the persons so received into service, and their officers, to be entitled to and receive the same pay and rations as are allowed by law to volunteers in the service.' of this passage mr. solicitor whiting wrote to me: 'i have no hesitation in saying that the faith of the government was thereby pledged to every officer and soldier enlisted under that call.' where is that faith of the government now? "the men who enlisted under the pledge were volunteers, every one; they did not get their freedom by enlisting; they had it already. they enlisted to serve the government, trusting in its honor. now the nation turns upon them and says: your part of the contract is fulfilled; we have had your services. if you can show that you had previously been free for a certain length of time, we will fulfil the other side of the contract. if not, we repudiate it. help yourselves, if you can. "in other words, a freedman (since april , ) has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. he is incapable of making a contract. no man is bound by a contract made with him. any employer, following the example of the united states government, may make with him a written agreement, receive his services, and then withhold the wages. he has no motive to honest industry, or to honesty of any kind. he is virtually a slave, and nothing else, to the end of time. "under this order, the greater part of the massachusetts colored regiments will get their pay at last, and be able to take their wives and children out of the almshouses, to which, as governor andrew informs us, the gracious charity of the nation has consigned so many. for so much i am grateful. but toward my regiment, which had been in service and under fire, months before a northern colored soldier was recruited, the policy of repudiation has at last been officially adopted. there is no alternative for the officers of south carolina regiments but to wait for another session of congress, and meanwhile, if necessary, act as executioners for these soldiers who, like sergeant walker, refuse to fulfil their share of a contract where the government has openly repudiated the other share. if a year's discussion, however, has at length secured the arrears of pay for the northern colored regiments, possibly two years may secure it for the southern. "t. w. higginson, "august , . _col. st s. c. vols., (now d u. s.)_" [ ] "it has been said that one negro regiment was raised in . more ought to have been secured; let it never be said that it was the fault of the colored men themselves that they were not. "at the first call for troops in , governor dennison was asked if he would accept negro volunteers. in deference to a sentiment then almost universal, not less than to the explicit regulations of the government, he replied that he could not. when the emancipation proclamation changed the status of negroes so completely, and the government began to accept their services, they resumed their applications to the state authorities. governor tod still discouraged them. he had previously committed himself, in repelling the opportunities of their leaders, to the theory that it would be contrary to our laws, and without warrant either in their spirit or letter, to accept them, even under calls for militia. he now did all he could to transfer such as wished to enlist, to the massachusetts regiments. "the adjutant-general, in his report for , professed his inability to say why massachusetts should be permitted to make ohio a recruiting-ground for filling her quotas. if he had looked into the correspondence which the governor gave to the public in connection with his message, he would have found out. as early as may th the governor said, in a letter to hon. wm. porter, of millon, ohio: 'i do not propose to raise any colored troops. those now being recruited in this state are recruited by authority from governor andrew, of massachusetts.' "a few days later he wrote to hon. john m. langston: 'as it was uncertain what number of colored men could be promptly raised in ohio. i have advised and still do advise, that those disposed to enter the service promptly join the massachusetts regiments. * * * having requested the governor of massachusetts to organize the colored men from ohio into separate companies, so far as practicable, and also to keep me fully advised of the names, age, and place of residence of each, ohio will have the full benefit of all enlistments from the state, and the recruits themselves the benefit of the state associations to the same extent nearly as if organized into a state regiment.' and to persons proposing to recruit said companies he wrote that all commissions would be issued by the governor of massachusetts. in this course he had the sanction if not the original suggestion of the secretary of war. afterward his applications for authority to raise an ohio regiment were for sometime refused, but finally he secured it, and the one hundred and twenty-seventh was the quick result. unfortunately it was numbered the fifth united states colored. the result of all this was that ohio received credit for little over a third of her colored citizens who volunteered for the war."--_reid's ohio in the war, vol. i, p. ._ chapter iii. recruiting and organizing in south carolina. "private miles o'reilly" was the _nom de plume_ of a talented literary gentleman of the city of new york, who wrote much in humorous prose and verse. his real name was charles g. halpine. after an honorable service in the war, rising to high rank, he was elected register of new york, and died suddenly while in office, in . the following sketches from his pen, published during the war, give an account of matters connected with the recruiting and organizing of negro troops in south carolina, and are quoted here as interesting historical facts connected with the subject: "black troops are now an established success, and hereafter--while the race can furnish enough able-bodied males--the probability would seem that one-half the permanent naval and military forces of the united states will be drawn from this material, under the guidance and control of the white officers. to-day there is much competition among the field and staff officers of our white volunteers--more especially in those regiments about being disbanded--to obtain commission of like or even lower grades in the colored regiments of uncle sam. general casey's board of examination cannot keep in session long enough, nor dismiss incompetent aspirants quick enough, to keep down the vast throngs of veterans, with and without shoulder-straps, who are now seeking various grades of command in the colored brigades of the union. over this result all intelligent men will rejoice,--the privilege of being either killed or wounded in battle, or stricken down by the disease, toil and privations incident to the life of a marching soldier, not belonging to that class of prerogative for the exclusive enjoyment of which men of sense, and with higher careers open to them, will long contend. looking back, however, but a few years, to the organization of the first regiment of black troops in the departments of the south, what a change in public opinion are we compelled to recognize! in sober verity, war is not only the sternest, but the quickest, of all teachers; and contrasting the then and now of our negro regiments, as we propose to do in this sketch, the contrast will forcibly recall galileo's obdurate assertion that 'the world still moves.' "be it known, then, that the first regiment of black troops raised in our recent war, was raised in the spring of by the commanding general of the department of the south, of his own motion, and without any direct authority of law, order, or even sanction from the president, the secretary of war, or our house of congress. it was done by general hunter as 'a military necessity' under very peculiar circumstances, to be detailed hereafter; and although repudiated at first by the government as were so many other measures originated in the same quarter, it was finally adopted as the settled policy of the country and of our military system; as have likewise since been adopted, all the other original measures for which these officers, at the time of their first announcement, was made to suffer both official rebuke and the violently vituperative denunciation of more than one-half the northern press. "in the spring of , general hunter, finding himself with less than eleven thousand men under his command, and charged with the duty of holding the whole tortuous and broken seacoast of georgia, south carolina and florida, had applied often, and in vain, to the authorities at washington for reinforcements. all the troops that could be gathered in the north were less than sufficient for the continuous drain of general mcclellan's great operations against the enemy's capital; and the reiterated answer of the war department was: 'you must get along as best you can. not a man from the north can be spared.' "on the mainland of three states nominally forming the department of the south, the flag of the union had no permanent foothold, save at fernandina, st. augustine, and some few unimportant points along the florida coast. it was on the sea-islands of georgia and south carolina that our troops were stationed, and continually engaged in fortifying,--the enemy being everywhere visible, and in force, across the narrow creeks dividing us from the mainland; and in various raids they came across to our islands, and we drove them back to the mainland, and up their creeks, with a few gunboats to help us--being the order of the day; yea, and yet oftener, of the night. "no reinforcements to be had from the north; vast fatigue duties in throwing up earthworks imposed on our insufficient garrison; the enemy continually increasing both in insolence and numbers; our only success the capture of fort pulaski, sealing up of savannah; and this victory offset, if not fully counter-balanced, by many minor gains of the enemy; this was about the condition of affairs as seen from the headquarters fronting port royal bay, when general hunter one fine morning, with twirling glasses, puckered lips, and dilated nostrils, (he had just received another 'don't-bother-us-for-reinforcements' dispatch from washington) announced his intention of 'forming a negro regiment, and compelling every able-bodied black man in the department to fight for the freedom which could not but be the issue of our war.' "this resolution being taken, was immediately acted upon with vigor, the general causing all the necessary orders to be issued, and taking upon himself, as his private burden, the responsibility for all the irregular issues of arms, clothing, equipments, and rations involved in collecting and organizing the first experimental negro regiment. the men he intended to pay, at first, by placing them as laborers on the pay-roll of the chief quartermaster; but it was his hope that the obvious necessity and wisdom of the measure he had thus presumed to adopt without authority, would secure for it the immediate approval of the higher authorities, and the necessary orders to cover the required pay and supply-issue of the force he had in contemplation. if his course should be endorsed by the war department, well and good; if it were not so indorsed, why, he had enough property of his own to pay back to the government all he was irregularly expending in this experiment. "but now, on the very threshold of this novel enterprise, came the first--and it was not a trivial--difficulty. where could experienced officers be found for such an organization? 'what! command niggers?' was the reply--if possible more amazed than scornful--of nearly every competent young lieutenant or captain of volunteers to whom the suggestion of commanding this class of troops was made. 'never mind,' said hunter, when this trouble was brought to his notice; 'the fools or bigots who refuse are enough punished by their refusal. before two years they will be competing eagerly for the commission they now reject.' straightly there was issued a circular to all commanding officers in the department, directing them to announce to the non-commissioned officers and men of their respective commands that commissions in the 'south carolina regiment of colored infantry,' would be given to all deserving and reputable sergeants, corporals; and men who would appear at department headquarters, and prove able to pass an examination in the manual and tactics before a band of examiners, which was organized in a general order of current date. capt. arthur m. kenzie, of chicago, aid-de-camp,--now of hancock's veterans reserve corps--was detailed as colonel of the regiment, giving place, subsequently, in consequence of injured health, to the present brig.-gen. james d. fessenden, then a captain in the berdan sharpshooters, though detailed as acting aid-de-camp on gen. hunter's staff. capt. kenzie, we may add, was gen. hunter's nephew, and his appointment as colonel was made partly to prove--so violent was then the prejudice against negro troops--that the commanding general asks nothing of them which he was not willing that one of his own flesh and blood should be engaged in. "the work was now fairly in progress, but the barriers of prejudice were not to be lightly overthrown. non-commissioned officers and men of the right stamp, and able to pass the examination requisite, were scarce articles. ten had the hardihood or moral courage to face the screaming, riotous ridicule of their late associates in the white regiments. we remember one very striking instance in point, which we shall give as a sample of the whole. "our friend mr. charles f. briggs, of this city, so well known in literary circles, had a nephew enlisted in that excellent regiment the th new york, then garrisoning fort pulaski and the works of tybee island. this youngster had raised himself by gallantry and good conduct to be a non-commissioned officer; and mr. briggs was anxious that he should be commissioned, according to his capacities, in the colored troops then being raised. the lad was sent for, passed his examination with credit, and was immediately offered a first lieutenancy, with the promise of being made captain when his company should be filled up to the required standard,--probably within ten days. "the inchoate first-lieutenant was in ecstasies; a gentleman by birth and education, he longed for the shoulder-straps. he appeared joyously grateful; and only wanted leave to run up to fort pulaski for the purpose of collecting his traps, taking leave of his former comrades, and procuring his discharge-papers from col. barton. two days after that came a note to the department headquarters respectfully declining the commission! he had been laughed and jeered out of accepting a captaincy by his comrades; and this--though we remember it more accurately from our correspondence with mr. briggs--was but one of many scores of precisely similar cases. "at length, however, officers were found; the ranks were filled; the men learned with uncommon quickness, having the imitativeness of so many monkeys apparently, and such excellent ears for music that all evolutions seemed to come to them by nature. at once, despite all hostile influence, the negro regiment became one of the lions of the south; and strangers visiting the department, crowded out eagerly to see its evening parades and sunday-morning inspection. by a strange coincidence, its camp was pitched on the lawn and around the mansion of gen. drayton, who commanded the rebel works guarding hilton head, port royal and beaufort, when the same were first captured by the joint naval and military operations under admiral dupont and general timothy w. sherman,--general drayton's brother, captain drayton of our navy, having command of one of the best vessels in the attacking squadron; as he subsequently took part in the first iron-clad attack on fort sumpter. "meantime, however, the war department gave no sign, and the oracles of the adjutant-general's office were dumb as the statue of the sphynx. reports of the organization of the first south carolina infantry were duly forwarded to army headquarters; but evoked no comment, either of approval or rebuke. letters detailing what had been done, and the reason for doing it; asking instructions, and to have commissions duly issued to the officers selected; appeals that the department paymaster should be instructed to pay these negro troops like other soldiers; demands that the government should either shoulder the responsibility of sustaining the organization, or give such orders as would absolve gen. hunter from the responsibility of backing out from an experiment which he believed to be essential to the salvation of the country,--all these appeals to washington proved in vain; for the oracles still remained profoundly silent, probably waiting to see how public opinion and the politicians would receive this daring innovation. [illustration: fortifications at hilton head. gen'l. hunter's black regiment in the distance.] "at length one evening a special dispatch steamer plowed her way over the bar, and a perspiring messenger delivered into gen. hunter's hands a special despatch from the war department, 'requiring immediate answer.' the general was just about mounting his horse for his evening ride along the picket-line, when this portentous missive was brought under his notice. hastily opening it, he first looked grave, then began to smile, and finally burst into peals of irrepressible laughter, such as were rarely heard from 'black david,' his old army name. never was the general seen, before or since, in such good spirits; he literally was unable to speak from constant interruption of laughter; and all his adjutant-general could gather from him was: 'that he would not part with the document in his hand for fifty thousand dollars.' "at length he passed over the dispatch to his chief of staff, who on reading it, and re-reading it, could find in its texts but little apparent cause for merriment. it was a grave demand from the war department for information in regard to our negro regiment--the demand being based on a certain resolution introduced by the hon. mr. wickliffe, of kentucky, asking for specific information on the point, in a tone clearly not friendly. these resolutions had been adopted by congress; and as hunter was without authority for any of his actions in this case, it seemed to his then not cheerful adjutant-general that the documents in his hands were the reverse of hilarious. "still hunter was in extravagant spirits as he rode along, his laughter startling the squirrels in the dense pine woods, and every attempt that he made to explain himself being again and again interrupted by renewed peals of inextinguishable mirth. 'the fools!' he at length managed to say; 'that old fool has just given me the very chance i was growing sick for! the war department has refused to notice my black regiment; but now, in reply to this resolution, i can lay the matter before the country, and force the authorities either to adopt my negroes or to disband them.' he then rapidly sketched out the kind of reply he wished to have prepared; and, with the first ten words of his explanation, the full force of the cause he had for laughter became apparent. never did a general and his chief-of-staff, in a more unseemly state of cachinnation, ride along a picket-line. at every new phase of the subject it presented new features of the ludicrous; and though the reply at this late date may have lost much of the drollery which then it wore, it is a serio-comic document of as much vital importance in the moral history of our late contest as any that can be found in the archives under the care of gen. e. d. townsend. it was received late sunday evening, and was answered very late that night, in order to be in time for the steamer _arago_, which sailed at daylight next morning,--the dispatch-steamer which brought the request 'for immediate information' having sustained some injuries which prevented an immediate return. it was written after midnight, we may add, in a tornado of thunder and tempest such as has rarely been known even on that tornado-stricken coast; but loud as were the peals and vivid the flashes of heaven's artillery, there were at least two persons within the lines on hilton head who were laughing far too noisily themselves to pay any heed to external clamors. the reply thus concocted and sent, from an uncorrected manuscript copy now in our possession, ran as follows: "headquarters, department of the south, _hilton head, s. c._, june, . "to the hon. e. m. stanton, secretary of war, washington, d. c. "sir:--i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a communication from the adjutant-general of the army, dated june , , requesting me to furnish you with the information necessary to answer certain resolutions introduced in the house of representatives june , , on motion of the hon. mr. wickliffe, of kentucky; their substance being to enquire: " st--whether i had organized, or was organizing, a regiment of 'fugitive slaves' in this department. " d--whether any authority had been given to me from the war department for such an organization; and " rd--whether i had been furnished, by order of the war department, with clothing, uniforms, arms, equipments, and so forth, for such a force? "only having received the letter at a late hour this evening, i urge forward my answer in time for the steamer sailing to-morrow morning,--this haste preventing me from entering, as minutely as i could wish, upon many points of detail, such as the paramount importance of the subject would seem to call for. but, in view of the near termination of the present session of congress, and the wide-spread interest which must have been awakened by mr. wickliffe's resolutions, i prefer sending even this imperfect answer to waiting the period necessary for the collection of fuller and more comprehensive data. "to the first question, therefore, i reply: that no regiment of 'fugitive slaves' has been, or is being, organized in this department. there is, however, a fine regiment of loyal persons whose late masters are fugitive rebels--men who everywhere fly before the appearance of the national flag, leaving their loyal and unhappy servants behind them, to shift, as best they can, for themselves. so far, indeed, are the loyal persons composing the regiment from seeking to evade the presence of their late owners, that they are now, one and all, endeavoring with commendable zeal to acquire the drill and discipline requisite to place them in a position to go in full and effective pursuit of their fugacious and traitorous proprietors. "to the second question, i have the honor to answer that the instructions given to brig.-gen. t. w. sherman by the hon. simon cameron, late secretary of war, and turned over to me, by succession, for my guidance, do distinctly authorize me to employ 'all loyal persons offering their service in defence of the union, and for the suppression of this rebellion,' in any manner i may see fit, or that circumstances may call for. there is no restriction as to the character or color of the persons to be employed, or the nature of the employment--whether civil or military--in which their services may be used. i conclude, therefore, that i have been authorized to enlist 'fugitive slaves' as soldiers, could any such fugitives be found in this department. no such characters, however, have yet appeared within view of our most advanced pickets,--the loyal negroes everywhere remaining on their plantations to welcome us, aid us, and supply us with food, labor and information. it is the masters who have in every instance been the 'fugitives,' running away from loyal slaves as well as loyal soldiers; and these, as yet, we have only partially been able to see--chiefly their heads over ramparts, or dodging behind trees, rifles in hand, in the extreme distance. in the absence of any 'fugitive master law,' the deserted slaves would be wholly without remedy had not the crime of treason given them right to pursue, capture and bring those persons of whose benignant protection they have been thus suddenly and cruelly bereft. "to the third interrogatory, it is my painful duty to reply that i have never received any specific authority for issue of clothing, uniforms, arms, equipments and so forth, to the troops in question,--my general instructions from mr. cameron, to employ them in any manner i might find necessary, and the military exigencies of the department and the country, being my only, but i trust, sufficient justification. neither have i had any specific authority for supplying these persons with shovels, spades, and pickaxes, when employing them as laborers; nor with boats and oars, when using them as lighter-men; but these are not points included in mr. wickliffe's resolution. to me it seemed that liberty to employ men in any particular capacity implied and carried with it liberty, also, to supply them with the necessary tools; and, acting upon this faith, i have clothed, equiped, and armed the only loyal regiment yet raised in south carolina, georgia or florida. "i must say, in vindication of my own conduct, that, had it not been for the many other diversified and imperative claims on my time and attention, a much more satisfactory result might to have been achieved; and that, in place of only one regiment, as at present, at least five or six well-drilled, and thoroughly acclimated regiments should, by this time, have been added to the loyal forces of the union. "the experiment of arming the blacks, so far as i have made it, has been a complete and even marvellous success. they are sober, docile, attentive, and enthusiastic; displaying great natural capacities in acquiring the duties of the soldier. they are now eager beyond all things to take the field and be led into action; and it is the unanimous opinion of the officers who have had charge of them that, in the peculiarities of this climate and country, they will prove invaluable auxiliaries, fully equal to the similar regiments so long and successfully used by the british authorities in the west india islands. "in conclusion, i would say, it is my hope--there appearing no possibility of other reinforcements, owing to the exigencies of the campaign in the peninsula--to have organized by the end of next fall, and be able to present to the government, from forty-eight to fifty thousand of these hardy and devoted soldiers. "trusting that this letter may be made part of your answer to mr. wickliffe's resolutions, i have the honor to be, very respectfully your most obedient servant, david hunter, _maj.-gen. commanding._" "this missive was duly sent, with many misgivings that it would not get through the routine of the war department in time to be laid before congress previous to the adjournment of that honorable body which was then imminent. there were fears; too, that the secretary of war might think it not sufficiently respectful, or serious in its tone; but such apprehensions proved unfounded. the moment it was received and read in the war department, it was hurried down to the house, and delivered, _ore retundo_, from the clerk's desk. "here its effects were magical. the clerk could scarcely read it with decorum; nor could half his words be heard amidst the universal peals of laughter in which both democrats and republicans appeared to vie as to which should be the more noisy. mr. wickliffe, who only entered during the reading of the latter half of the document, rose to his feet in a frenzy of indignation, complaining that the reply, of which he had only heard some portion, was an insult to the dignity of the house, and should be severely noticed. the more he raved and gesticulated, the more irrepressibly did his colleagues, on both sides of the slavery question, scream and laugh; until finally, the merriment reached its climax on a motion made by some member--schuyler colfax, if we remember rightly--that 'as the document appeared to please the honorable gentleman from kentucky so much, and as he had not heard the whole of it the clerk be now requested to read the whole again'--a motion which was instantaneously carried amid such an uproar of universal merriment and applause as the frescoed walls of the chamber have seldom heard, either before or since. it was the great joke of the day, and coming at a moment of universal gloom in the public mind, was seized upon by the whole loyal press of the country as a kind of politico-military champaign cocktail. "this set that question at rest forever; and not long after, the proper authorities saw fit to authorize the employment of 'fifty thousand able-bodied blacks for labor in the quartermaster's department,' and the arming and drilling as soldiers of five thousand of these, but for the sole purpose of 'protecting the women and children of their fellow-laborers who might be absent from home in the public service.' "here we have another instance of the reluctance with which the national government took up this idea of employing negroes as soldiers; a resolution, we may add, to which they were only finally compelled by general hunter's disbandment of his original regiment, and the storm of public indignation which followed that act. "nothing could have been happier in its effect upon the public mind than gen. hunter's reply to mr. wickliffe, of kentucky, given in our last. it produced a general broad grin throughout the country, and the advocate who can set his jury laughing rarely loses his cause. it also strengthened the spinal column of the government in a very marked degree; although not yet up to the point of fully endorsing and accepting this daring experiment. "meantime the civil authorities of course got wind of what was going on,--mr. henry j. windsor, special correspondent of the new york _times_, in the department of the south, having devoted several very graphic and widely-copied letters to a picture of that new thing under the sun, 'hunter's negro regiment.' "of course the chivalry of the rebellion were incensed beyond measure at this last yankee outrage upon southern rights. their papers teemed with vindictive articles against the commanding general who had dared to initiate such a novelty. the savannah _republican_, in particular, denouncing hunter as 'the cool-blooded abolition miscreant who, from his headquarters at hilton head, is engaged in executing the bloody and savage behest of the imperial gorilla who, from his throne of human bones at washington, rules, reigns and riots over the destinies of the brutish and degraded north.' "mere newspaper abuse, however, by no means gave content to the outraged feeling of the chivalry. they therefore sent a formal demand to our government for information as to whether gen. hunter, in organizing his regiment of emancipated slaves, had acted under the authority of our war department, or whether the villany was of his own conception. if he had acted under orders, why then terrible measures of fierce retaliation against the whole yankee nation were to be adopted; but if, _per contra_, the iniquity were of his own motion and without the sanction of our government, then the foreshadowed retribution should be made to fall only on hunter and his officers. [illustration: building roads] "to this demand, with its alternative of threats, president lincoln was in no mood to make any definitive reply. in fact no reply at all was sent, for, as yet, the most far-seeing political augurs could not determine whether the bird seen in the sky of the southern department would prove an eagle or a buzzard. public opinion was not formed upon the subject, though rapidly forming. there were millions who agreed with hunter in believing that 'that the black man should be made to fight for the freedom which could not but be the issue of our war;' and then they were outraged at the prospect of allowing black men to be killed or maimed in company with our nobler whites. "failing to obtain any reply therefor, from the authorities at washington, the richmond people determined to pour out all their vengeance on the immediate perpetrators of this last yankee atrocity; and forthwith there was issued from the rebel war department a general order number , we believe, of the series of --reciting that 'as the government of the u. s. had refused to answer whether it authorized the raising of a black regiment by gen. hunter or not' said general, his staff, and all officers under his command who had directly or indirectly participated in the unclean thing, should hereafter be outlaws not covered by the laws of war; but to be executed as felons for the crimes of 'inciting negro insurrections wherever caught.' "this order reached the ears of the parties mainly interested just as gen. hunter was called to washington, ostensibly for consultation on public business; but really on the motion of certain prominent speculators in marine transportation, with those 'big things,' in port royal harbor,--and they were enormous--with which the general had seen fit to interfere. these frauds, however, will form a very fruitful and pregnant theme for some future chapters. at present our business is with the slow but certain growth in the public mind of this idea of allowing some black men to be killed in the late war, and not continuing to arrogate death and mutilation by projectiles and bayonets as an exclusive privilege for our own beloved white race. "no sooner had hunter been relieved from this special duty at washington, than he was ordered back to the south, our government still taking no notice of the order of outlawry against him issued by the rebel secretary of war. he and his officers were thus sent back to engage, with extremely insufficient forces, in an enterprise of no common difficulty, and with an agreeable sentence of _sus. per col._, if captured, hanging over their devoted heads! "why not suggest to mr. stanton, general, that he should either demand the special revocation of that order, or announce to the rebel war department that our government has adopted your negro-regiment policy as its own--which would be the same thing. "it was partly on this hint that hunter wrote the following letter to jefferson davis,--a letter subsequently suppressed and never sent, owing to influences which the writer of this article does not feel himself as yet at liberty to reveal,--further than to say that mr. stanton knew nothing of the matter. davis and hunter, we may add, had been very old and intimate friends, until divided, some years previous to our late war, by differences on the slavery question. davis had for many years been adjutant of the st u. s. dragoons, of which hunter had been captain commanding; and a relationship of very close friendship had existed between their respective families. it was this thorough knowledge of his man, perhaps, which gave peculiar bitterness to hunter's pen; and the letter is otherwise remarkable as a prophecy, or preordainment of that precise policy which pres't. johnson has so frequently announced, and reiterated since mr. lincoln's death. it ran--with some few omissions, no longer pertinent or of public interest--as follows: "to jefferson davis, titular president of the so-called confederate states. "sir:--while recently in command of the department of the south, in accordance with the laws of the war and the dictates of common sense, i organized and caused to be drilled, armed and equipped, a regiment of enfranchised bondsmen, known as the st south carolina volunteers. "for this action, as i have ascertained, the pretended government of which you are the chief officer, has issued against me and all of my officers who were engaged in organizing the regiment in question, a general order of outlawry, which announces that, if captured, we shall not even be allowed the usual miserable treatment extended to such captives as fall into your hands; but that we are to be regarded as felons, and to receive the death by hanging due to such, irrespective of the laws of war. "mr. davis, we have been acquainted intimately in the past. we have campaigned together, and our social relations have been such as to make each understand the other thoroughly. that you mean, if it be ever in your power, to execute the full rigor of your threats, i am well assured; and you will believe my assertion, that i thank you for having raised in connection with me and my acts, this sharp and decisive issue. i shall proudly accept, if such be the chance of war, the martyrdom you menace; and hereby give you notice that unless your general order against me and my officers be formally revoked, within thirty days from the date of the transmission of this letter, sent under a flag of truce, i shall take your action in the matter as finale; and will reciprocate it by hanging every rebel officer who now is, or may hereafter be taken, prisoner by the troops of the command to which i am about returning. "believe me that i rejoice at the aspect now being given to the war by the course you have adopted. in my judgment, if the undoubted felony of treason had been treated from the outset as it deserves to be--as the sum of all felonies and crimes--this rebellion would never have attained its present menacing proportions. the war you and your fellow conspirators have been waging against the united states must be regarded either as a war of justifiable defence, carried on for the integrity of the boundaries of a sovereign confederation of states against foreign aggression, or as the most wicked, enormous, and deliberately planned conspiracy against human liberty and for the triumph of treason and slavery, of which the records of the world's history contain any note. "if our government should adopt the first view of the case, you and your fellow rebels may justly claim to be considered a most unjustly treated body of disinterested patriots,--although, perhaps, a little mistaken in your connivance with the thefts by which your agent, john b. floyd, succeeded in arming the south and partially disarming the north as a preparative to the commencement of the struggle. "but if on the other hand--as is the theory of our government--the war you have levied against the u. s. be a rebellion the most causeless, crafty and bloody ever known,--a conspiracy having the rule-or-ruin policy for its basis; the plunder of the black race and the reopening of the african slave trade for its object, the continued and further degradation of ninety per cent. of the white population of the south in favor of a slave driving ten per cent. aristocracy, and the exclusion of all foreign-born immigrants from participation in the generous and equal hospitality foreshadowed to them in the declaration of independence,--if this, as i believe, be a fair statement of the origin and motives of the rebellion of which you are the titular head, then it would have been better had our government adhered to the constitutional view of treason from the start, and hung every man taken in arms against the u. s. from the first butchery in the streets of baltimore, down to the last resultless battle fought in the vicinity of sharpsburg. if treason, in other words, be any crime, it is the essence of all crimes; a vast machinery of guilt, multiplying assassinations into wholesale slaughter, and organizing plunder as the basis for supporting a system of national brigandage. your action, and that of those with whom you are in league, has its best comment in the sympathy extended to your cause by the despots and aristocracies of europe. you have succeeded in throwing back civilization for many years; and have made of the country that was the freest, happiest, proudest, richest, and most progressive but two short years ago, a vast temple of mourning, doubt, anxiety and privation; our manufactories of all but war material nearly paralyzed; the inventive spirit which was forever developing new resources destroyed, and our flag, that carried respect everywhere, now mocked by enemies who think its glory tarnished, and that its power is soon to become a mere tradition of the past. "for all these results, mr. davis, and for the three hundred thousand lives already sacrificed on both sides in the war--some pouring out their blood on the battle-field, and others fever stricken and wasting away to death in overcrowded hospitals--you and the fellow miscreants who have been your associates in this conspiracy are responsible. of you and them it may, with truth be said, that if all the innocent blood which you have spilled could be collected in one pool, the whole government of your confederacy might swim in it. "i am aware that this is not the language in which the prevailing etiquette of our army is in the habit of considering your conspiracy. it has come to pass--through what instrumentalities you are best able to decide--that the greatest and worst crime ever attempted against the human family, has been treated in certain quarters as though it were a mere error of judgment on the part of some gifted friend; a thing to be regretted, of course, as causing more or less disturbance to the relation of amity and esteem heretofore existing between those charged with the repression of such eccentricities and the eccentric actors; in fact, as a slight political miscalculation or peccadillo, rather than as an outrage involving the desolation of a continent, and demanding the promptest and severest retribution within power of human law. "for myself, i have never been able to take this view of the matter. during a lifetime of active service, i have seen the seeds of this conspiracy planted in the rank soil of slavery, and the upas-growth watered by just such tricklings of a courtesy alike false to justice, expediency, and our eternal future. had we at an earlier day commenced to call things by their right names, and to look at the hideous features of slavery with our ordinary eyesight and common sense, instead of through the rose-colored glasses of supposed political expediency, there would be three hundred thousand more men alive to-day on american soil; and our country would never for a moment have forfeited her proud position as the highest exampler of the blessings--morals, intellectual and material--to be derived from a free form of government. "whether your intention of hanging me and those of my staff and other officers who were engaged in organizing the st s. c. volunteers, in case we are taken prisoners in battle, will be likely to benefit your cause or not, is a matter mainly for your own consideration. for us, our profession makes the sacrifice of life a contingency ever present and always to be accepted; and although such a form of death as your order proposes, is not that to the contemplating of which soldiers have trained themselves, i feel well assured, both for myself and those included in my sentence, that we could die in no manner more damaging to your abominable rebellion and the abominable institution which is its origin. "the south has already tried one hanging experiment, but not with a success--one would think--to encourage its repetition. john brown, who was well known to me in kansas, and who will be known in appreciative history through centuries which will only recall your name to load it with curses, once entered virginia with seventeen men and an idea. the terror caused by the presence of his idea, and the dauntless courage which prompted the assertion of his faith, against all odds, i need not now recall. the history is too familiar and too painful. 'old ossawatomie' was caught and hung; his seventeen men were killed, captured or dispersed, and several of them shared his fate. portions of his skin were tanned, i am told, and circulated as relics dear to the barbarity of the slave-holding heart. but more than a million of armed white men, mr. davis, are to-day marching south, in practical acknowledgement that they regard the hanging of three years ago as the murder of a martyr; and as they march to a battle which has the emancipation of all slaves as one of its most glorious results, his name is on their lips; to the music of his memory their marching feet keep time; and as they sling knapsacks each one becomes aware that he is an armed apostle of the faith preached by him, "'who has gone to be a soldier in the army of the lord!' "i am content, if such be the will of providence to ascend the scaffold made sacred by the blood of this martyr; and i rejoice at every prospect of making our struggle more earnest and inexorable on both sides; for the sharper the conflict the sooner ended; the more vigorous and remorseless the strife, the less blood must be shed in it eventually. "in conclusion, let me assure you, that i rejoice with my whole heart that your order in my case, and that of my officers, if unrevoked, will untie our hands for the future; and that we shall be able to treat rebellion as it deserves, and give to the felony of treason a felon's death. "very obediently yours, david hunter, _maj.-gen._" "not long after general hunter's return to the department of the south, the first step towards organizing and recognizing negro troops was taken by our government, in a letter of instructions directing brigadier-general rufus saxton--then military governor of south carolina, georgia and florida, within the limits of gen. hunter's command--to forthwith raise and organize fifty thousand able-bodied blacks, for service as laborers in the quartermaster's department; of whom five thousand--only five thousand, mark you--might be armed and drilled as soldiers for the purpose of 'protecting the women and children of their fellow-laborers who might be absent from home in the public service.' "here was authority given to gen. saxton, over hunter's head, to pursue some steps farther the experiment which hunter--soon followed by general phelps, also included in the rebel order of 'outlawry'--had been the first to initiate. the rebel order still remained in full force, and with no protest against it on the part of our government; nor to our knowledge, was any demand from washington ever made for its revocation during the existence of the confederacy. if hunter, therefore, or any of his officers, had been captured in any of the campaigns of the past two and a half years, they had the pleasant knowledge for their comfort that any rebel officers into whose hands they might fall, was strictly enjoined to--not 'shoot them on the spot,' as was the order of general dix, but to hang them on the first tree; and hang them quickly. [illustration: off for the war. negro men marching aboard a steamer to join their regiments at hilton head, s. c.] "with the subsequent history of our black troops the public is already familiar. general lorenzo thomas, titular adjutant-general of our army, not being regarded as a very efficient officer for that place, was permanently detailed on various services; now exchanging prisoners, now discussing points of military law, now organizing black brigades down the mississippi and elsewhere. in fact, the main object seemed to be to keep this gen. thomas--who must not be confounded with gen. george h. thomas, one of the true heroes of our army,--away from the adjutant-general's office at washington, in order that brigadier-general e. w. townsend--only a colonel until quite recently--might perform all the laborious and crushing duties of adjutant-general of our army, while only signing himself and ranking as first assistant adjutant-general. if there be an officer who has done noble service in the late war while receiving no public credit for the same,--no newspaper puffs nor public ovation,--that man is brigadier-general e. w. townsend, who should long since have been made a major-general, to rank from the first day of the rebellion. "and now let us only add, as practical proof that the rebels, even in their most rabid state, were not insensible to the force of proper "reasons," the following anecdote: some officers of one of the black regiments--colonel higginson's, we believe--indiscreetly rode beyond our lines around st. augustine in pursuit of game, but whether feathered or female this deponent sayeth not. their guide proved to be a spy, who had given notice of the intended expedition to the enemy, and the whole party were soon surprised and captured. the next we heard of them, they were confined in the condemned cells of one of the florida state prisons, and were to be "tried"--i. e., sentenced and executed--as 'having been engaged in inciting negro insurrection.' "we had some wealthy young slave-holders belonging to the first families of south carolina in the custody of lieutenant-colonel j. f. hall--now brigadier-general of this city, who was our provost marshal; and it was on this basis gen. hunter resolved to operate. 'release my officers of black troops from your condemned cells at once, and notify me of the fact. until so notified, your first family prisoners in my hands'--the names then given--'will receive precisely similar treatment. for each of my officers hung, i will hang three of my prisoners who are slave-holders.' this dose operated with instantaneous effect, and the next letter received from our captured officers set forth that they were at large on parole, and treated as well as they could wish to be in that miserable country. "we cannot better conclude this sketch, perhaps, than by giving the brief but pregnant verses in which our ex-orderly, private miles o'reilly, late of the old tenth army corps, gave his opinion on this subject. they were first published in connection with the banquet given in new york by gen. t. f. meagher and the officers of the irish brigade, to the returned veterans of that organization on the th of jan. , at irving hall. of this song it may, perhaps, be said, in verity and without vanity, that, as gen. hunter's letter to mr. wickliffe had settled the negro soldiers' controversy in its official and congressional form, so did the publication and immediate popular adoption of these verses conclude all argument upon this matter in the mind of the general public. its common sense, with a dash of drollery, at once won over the irish, who had been the bitterest opponents of the measure, to become its friends; and from that hour to this, the attacks upon the experiment of our negro soldiery have been so few and far between that, indeed, they may be said to have ceased altogether. it ran as follows, and appeared in the _herald_ the morning after the banquet as a portion of the report of the speeches and festivities: "sambo's right to be kil't. (_air--the low-backed chair._) some say it is a burnin' shame to make the naygurs fight, an' that the thrade o' being kilt belongs but to the white; but as for me, upon me sowl, so liberal are we here, i'll let sambo be murthered in place o' meself on every day in the year. on every day in the year, boys, an' every hour in the day, the right to be kil't i'll divide wid him, an' divil a word i'll say. in battle's wild commotion i shouldn't at all object, if sambo's body should stop a ball that was comin' for me direct; an' the prod of a southern bagnet, so liberal are we here, i'll resign and let sambo take it, on every day in the year. on every day in the year boys, an' wid none o' your nasty pride, all right in a southern bagnet prod wid sambo i'll divide. the men who object to sambo should take his place and fight; an' it's betther to have a naygur's hue than a liver that's wake an' white; though sambo's black as the ace o' spades his finger a thrigger can pull, an' his eye runs sthraight on the barrel sight from under its thatch o' wool. so hear me all, boys, darlins! don't think i'm tippen' you chaff, the right to be kilt i'll divide wid him, an' give him the largest half! "in regard to hunter's reply to mr. wickliffe, we shall only add this anecdote, told us one day by that brilliant gentleman and scholar, the hon "sunset" cox, of ohio (now of new york): 'i tell you, that letter from hunter spoiled the prettiest speech i had ever thought of making. i had been delighted with wickliffe's motion, and thought the reply to it would furnish us first-rate democrat's thunder for the next election. i made up my mind to sail in against hunter's answer--no matter what it was--the moment it came; and to be even more humorously successful in its delivery and reception than i was in my speech against war horse gurley, of ohio, which you have just been complimenting. well, you see, man proposes, but providence orders otherwise. when the clerk announced the receipt of the answer, and that he was about to read it, i caught the speaker's eye and was booked for the first speech against your negro experiment. the first sentence, being formal and official, was very well; but at the second the house began to grin, and at the third, not a man on the floor--except father wickliffe, of kentucky, perhaps--who was not convulsed with laughter. even my own risibles i found to be affected; and before the document was concluded, i motioned the speaker that he might give the floor to whom he pleased, as my desire to distinguish myself in that particular tilt was over.'" chapter iv. officers of the phalanx. the character, qualifications and proficiency of the men, who, as officers, commanded the negro troops, may be judged by the process which they had to undergo in order to obtain commissions. unlike the officers of the white volunteers (with whom loyalty and dash were the essential qualifications) they were required to possess much more than an ordinary knowledge of military tactics. major-general hunter, by whose order the first negro regiment with white officers was organized, commencing may, , had an eye single to the make up of the men who should be placed in command of the regiments. as a beginning, gen. saxton addressed the following letter to capt. t. w. higginson, of the st reg't. mass. volunteers, beaufort, s. c., nov. th, : "my dear sir:--i am organizing the first regiment of south carolina volunteers, with every prospect of success. your name has been spoken of in connection with the command of this regiment, by some friends in whose judgment i have confidence. i take great pleasure in offering you the position of col. in it, and hope that you may be induced to accept. i shall not fill the place until i hear from you, or sufficient time shall have passed for me to receive your reply. should you accept i enclose a pass for port royal, of which i trust you will feel disposed to avail yourself at once. i am, with sincere regard, yours truly, r. saxton, _brig. gen., mil. gov._" this was an excellent selection, and captain higginson's acceptance rather assured a fair trial for the men who should compose this regiment, as well as the quality of its officers. [illustration: major martin r. delaney, u. s. a.] the first kansas regiment which recruited in that state, commencing in august, , was also fortunate in having colonel r. j. hinton. general butler, at new orleans, was prevented by circumstances surrounding him at the time, from choosing among the friends of the negro race, as was the case in the before mentioned regiments, men to command the first and second regiments organized by him in the above named city, in august, . he was only too glad to find white men of military capacity to take charge of the drilling and disciplining of the troops. as an experiment he was more than lucky in the appointment of colonels stafford and daniels to the command of these regiments, seconded by lieut. cols. bassett and hall, and finnegass of the rd regiment. these officers proved themselves worthy of the trust reposed in them, and made these regiments, in drill and discipline, second to none in the department of the gulf. notwithstanding the captains and subordinate officers of the first and second regiments were men, who like those in a large majority of the white regiments had never made arms a profession, and, who, through american prejudice, had but very limited opportunities for acquiring even the rudiments of a common english education. several of them, however, being mulattoes, had had some training in the schools of the parishes, and some few in the higher schools of france, and in the islands of the caribbean sea. maj. dumas, of the nd regiment, whose slaves composed nearly one whole company, was a gentleman of fine tact and ability, as were others. considering that they were all negroes, free and slave, their dash and manly courage, no less than their military aptitude, was equal, and in many instances superior, to those found in the regiments of maine and new york. the rd regiment was officered by soldiers of undoubted character and pluck, as they proved themselves to be, during the siege of port hudson, especially capt. quinn, who won distinction and promotion, as the record shows. the regiments raised thereafter were officered, more or less, by the non-commissioned officers of the white regiments, as a reward for gallantry and meritorious service upon the field, or on account of proficiency in drill. this rule of selection held good throughout all the departments in the organizing of negro troops. in may, , president lincoln, with a view of correcting an abuse that a certain commanding general had begun to practice in assigning inferior, though brave, men to the command of negro regiments; and in keeping with his new policy of arming the negroes, for which gen. lorenzo thomas, adjutant general of the army, had gone into the mississippi valley region to raise twenty regiments, he appointed a board for the examination of those applying for commands in negro regiments. the "record of the th reg't. u.s. colored troops," in regard to the matter, says: "that the labors of this board contributed very materially to the success of the experiment of raising this class of troops, no one cognizant with the facts can doubt. the operations of the board can best be shown by quoting the following letter received from gen. casey in reply to some enquiries on the subject: "brooklyn, nov. th, . * * * "the board for the examination of candidates for officers in colored regiments, of which i was president, was appointed in may, , and continued its duties about two years. this movement was, at first, very unpopular with a portion of the people of the country, as also with a large portion of the army. i, although doubting at first with regard to the expediency of operating in large bodies with this species of force, determined, that so far as i was concerned, it should have a fair trial. "a system was adopted for the examination of candidates which did not allow influence, favor or affection to interfere with the enforcement of its provisions. the board examined nearly three thousand candidates, seventeen hundred of whom they recommended for commissions in various grades, from colonel down. "from my knowledge of the officers of white volunteers, gained in my duties connected with receiving and organizing, in the city of washington, , of them, and also as commander of a division on the peninsula, i have no hesitation in saying that the officers of the colored regiments, _who passed the board_, as a body were superior to them, physically, mentally and morally. "from the concurrent reports received from various sources, there is but little doubt that the success of the colored troops in the field was brought about in no small degree by the action of the board. "the following is the copy of a letter which i addressed to a gentleman of philadelphia, and which you may find of interest: 'in conversation with you a few days since, i promised to elaborate somewhat the ideas which i expressed with regard to the appointment of officers of colored troops. 'military men, whose opinion is worth having, will agree in this, that to have good and efficient troops it is indispensable that we should have good officers. the material for soldiers which the loyal states have furnished during this rebellion, i have no hesitation in saying, is the best that the world has ever seen. such men deserve to have officers to command them who have been educated to the military profession. but few men are really fit to command men who have not had such an education. in default of this, as a sufficient number of such men cannot be found in the country, the number has to be made up from the best available material. in order to ascertain whether or not the aspirant possesses the proper knowledge and capacity for command, it is necessary that he be examined by a board of competent officers. the fact that the life and death of the men of the regiment is intimately connected with the competency of its officers, is not sufficiently appreciated by the community. 'the board for the examination of officers of colored troops over which i preside, considers three things as indispensable before recommending a candidate, viz.: a good moral character, physical capacity, true loyalty to the country. a person possessing these indispensable qualifications is now submitted to an examination as to his knowledge of tactics and capacity for command. 'the following grades are entertained, viz.: colonel-- st, d and d class. lieut.-colonel-- st, d and d class. major-- " captain-- " st lieut.-- " d lieut.-- " and the recommendations for appointment made according to the applicant's merits. 'we have endeavored, to the best of our ability, to make this recommendation without partiality, favor or affection. we consider alone, in making our awards, the ability of the person to serve his country in the duties appertaining to the office. if, in the opinion of the board, the person is not possessed of sufficient knowledge or capacity to fill either of the above named to the advantage of his country, he is rejected, notwithstanding any influence he may be able to bring to bear in the case. let it be remembered that zeal alone is not sufficient; but what we require for a good officer is zeal combined with knowledge. no ordinary man can properly fill the office of colonel of a regiment. to acquire that knowledge of tactics as would fit him to command his regiment, as it ought to be in all situations, requires much study and practice, and is by no means easy. he should, besides, possess good administrative qualities, in order that affairs should run smoothly in his command, and the officers and privates be as contented and happy as circumstances admit. nor can too much trouble be taken properly to prepare persons to fill the responsible position of officers. each state should have its military academy. in the meantime much good can be done by instituting a school for the instruction of persons (especially those who have had some experience in the service) who may have the requisite capacity and zeal to serve their country with advantage. eschew all humbuggery and mere pretension, and let merit be the test of advancement. 'let it be impressed deeply on the conscience of every man of influence and authority that when he places in command an incompetent officer he is guilty of manslaughter. the country has lost millions of treasure and thousands of lives by the incompetency of officers. we have many enemies on earth besides the southern rebels. the fate of free institutions, not only in our own country, but in other lands, the destiny of millions unborn, depend upon our ability to maintain this contest to a successful issue against all our enemies, both foreign and domestic. 'the system of examination instituted by this board, in my opinion, should be extended to the white as well as colored troops. 'many of those who have been unsuccessful in the examination before the board have, no doubt, in some cases, felt aggrieved, as also their friends. 'we have established a system of examination for officers, the good effects of which are already apparent in the colored organizations in the field. in the performance of this responsible, and not always agreeable duty, of presiding over this board, i have always endeavored to be guided by conscientious regard for the good of the country, and i have every confidence that a just and intelligent people will award their approbation. silas casey, _bvt. major-general u.s. army._'" of course this did not apply to regiments raised at the north, generally. they were officered by the _elite_, such as col. r. g. shaw, of the th massachusetts, a former member of the th new york regiment, and upon whose battle monument his name is carved. cols. james c. beecher, wm. birney and a host of others, whose names can now be found on the army rolls, with the prefix general, commanded these regiments. of those who commanded southern regiments this is equally true, especially of those who served in the th, th, th and th corps. col. godfred weitzel, who in march, , had been promoted to major general of volunteers, commanded the th corps of , negro soldiers. the select corps of officers intended to officer gen. ullman's brigade of four regiments to be raised at new orleans by order of the war department, dated january , as well as the battalion, which he was also ordered to raise for scouting purposes, the following march, included many men of rank. to command a negro regiment or company was at this date a coveted prize, for which men of wealth and education contended. the distinction which they were continually winning for their officers, frequently overcame the long-cherished prejudice of west point, and the graduates of this caste institution now vied for commissions in negro regiments, in which many of them served during the rebellion and since. [illustration: capt. o. s. b. wall, u. s. a.] it was the idea of gen. banks when organizing the corps d'afrique to appoint even the non-commissioned officers from the ranks of white regiments, and he did so in several instances. his hostility to negro officers was the cause of his removing them from the regiments, which major general butler organized at new orleans in . in organizing the corps d'afrique, the order, no. , reads: "the commanding general desires to detail for temporary or permanent duty, the best officers of the army, for the organization, instruction, and discipline of this corps. with them he is confident that the corps will render important service to the government. it is not established upon any dogma of equality or other theory, but as a practical and sensible matter of business. the government makes use of mules, horses, uneducated white men in the defence of its institutions; why should not the negro contribute whatever is in his power, for the cause in which he is as deeply interested as other men? we may properly demand from him whatever service he can render." at first it was proposed to pay the officers of negro troops less than was paid the officers of white soldiers, but this plan was abandoned. toward the close of the war nearly all the chaplains appointed to negro regiments were negroes; non-commissioned officers were selected from the ranks, where they were found as well qualified as those taken from the ranks of white regiments. in the th and th corps it was a common thing for the orderly sergeants to call their company's roll from memory, and the records of many companies and regiments are kept at the war department in washington, as mementoes of their efficiency. such were the men who commanded the black phalanx. the following are the names of the negro commissioned officers of the butler louisiana regiments: roster of negro officers of the louisiana native guard volunteer regiments. first regiment. capts. andrew cailloux, louis a. snaer, john depass, " henry l. rey, edward carter, joseph follin, " james lewis, james h. ingraham, aleide lewis. lieuts. lewis petit, ernest sougpre, j. g. parker, " j. e. morre, wm. harding, john hardman, " f. kimball, v. lesner, j. d. paddock, " louis d. lucien. second regiment. major f. e. dumas,[ ] capts. e. a. bertinnean, hannibal carter, e. p. chase, " w. p. barrett, s. w. ringgold, p. b. s. pinchback, " william bellez, monroe menllim, joseph villeverde, " samuel j. wilkerson, r. h. isabella. lieuts. octave rey, j. p. lewis, jasper thompson, " ernest murphy, calvin glover, j. wellington, " louis degray, george t. watson, joseph jones, " alphonso fluery, rufus kinsley, ernest hubian, " theo. a. martin, soloman hoys, alfred arnis, " peter o. depremont. third regiment. capts. jacques gla, peter a. gardner, leon g. forstall, " joseph c. oliver, charles w. gibbons, samuel laurence, " john j. holland. lieuts. paul paree, morris w. morris, emile detrege, " eugene rapp, e. t. nash, alfred bourgoan, " e. moss, chester w. converse, g. b. miller, " g. w. talmon, octave foy, chas. butler. non-commissioned officers. th u. s. c. t. co. i. d la. n. g. sergts. joseph boudraux, andrieu vidal, joseph bellevue, " louis martin, jessy c. wallace, corpls. paul bonne, thos. william, joseph labeaud, " joseph toolmer, louis ford, peter fleming, as "muster in" rolls show. th u. s. c. t. co. d. nd n. g. st sergts. joseph francois, adolph augustin, john frick, " francois remy, louis duquenez. corpls. dorsin sebatier, auguste martin, lucien boute, " adolphe decoud, oscar samuel, andre gregoire, " joseph armand, achilles decoud. as "muster out" rolls show. [illustration: capt. p. b. s. pinchback nd la. vols. surgeon. a. t. augusta. lt. james m. trotter th mass. vols. lt. w. h. dupree th mass. vols.] th u. s. c. t. co. f. rd n. g. sergts. hy. white, robert williams, mathew roden, " frank nichols, corpls. alfred kellie, philip craff, julius vick. as mustered out. rd u. s. c. t. co. a. st la. n. g. sergts. joseph r. forstall, edmund tomlinson, edgar thezan, " numa brihou, edward p. ducloslange, corpls. john g. seldon, thelesphore j. sauvinet, alonzo tocca, " joseph francois, antonio segura, auguste martin, " francois remy, ernest brustic, rd u. s. c. t. co. b. st la. n. g. sergts. faustin zenon, louis francois, august bartholenny, " joseph alfred, wm. armstrong, arthur gaspard was a sergeant at "muster in" of company; discharged for wounds dec. th, . corpls. alphonse barbe, albert victor, wm. john baptist, " louis gille. these were non-commissioned officers of co. b at "muster out." rd u. s. c. t. co. h. st la. n. g. capt. henry l. rey, st lieut. eugene rapp, nd lieut. louis arthur thibaut, st sergt. henry mathien, nd sergt. armand daniel, rd sergt. j. b. dupre. th " felix mathien, th " lucien dupre, corpls. ernest hewlett, frank delhomme, d. j. marine, " felix santini, celestine ferrand, auguste campbell, " narcis hubert, caliste dupre. as "muster in." rd u. s. c. t. co. g, st la. n. g. sergts. theodule drinier, peter pascal, peter robin, " gustave st. leger, armand le blanc. corpls. edward louis, cherry fournette, townsen lee, " john thompson, perrin virgile, william charity, " john marshall, soloman fisher. the above were the non-commissioned officers at "muster out" of company. corporal w. heath, killed at port hudson. th u. s. c. t. co. g. nd la. n. g. sergts. thos. martin, etienne duluc, arthur frilot, " louis martin, j. b. lavigne, corpls. martin forstals, emile duval, gustave ducre, " joseph naroce, polin paree,* jerome alugas, " ernest butin, pierre jignac. * deserted oct. th, . the above were the non-commissioned officers at "muster in" of company, oct. . other regiments. surgeons u. s. army.--dr. w. p. powell, dr. a. t. augusta. major, martin r. delaney. capt., o. s. b. wall. lieuts. th regt.--james m. trotter, chas. l. mitchell, w. h. dupree, " j. f. shorter. there were a number of negroes commissioned during the war whose record it has not been possible to obtain. quite a number of mulattoes served in white regiments, some as officers; they were so light in complexion that their true race connection could not be told. this is true of one of the prominent ohioans of to-day, who served on the staff of a major general of volunteers. there were several among the pennsylvania troops, and not a few in the new york and massachusetts regiments. while lying on a battle-field wounded and exhausted, an officer of the brigade to which the writer belonged, rode up, passed me his canteen, and enquired if i knew him. a negative answer was given. "i am tom bunting," he replied. "you know me now, don't you? we used to play together in our boyhood days in virginia; keep the canteen. i will let your people know about you." so saying he dashed away to his command; he belonged to a massachusetts regiment. there was quite a large number of mulattoes who enlisted under butler, at new orleans, and served in white regiments; this is also true of the confederate army. the writer has an intimate acquaintance now living in richmond, va., who served in a new york regiment, who, while marching along with his regiment through broad street, after the capture of that city, was recognized by his mother, and by her was pulled from the ranks and embraced. a man who became united states marshal of one of the southern states after the war, was captain in the nd louisiana native guards regiment. numerous instances of this kind could be cited. [illustration: serg't. w. h. carney.--co. c. th mass. vols. "the old flag never touched the ground, boys!"] footnotes: [ ] capt. f. e. dumas organized a company of his own slaves, and attached it to this regiment. he was promoted to the rank of major, and commanded two companies at pascagoula, miss., during the fight. he was a free negro, wealthy, brave and loyal. chapter v. department of the gulf. when admiral farragut's fleet anchored at new orleans, and butler occupied the city, three regiments of confederate negro troops were under arms guarding the united states mint building, with orders to destroy it before surrendering it to the yankees. the brigade, however, was in command of a creole mulatto, who, instead of carrying out the orders given him, and following the troops out of the city on their retreat, counter-marched his command and was cut off from the main body of the army by the federal forces, to whom they quietly surrendered a few days after. general phelps commanded the federal forces at carrolton, about seven miles from new orleans, the principal point in the cordon around the city. here the slaves congregated in large numbers, seeking freedom and protection from their barbarous overseers and masters. some of these poor creatures wore irons and chains; some came bleeding from gunshot wounds. general phelps was an old abolitionist, and had early conceived the idea that the proper thing to do was for the government to arm the negroes. now came his opportunity to act. hundreds of able-bodied men were in his camps, ready and willing to fight for their freedom and the preservation of the union. the secessionists in that neighborhood complained to general butler about their negroes leaving them and going into camp with the yankees. so numerous were the complaints, that the general, acting under orders from washington, and also foreseeing that general phelps intended allowing the slaves to gather at his post, issued the following order: "new orleans, may , . "general:--you will cause all unemployed persons, black and white, to be excluded from your lines. "you will not permit either black or white persons to pass your lines, not officers and soldiers or belonging to the navy of the united states, without a pass from these headquarters, except they are brought in under guard as captured persons, with information, and those to be examined and detained as prisoners of war, if they have been in arms against the united states, or dismissed and sent away at once, as the case may be. this does not apply to boats passing up the river without landing within the lines. "provision dealers and marketmen are to be allowed to pass in with provisions and their wares, but not to remain over night. "persons having had their permanent residence within your lines before the occupation of our troops, are not to be considered unemployed persons. "your officers have reported a large number of servants. every officer so reported employing servants will have the allowance for servants deducted from his pay-roll. respectfully, your obedient servant, b. f. butler. "brig.-gen. phelps, commanding camp parapet." this struck gen. phelps as an inhuman order, though he obeyed it and placed the slaves just outside of his camp lines. here the solders, having drank in the spirit of their commander, cared for the fugitives from slavery. but they continued to come, according to divine appointment, and their increase prompted gen. phelps to write this patriotic, pathetic and eloquent appeal, knowing it must reach the president: "camp parapet, near carrollton, la., june , . "capt. r. s. davis, acting assistant adjutant-general, new orleans. la.: "sir: i enclose herewith, for the information of the major-general commanding the department, a report of major peck, officer of the day, concerning a large number of negroes, of both sexes and all ages, who are lying near our pickets, with bag and baggage, as if they had already commenced an exodus. many of these negroes have been sent away from one of the neighboring sugar plantations by their owner, a mr. babilliard la blanche, who tells them, i am informed, that 'the yankees are king here now, and that they must go to their king for food and shelter.' "they are of that four millions of our colored subjects who have no king or chief, nor in fact any government that can secure to them the simplest natural rights. they can not even be entered into treaty stipulations with and deported to the east, as our indian tribes have been to the west. they have no right to the mediation of a justice of the peace or jury between them and chains and lashes. they have no right to wages for their labor; no right to the sabbath; no right to the institution of marriage; no right to letters or to self-defense. a small class of owners, rendered unfeeling, and even unconscious and unreflecting by habit, and a large part of them ignorant and vicious, stand between them and their government, destroying its sovereignty. this government has not the power even to regulate the number of lashes that its subjects may receive. it can not say that they shall receive thirty-nine instead of forty. to a large and growing class of its subjects it can secure neither justice, moderation, nor the advantages of christian religion; and if it can not protect _all_ its subjects, it can protect none, either black or white. "it is nearly a hundred years since our people first declared to the nations of the world that all men are born free; and still we have not made our declaration good. highly revolutionary measures have since then been adopted by the admission of missouri and the annexation of texas in favor of slavery by the barest majorities of votes, while the highly conservative vote of two-thirds has at length been attained against slavery, and still slavery exists--even, moreover, although two-thirds of the blood in the veins of our slaves is fast becoming from our own race. if we wait for a larger vote, or until our slaves' blood becomes more consanguined still with our own, the danger of a violent revolution, over which we can have no control, must become more imminent every day. by a course of undecided action, determined by no policy but the vague will of a war-distracted people, we run the risk of precipitating that very revolutionary violence which we seem seeking to avoid. "let us regard for a moment the elements of such a revolution. [illustration: washing in camp] "many of the slaves here have been sold away from the border states as a punishment, being too refractory to be dealt with there in the face of the civilization of the north. they come here with the knowledge of the christian religion, with its germs planted and expanding, as it were, in the dark, rich soil of their african nature, with feelings of relationship with the families from which they came, and with a sense of unmerited banishment as culprits, all which tends to bring upon them a greater severity of treatment and a corresponding disinclination 'to receive punishment'. they are far superior beings to their ancestors, who were brought from africa two generations ago, and who occasionally rebelled against comparatively less severe punishment than is inflicted now. while rising in the scale of christian beings, their treatment is being rendered more severe than ever. the whip, the chains, the stocks, and imprisonment are no mere fancies here; they are used to any extent to which the imagination of civilized man may reach. many of them are as intelligent as their masters, and far more moral, for while the slave appeals to the moral law as his vindication, clinging to it as to the very horns of the altar of his safety and his hope, the master seldom hesitates to wrest him from it with violence and contempt. the slave, it is true, bears no resentment; he asks for no punishment for his master; he simply claims justice for himself; and it is this feature of his condition that promises more terror to the retribution when it comes. even now the whites stand accursed by their oppression of humanity, being subject to a degree of confusion, chaos, and enslavement to error and wrong, which northern society could not credit or comprehend. "added to the four millions of the colored race whose disaffection is increasing even more rapidly than their number, there are at least four millions more of the white race whose growing miseries will naturally seek companionship with those of the blacks. this latter portion of southern society has its representatives, who swing from the scaffold with the same desperate coolness, though from a directly different cause, as that which was manifested by john brown. the traitor mumford, who swung the other day for trampling on the national flag, had been rendered placid and indifferent in his desperation by a government that either could not or would not secure to its subjects the blessings of liberty which that flag imports. the south cries for justice from the government as well as the north, though in a proud and resentful spirit; and in what manner is that justice to be obtained? is it to be secured by that wretched resource of a set of profligate politicians, called 'reconstruction?' no, it is to be obtained by the abolition of slavery, and by no other course. "it is vain to deny that the slave system of labor is giving shape to the government of the society where it exists, and that that government is not republican, either in form or spirit. it was through this system that the leading conspirators have sought to fasten upon the people an aristocracy or a despotism; and it is not sufficient that they should be merely defeated in their object, and the country be rid of their rebellion; for by our constitution we are imperatively obliged to sustain the state against the ambition of unprincipled leaders, and secure to them the republican form of government. we have positive duties to perform, and should hence adopt and pursue a positive, decided policy. we have services to render to certain states which they cannot perform for themselves. we are in an emergency which the framers of the constitution might easily have foreseen, and for which they have amply provided. "it is clear that the public good requires slavery to be abolished; but in what manner is it to be done? the mere quiet operation of congressional law can not deal with slavery as in its former status before the war, because the spirit of law is right reason, and there is no reason in slavery. a system so unreasonable as slavery can not be regulated by reason. we can hardly expect the several states to adopt laws or measures against their own immediate interests. we have seen that they will rather find arguments for crime than seek measures for abolishing or modifying slavery. but there is one principle which is fully recognized as a necessity in conditions like ours, and that is that the public safety is the supreme law of the state, and that amid the clash of arms the laws of peace are silent. it is then for our president, the commander-in-chief of our armies, to declare the abolition of slavery, leaving it to the wisdom of congress to adopt measures to meet the consequences. this is the usual course pursued by a general or by a military power. that power gives orders affecting complicated interests and millions of property, leaving it to the other functions of government to adjust and regulate the effects produced. let the president abolish slavery, and it would be an easy matter for congress, through a well-regulated system of apprenticeship, to adopt safe measures for effecting a gradual transition from slavery to freedom. "the existing system of labor in louisiana is unsuited to the age; and by the intrusion of the national forces it seems falling to pieces. it is a system of mutual jealousy and suspicion between the master and the man--a system of violence, immorality and vice. the fugitive negro tells us that our presence renders his condition worse with his master than it was before, and that we offer no alleviation in return. the system is impolitic, because it offers but one stimulent to labor and effort, viz.: the lash, when another, viz.: money, might be added with good effect. fear, and the other low and bad qualities of the slave, are appealed to, but never the good. the relation, therefore, between capital and labor, which ought to be generous and confiding, is darkling, suspicious, unkindly, full of reproachful threats, and without concord or peace. this condition of things renders the interests of society a prey to politicians. politics cease to be practical or useful. "the questions that ought to have been discussed in the late extraordinary convention of louisiana, are: _first_, what ought the state of louisiana to do to adopt her ancient system of labor to the present advanced spirit of the age? and _second_, how can the state be assisted by the general government in effecting the change? but instead of this, the only question before that body was how to vindicate slavery by flogging the yankees! "compromises hereafter are not to be made with politicians, but with sturdy labor and the right to work. the interests of workingmen resent political trifling. our political education, shaped almost entirely to the interest of slavery, has been false and vicious in the extreme, and it must be corrected with as much suddenness, almost, as that with which salem witchcraft came to an end. the only question that remains to decide is how the change shall take place. "we are not without examples and precedents in the history of the past. the enfranchisement of the people of europe has been, and is still going on, through the instrumentality of military service; and by this means our slaves might be raised in the scale of civilization and prepared for freedom. fifty regiments might be raised among them at once, which could be employed in this climate to preserve order, and thus prevent the necessity of retrenching our liberties, as we should do by a large army exclusively of whites. for it is evident that a considerable army of whites would give stringency to our government, while an army, partly of blacks, would naturally operate in favor of freedom and against those influences which at present most endanger our liberties. at the end of five years they could be sent to africa, and their places filled with new enlistments. "there is no practical evidence against the effects of immediate abolition, even if there is not in its favor. i have witnessed the sudden abolition of flogging at will in the army, and of legalized flogging in the navy, against the prejudice-warped judgments of both, and, from the beneficial effects there, i have nothing to fear from the immediate abolition of slavery. i fear, rather, the violent consequences from a continuance of the evil. but should such an act devastate the whole state of louisiana, and render the whole soil here but the mere passage-way of the fruits of the enterprise and industry of the northwest, it would be better for the country at large than it is now as the seat of disaffection and rebellion. "when it is remembered that not a word is found in our constitution sanctioning the buying and selling of human beings, a shameless act which renders our country the disgrace of christendom, and worse, in this respect, even than africa herself, we should have less dread of seeing the degrading traffic stopped at once and forever. half wages are already virtually paid for slave labor in the system of tasks which, in an unwilling spirit of compromise, most of the slave states have already been compelled to adopt. at the end of five years of apprenticeship, or of fifteen at farthest, full wages could be paid to the enfranchised negro race, to the double advantage of both master and man. this is just; for we now hold the slaves of louisiana by the same tenure that the state can alone claim them, viz: by the original right of conquest. we have so far conquered them that a proclamation setting them free, coupled with offers of protection, would devastate every plantation in the state. "in conclusion, i may state that mr. la blanche is, as i am informed, a descendant from one of the oldest families of louisiana. he is wealthy and a man of standing, and his act in sending away his negroes to our lines, with their clothes and furniture, appears to indicate the convictions of his own mind as to the proper logical consequences and deductions that should follow from the present relative status of the two contending parties. he seems to be convinced that the proper result of the conflict is the manumission of the slave, and he may be safely regarded in this respect as a representative man of the state. i so regard him myself, and thus do i interpret his action, although my camp now contains some of the highest symbols of secessionism, which have been taken by a party of the seventh vermont volunteers from his residence. "meantime his slaves, old and young, little ones and all, are suffering from exposure and uncertainty as to their future condition. driven away by their master, with threats of violence if they return, and with no decided welcome or reception from us, what is to be their lot? considerations of humanity are pressing for an immediate solution of their difficulties; and they are but a small portion of their race who have sought, and are still seeking, our pickets and our military stations, declaring that they can not and will not any longer serve their masters, and that all they want is work and protection from us. in such a state of things, the question occurs as to my own action in the case. i cannot return them to their masters, who not unfrequently come in search of them, for i am, fortunately, prohibited by an article of war from doing that, even if my own nature did not revolt at it. i can not receive them, for i have neither work, shelter, nor the means or plan of transporting them to hayti, or of making suitable arrangements with their masters until they can be provided for. "it is evident that some plan, some policy, or some system is necessary on the part of the government, without which the agent can do nothing, and all his efforts are rendered useless and of no effect. this is no new condition in which i find myself; it is my experience during the some twenty-five years of my public life as a military officer of the government. the new article of war recently adopted by congress, rendering it criminal in an officer of the army to return fugitives from injustice, is the first support that i have ever felt from the government in contending against those slave influences which are opposed to its character and to its interests. but the mere refusal to return fugitives does not now meet the case. a public agent in the present emergency must be invested with wider and more positive powers than this, or his services will prove as valueless to the country as they are unsatisfactory to himself. "desiring this communication to be laid before the president, and leaving my commission at his disposal, i have the honor to remain, sir, "very respectfully, your obedient servant, j. w. phelps, _brigadier-general._" on the day on which he received this letter, gen. butler forwarded to washington this dispatch: "new orleans, la., june , . "hon. e. m. stanton, secretary of war: "sir:--since my last dispatch was written, i have received the accompanying report from general phelps. "it is not my duty to enter into a discussion of the questions which it presents. "i desire, however, to state the information of mr. la blanche, given me by his friends and neighbors, and also _jack_ la blanche, his slave, who seems to be the leader of this party of negroes. mr. la blanche i have not seen. he, however, claims to be loyal, and to have taken no part in the war, but to have lived quietly on his plantation, some twelve miles above new orleans, on the opposite side of the river. he has a son in the secession army, whose uniform and equipments, &c., are the symbols of secession of which general phelps speaks. mr. la blanche's house was searched by the order of general phelps, for arms and contraband of war, and his neighbors say that his negroes were told that they were free if they would come to the general's camp. [illustration: cooking in camp] "that thereupon the negroes, under the lead of jack, determined to leave, and for that purpose crowded into a small boat which, from overloading, was in danger of swamping. "la blanche then told his negroes that if they were determined to go, they would be drowned, and he would hire them a large boat to put them across the river, and that they might have their furniture if they would go and leave his plantation and crop to ruin. "they decided to go, and la blanche did all a man could to make that going safe. "the account of general phelps is the negro side of the story; that above given is the story of mr. la blanche's neighbors, some of whom i know to be loyal men. "an order against negroes being allowed in camp is the reason they are outside. "mr. la blanche is represented to be a humane man, and did not consent to the 'exodus' of his negroes. "general phelps, i believe, intends making this a test case for the policy of the government. i wish it might be so, for the difference of our action upon this subject is a source of trouble. i respect his honest sincerity of opinion, but i am a soldier, bound to carry out the wishes of my government so long as i hold its commission, and i understand that policy to be the one i am pursuing. i do not feel at liberty to pursue any other. if the policy of the government is nearly that i sketched in my report upon the subject and that which i have ordered in this department, then the services of general phelps are worse than useless here. if the views set forth in his report are to obtain, then he is invaluable, for his whole soul is in it, and he is a good soldier of large experience, and no braver man lives. i beg to leave the whole question with the president, with perhaps the needless assurance that his wishes shall be loyalty followed, were they not in accordance with my own, as i have now no right to have any upon the subject. "i write in haste, as the steamer 'mississippi' is awaiting this dispatch. "awaiting the earliest possible instructions, i have the honor to be, "your most obedient servant, "b. f. butler, _major general commanding._" gen. phelps waited about six weeks for a reply, but none came. meanwhile the negroes continued to gather at his camp. he said, in regard to not receiving an answer, "i was left to the inference that silence gives consent, and proceeded therefore to take such decided measures as appeared best calculated, to me, to dispose of the difficulty." accordingly he made the following requisition upon headquarters: "camp parapet, la., july , . "captain r. s. davis, a. a. a. general, new orleans, la.: "sir:--i enclose herewith requisitions for arms, accouterments, clothing, camp and garrison equipage, &c., for three regiments of africans, which i propose to raise for the defense of this point. the location is swampy and unhealthy, and our men are dying at the rate of two or three a day. "the southern loyalists are willing, as i understand, to furnish their share of the tax for the support of the war; but they should also furnish their quota of men, which they have not thus far done. an opportunity now offers of supplying the deficiency; and it is not safe to neglect opportunities in war. i think that, with the proper facilities, i could raise the three regiments proposed in a short time. without holding out any inducements, or offering any reward, i have now upward of three hundred africans organized into five companies, who are all willing and ready to show their devotion to our cause in any way that it may be put to the test. they are willing to submit to anything rather than to slavery. society in the south seems to be on the point of dissolution; and the best way of preventing the african from becoming instrumental in a general state of anarchy, is to enlist him in the cause of the republic. if we reject his services, any petty military chieftain, by offering him freedom, can have them for the purpose of robbery and plunder. it is for the interests of the south, as well of the north, that the african should be permitted to offer his block for the temple of freedom. sentiments unworthy of the man of the present day--worthy only of another cain--could alone prevent such an offer from being accepted. i would recommend that the cadet graduates of the present year should be sent to south carolina and this point to organize and discipline our african levies, and that the more promising non-commissioned officers and privates of the army be appointed as company officers to command them. prompt and energetic efforts in this direction would probably accomplish more toward a speedy termination of the war, and an early restoration of peace and unity, than any other course which could be adopted. "i have the honor to remain, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, j. w. phelps, _brigadier-general._" this reply was received: new orleans, july , . "general:--the general commanding wishes you to employ the contrabands in and about your camp in cutting down all the trees, &c., between your lines and the lake, and in forming abatis, according to the plan agreed upon between you and lieutenant weitzel when he visited you some time since. what wood is not needed by you is much needed in this city. for this purpose i have ordered the quartermaster to furnish you with axes, and tents for the contrabands to be quartered in. "i am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "by order of major-general butler. "r. s. davis, capt. and a. a. a. g. "to brigadier-general j. w. phelps, camp parapet." general butler's effort to turn the attention of gen. phelps to the law of congress recently passed was of no avail, that officer was determined in his policy of warring on the enemy; but finding general butler as firm in his policy of leniency, and knowing of his strong pro-slavery sentiments prior to the war,--notwithstanding his "contraband" order at fortress monroe,--general phelps felt as though he would be humiliated if he departed from his own policy and became what he regarded as a slave-driver, therefore he determined to resign. he replied to general butler as follows: "camp parapet, la., july , . "captain r. s. davis, a. a. a. general, new orleans, la.: "sir:--the communication from your office of this date, signed, 'by order of major-general butler,' directing me to employ the 'contrabands' in and about my camp in cutting down all the trees between my lines and the lake, etc., has just been received. "in reply, i must state that while i am willing to prepare african regiments for the defense of the government against its assailants, i am not willing to become the mere slave-driver which you propose, having no qualifications in that way. i am, therefore, under the necessity of tendering the resignation of my commission as an officer of the army of the united states, and respectfully request a leave of absence until it is accepted, in accordance with paragraph , page , of the general regulations. "while i am writing, at half-past eight o'clock p. m., a colored man is brought in by one of the pickets who has just been wounded in the side by a charge of shot, which he says was fired at him by one of a party of three slave-hunters or guerillas, a mile or more from our line of sentinels. as it is some distance from the camp to the lake, the party of wood-choppers which you have directed will probably need a considerable force to guard them against similar attacks. "i have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "j. w. phelps, _brigadier-general._" phelps was one of butler's most trusted commanders, and the latter endeavored, but in vain, to have him reconsider his resignation. general butler wrote him: new orleans, august, , . "general:--i was somewhat surprised to receive your resignation for the reasons stated. "when you were put in command at camp parapet, i sent lieutenant weitzel, my chief engineer, to make a reconnoissance of the lines of carrollton, and i understand it was agreed between you and the engineer that a removal of the wood between lake pontchartrain and the right of your intrenchment was a necessary military precaution. the work could not be done at that time because of the stage of water and the want of men. but now both water and men concur. you have five hundred africans organized into companies, you write me. this work they are fitted to do. it must either be done by them or my soldiers, now drilled and disciplined. you have said the location is unhealthy for the soldier; it is not to the negro; is it not best that these unemployed africans should do this labor? my attention is specially called to this matter at the present time, because there are reports of demonstrations to be made on your lines by the rebels, and in my judgment it is a matter of necessary precaution thus to clear the right of your line, so that you can receive the proper aid from the gunboats on the lake, besides preventing the enemy from having cover. to do this the negroes ought to be employed; and in so employing them i see no evidence of 'slave-driving' or employing you as a 'slave-driver.' "the soldiers of the army of the potomac did this very thing last summer in front of arlington heights; are the negroes any better than they? "because of an order to do this necessary thing to protect your front, threatened by the enemy, you tender your resignation and ask immediate leave of absence. i assure you i did not expect this, either from your courage, your patriotism, or your good sense. to resign in the face of an enemy has not been the highest plaudit to a soldier, especially when the reason assigned is that he is ordered to do that which a recent act of congress has specially authorized a military commander to do, _i. e._, employ the africans to do the necessary work about a camp or upon a fortification. "general, your resignation will not be accepted by me, leave of absence will not be granted, and you will see to it that my orders, thus necessary for the defense of the city, are faithfully and diligently executed, upon the responsibility that a soldier in the field owes to his superior. i will see that all proper requisitions for the food, shelter, and clothing of these negroes so at work are at once filled by the proper departments. you will also send out a proper guard to protect the laborers against the guerilla force, if any, that may be in the neighborhood. "i am your obedient servant, "benj. f. butler, _major-general commanding._ "brigadier-general j. w. phelps, _commanding at camp parapet._" on the same day, general butler wrote again to general phelps: "new orleans, august , . "general:--by the act of congress, as i understand it, the president of the united states alone has the authority to employ africans in arms as a part of the military forces of the united states. "every law up to this time raising volunteer or militia forces has been opposed to their employment. the president has not as yet indicated his purpose to employ the africans in arms. "the arms, clothing, and camp equipage which i have here for the louisiana volunteers, is, by the letter of the secretary of war, expressly limited to white soldiers, so that i have no authority to divert them, however much i may desire so to do. "i do not think you are empowered to organize into companies negroes, and drill them as a military organization, as i am not surprised, but unexpectedly informed you have done. i cannot sanction this course of action as at present advised, specially when we have need of the services of the blacks, who are being sheltered upon the outskirts of your camp, as you will see by the orders for their employment sent you by the assistant adjutant-general. "i will send your application to the president, but in the mean time you must desist from the formation of any negro military organization. "i am your obedient servant, "benj. f. butler, _major-general commanding._ "brigadier-general phelps, _commanding forces at camp parapet._" general phelps' resignation was accepted by the government. he received notification of the fact on the th of september and immediately prepared to return to his farm in vermont. in parting with his officers, who were, like his soldiers, much attached to him, he said: "and now, with earnest wishes for your welfare, and aspirations for the success of the great cause for which you are here, i bid you good-bye." says parton: "when at length, the government had arrived at a negro policy, and was arming slaves, the president offered general phelps a major-general's commission. he replied, it is said, that he would willingly accept the commission if it were dated back to the day of his resignation, so as to carry with it an approval of his course at camp parapet. this was declined, and general phelps remains in retirement. i suppose the president felt that an indorsement of general phelps' conduct would imply a censure of general butler, whose conduct every candid person, i think, must admit, was just, forbearing, magnanimous." general butler was carrying out the policy of the government at that time, but it was not long before he found it necessary to inaugurate a policy of his own for the safety of his command. on the th of august breckenridge assaulted baton rouge, the capital of the state, which firmly convinced general butler of the necessity of raising troops to defend new orleans. he had somewhat realized his situation in july and appealed to the "home authorities" for reinforcements, but none could be sent. still, the secretary of war said to him, in reply to his application: "new orleans must be held at all hazards." with new orleans threatened and no hope of reinforcement, general butler, on the d day of august, before general phelps had retired to private life, was obliged to accept the policy of arming negroes. he issued the following order: "headquarters department of the gulf, general orders "new orleans, august , . no. . "whereas on the d day of april, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one, at a public meeting of the free colored population of the city of new orleans, a military organization, known as the "native guards" (colored,) had its existence, which military organization was duly and legally enrolled as a part of the militia of the state, its officers being commissioned by thomas o. moore, governor and commander-in-chief of the militia of the state of louisiana, in the form following, that is to say: "'the state of louisiana. [seal of the state.] "'by thomas overton moore, governor of the state of louisiana, and commander-in-chief of the militia thereof. "'in the name and by the authority of the state of louisiana: know ye that ----- ----, having been duly and legally elected captain of the "native guards" (colored,) st division of the militia of louisiana, to serve for the term of the war, "'i do hereby appoint and commission him captain as aforesaid, to take rank as such, from the d day of may, eighteen hundred and sixty-one. "'he is, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duties of his office by doing and performing all manner of things thereto belonging. and i do strictly charge and require all officers, non-commissioned officers and privates under his command, to be obedient to his orders as captain; and he is to observe and follow such orders and directions, from time to time, as he shall receive from me, or the future governor of the state of louisiana, or other superior officers, according to the rules and articles of war, and in conformity to law. "'in testimony whereof, i have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the state to be hereunto annexed. "'given under my hand, at the city of baton rouge, on the second day of may, in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one. [l.s.] [signed,] thos. o. moore. "'by the governor: [signed,] "'p. d. hardy, secretary of state. [endorsed.] "'i, maurice grivot, adjutant and inspector general of the state of louisiana, do hereby certify that ---- ----, named in the within commission, did, on the second day of may, in the year , deposit in my office his written acceptance of the office to which he is commissioned, and his oath of office taken according to law. [signed,] "'m. grivot, adjutant and inspector general, la.' "and whereas, said military organization elicited praise and respect, and was complimented in general orders for its patriotism and loyalty, and was ordered to continue during the war, in the words following: "'headquarters louisiana militia, "'order no. .] "'adjutant general's office, march , . "'i.--the governor and commander-in-chief, relying implicitly upon the loyalty of the free colored population of the city and state for the protection of their homes, their property, and for southern rights, from the pollution of a ruthless invader, and believing that the military organization which existed prior to the th of february, , and elicited praise and respect for the patriotic motives which prompted it, should exist for and during the war, calls upon them to maintain their organization, and to hold themselves prepared for such orders as may be transmitted to them. "'ii.--the colonel commanding will report without delay to major general lewis, commanding state militia. "'by order of thos. o. moore, governor. [signed,] m. grivot, adjutant general.' "and whereas, said military organization, by the same order, was directed to report to major-general lewis for service, but did not leave the city of new orleans when he did: "now, therefore, the commanding general, believing that a large portion of this militia force of the state of louisiana are willing to take service in the volunteer forces of the united states, and be enrolled and organized to 'defend their homes from 'ruthless invaders;' to protect their wives and children and kindred from wrong and outrage; to shield their property from being seized by bad men; and to defend the flag of their native country as their fathers did under jackson at chalmette against packenham and his myrmidons, carrying the black flag of 'beauty and booty;' "appreciating their motives, relying upon their 'well-known loyalty and patriotism,' and with 'praise and respect' for these brave men--it is ordered that all the members of the 'native guards' aforesaid, and all other free colored citizens recognized by the first and late governor and authorities of the state of louisiana as a portion of the militia of the state, who shall enlist in the volunteer service of the united states, shall be duly organized by the appointment of proper officers, and accepted, paid, equipped, armed and rationed as are other volunteer troops of the united states, subject to the approval of the president of the united states. all such persons are required at once to report themselves at the touro charity building, front levee st., new orleans, where proper officers will muster them into the service of the united states. "by command of major general butler: "r. s. davis, _capt. and a. a. a. g._" notwithstanding the harsh treatment they had been receiving from military-governor shepley and the provost guard, the rendezvous designated was the scene of a busy throng the next day. thousands of men were enlisted during the first week, and in fourteen days a regiment was organized. the first regiment's line officers were colored, and the field officers were white. those who made up this regiment were not all free negroes by more than half. any negro who would swear that he was free, if physically good, was accepted, and of the many thousand slave fugitives in the city from distant plantations, hundreds found their way into touro building and ultimately into the ranks of the three regiments formed at that building. the second, like the first, had all colored line officers; the third was officered regardless of color. this was going beyond the line laid down by general phelps. he proposed that white men should take command of these troops exclusively. by november these three regiments were in the field, where in course of time they often met their former masters face to face and exchanged shots with them. the pro-slavery men of the north and their newspapers endeavored to make the soldiers in the field believe that the negroes would not fight; while not only the papers and the soldiers, but many officers, especially those from the west point academy, denounced general butler for organizing the regiments. general weitzel, to whose command these regiments were assigned in an expedition up the river, objected to them, and asked butler to relieve him of the command of the expedition. butler wrote him in reply: "you say that in these organizations you have no confidence. as your reading must have made you aware, general jackson entertained a different opinion upon that subject. it was arranged between the commanding general and yourself, that the colored regiments should be employed in guarding the railroad. you don't complain, in your report, that they either failed in this duty, or that they have acted otherwise than correctly and obediently to the commands of their officers, or that they have committed any outrage or pillage upon the inhabitants. the general was aware of your opinion, that colored men will not fight. you have failed to show, by the conduct of these free men, so far, anything to sustain that opinion. and the general cannot see why you should decline the command, especially as you express a willingness to go forward to meet the only organized enemy with your brigade alone, without farther support. the commanding general cannot see how the fact that they are guarding your line of communication by railroad, can weaken your defense. he must, therefore, look to the other reasons stated by you, for an explanation of your declining the command. "you say that since the arrival of the negro regiment you have seen symptoms of a servile insurrection. but as the only regiment that arrived there got there as soon as your own command, of course the appearance of such symptoms is since their arrival. "have you not mistaken the cause? is it the arrival of a negro regiment, or is it the arrival of united states troops, carrying by the act of congress freedom to this servile race? did you expect to march into that country, drained, as you say it is, by conscription of all its able-bodied white men, without leaving the negroes free to show symptoms of servile insurrection? does not this state of things arise from the very fact of war itself? you are in a country where now the negroes outnumber the whites ten to one, and these whites are in rebellion against the government, or in terror seeking its protection. upon reflection, can you doubt that the same state of things would have arisen without the presence of a colored regiment? did you not see symptoms of the same things upon the plantations here upon our arrival, although, under much less favorable circumstances for revolt? "you say that the prospect of such an insurrection is heart-rending, and that you cannot be responsible for it. the responsibility rests upon those who have begun and carried out this war, and who have stopped at no barbarity, at no act of outrage, upon the citizens and soldiers of the united states. you have forwarded me the records of a pretended court-martial, showing that seven men of one of your regiments, who enlisted here in the eighth vermont, who had surrendered themselves prisoners of war, were in cold blood murdered, and, as certain information shows me, required to dig their own graves! you are asked if this is not an occurrence as heart-rending as a prospective servile insurrection. "the question is now to be met, whether, in a hostile, rebellious part of the state, where this very murder has been committed by the militia, you are to stop in the operations of the field to put down servile insurrection, because the men and women are terror-stricken? whenever was it heard before that a victorious general, in an unsurrendered province, stopped in his course for the purpose of preventing the rebellious inhabitants of that province from destroying each other, or refuse to take command of a conquered province lest he should be made responsible for their self-destruction? "as a military question, perhaps, the more terror-stricken the inhabitants are that are left in your rear, the more safe will be your lines of communication. you say there have appeared before your eyes the very facts, in terror-stricken women and children and men, which you had before contemplated in theory. grant it. but is not the remedy to be found in the surrender of the neighbors, fathers, brothers, and sons of the terror-stricken women and children, who are now in arms against the government within twenty miles of you? and when that is done, and you have no longer to fear from these organized forces, and they have returned peaceably to their homes, you will be able to use the full power of your troops to insure your safety from the so much feared (by them, not by you) servile insurrection. [illustration: point isabel, texas. phalanx soldiers on duty, throwing up earthworks.] "if you desire, you can send a flag of truce to the commander of these forces, embracing these views, and placing upon him the responsibility which belongs to him. even that course will not remove it from you, for upon you it has never rested. say to them, that if all armed opposition to the authority of the united states shall cease in louisiana, on the west bank of the river, you are authorized by the commanding general to say, that the same protection against negro or other violence will be afforded that part of louisiana that has been in the part already in the possession of the united states. if that is refused, whatever may ensue is upon them, and not upon you or upon the united states. you will have done all that is required of a brave, humane man, to avert from these deluded people the horrible consequences of their insane war upon the government. * * * * "consider this case. general bragg is at liberty to ravage the houses of our brethren of kentucky because the union army of louisiana are protecting his wife and his home against his negroes. without that protection he would have to come back to take care of his wife, his home and his negroes. it is understood that mrs. bragg is one of the terrified women of whom you speak in your report. "this subject is not for the first time under the consideration of the commanding general. when in command of the department of annapolis, in may, , he was asked to protect a community against the consequences of a servile insurrection. he replied, that when that community laid down its arms, and called upon him for protection, he would give it, because from that moment between them and him war would cease. the same principle initiated there will govern his and your actions now; and you will afford such protection as soon as the community through its organized rulers shall ask it. " * * * * in the mean time, these colored regiments of free men, raised by the authority of the president, and approved by him as the commander-in-chief of the army, must be commanded by the officers of the army of the united states, like any other regiment." general butler continued general weitzel in command but placed the negroes under another officer. however, general weitzel; like thousands of others, changed his mind in regard to the colored troops. "if he was not convinced by general butler's reasoning," says parton, "he must have been convinced by what he saw of the conduct of those very colored regiments at port hudson, where he himself gave such a glorious example of prudence and gallantry." notwithstanding these troops did good service, it did not soften or remove very much of the prejudice at the north against the negro soldiers, nor in the ranks of the army. many incidents might be cited to show the feeling of bitterness against them.[ ] however, general butler's example was followed very soon by every officer in command, and by the time the president's emancipation proclamation was issued there were not less than , negroes armed and equipped along the mississippi river. of course the government knew nothing of this.(?) not only armed, but some of them had been in skirmishes with the enemy. that as a phalanx they were invaluable in crushing the rebellion, let their acts of heroism tell. in the light of history and of their own deeds, it can be said that in courage, patriotism and dash, they were second to no troops, either in ancient or modern armies. they were enlisted after rigid scrutiny, and the examination of every man by competent surgeons. their acquaintance with the country in which they marched, encamped and fought, made them in many instances superior to the white troops. then to strengthen their valor and tenacity, each soldier of the phalanx knew when he heard the long roll beat to arms, and the bugle sound the charge, that they were not to go forth to meet those who regarded them as opponents in arms, but who met them as a man in his last desperate effort for life would meet demons; they knew, also, that there was no reserve--no reinforcements behind to support them when they went to battle; their alternative was _life or death_. it was the consciousness of this fact that made the black phalanx a wall of adamant to the enemy. the not unnatural willingness of the white soldiers to allow the negro troops to stop the bullets that they would otherwise have to receive was shown in general bank's red river campaign. at pleasant grove, dickey's black brigade prevented a slaughter of the union troops. the black phalanx were represented there by a brigade attached to the first division of the th corps. when the confederates routed the army under banks at sabine cross roads, below mansfield, they drove it for several hours toward pleasant grove, despite the ardor of the combined forces of banks and franklin. it became apparent that unless the confederates could be checked at this point, all was lost. general emory prepared for the emergency on the western edge of a wood, with an open field sloping toward mansfield. here general dwight formed a brigade of the black phalanx across the road. hardly was the line formed when out came the gallant foe driving , men before them. flushed with two days' victory, they came charging at double quick time, but the phalanx held its fire until the enemy was close upon them, and then poured a deadly volley into the ranks of the exultant foe, stopping them short and mowing them down like grass. the confederates recoiled, and now began a fight such as was always fought when the southerners became aware that black soldiers were in front of them, and for an hour and a half they fought at close quarters, ceasing only at night. every charge of the enemy was repulsed by the steady gallantry of general emory's brigade and the black phalanx, who saved the army from annihilation against a foe numbering three to one. during this memorable campaign the phalanx more than once met the enemy and accepted the face of their black flag declarations. the confederates knew full well that every man of the phalanx would fight to the last; they had learned that long before. [illustration: the recruiting office. negroes enlisting in the army, and being examined by surgeons.] as early as june, , general grant was compelled, in order to show a bold front to gens. pemberton and johnston at the same time, while besieging vicksburg, to draw nearly all the troops from milliken's bend to his support, leaving three infantry regiments of the black phalanx and a small force of white cavalry to hold this, to him an all important post. milliken's bend was well fortified, and with a proper garrison was in condition to stand a siege. brigadier-general dennis was in command, and the troops consisted of the th and th louisiana regiments, the st mississippi and a small detachment of white cavalry, in all about , men, raw recruits. general dennis looking upon the place more as a station for organizing and drilling the phalanx, had made no particular arrangements in anticipation of an attack. he was surprised, therefore, when a force of , men, under general henry mcculloch, from the interior of louisiana, attacked and drove his pickets and two companies of the d iowa cavalry, (white) up to the breastworks of the bend. the movement was successful, however, and the confederates, holding the ground, rested for the night, with the expectation of marching into the fortifications in the morning, to begin a massacre, whether a resistance should be shown them or not. the knowledge this little garrison had of what the morrow would bring it, doubtless kept the soldiers awake, preparing to meet the enemy and their own fate. about o'clock, in the early grey of the morning, the confederate line was formed just outside of the intrenchments; suddenly with fixed bayonets the men came rushing over the works, driving everything before them and shouting, "no quarter! no quarter to negroes or their officers!" in a moment the blacks formed and met them, and now the battle began in earnest, hand to hand. the gunboats "choctaw" and "lexington" also came up as the confederates were receiving the bayonets and the bullets of the unionists, and lent material assistance. the attacking force had flanked the works and was pouring in a deadly, enfilading musketry fire. the defenders fell back out of the way of the gunboat's shells, but finally went forward again with what was left of their white allies, and drove the enemy before them and out of the captured works. one division of the enemy's troops hesitated to leave a redoubt, when a company of brave black men dashed forward at double-quick time and engaged them. the enemy stood his ground, and soon the rattling bayonets rang out amid the thunders of the gunboats and the shouts of enraged men; but they were finally driven out, and their ranks thinned by the "choctaw" as they went over the works. the news reached general grant and he immediately dispatched general mower's brigade with orders to re-enforce dennis and drive the confederates beyond the tensas river. a battle can be best described by one who observed it. captain miller, who not only was an eye-witness, but participated in the milliken's bend fight, writes as follows: "we were attacked here on june , about three o'clock in the morning, by a brigade of texas troops, about two thousand five hundred in number. we had about six hundred men to withstand them, five hundred of them negroes. i commanded company i, ninth louisiana. we went into the fight with thirty-three men. i had sixteen killed, eleven badly wounded, and four slightly. i was wounded slightly on the head, near the right eye, with a bayonet, and had a bayonet run through my right hand, near the forefinger; that will account for this miserable style of penmanship. "our regiments had about three hundred men in the fight. we had one colonel wounded, four captains wounded, two first and two second lieutenants killed, five lieutenants wounded, and three white orderlies killed, and one wounded in the hand, and two fingers taken off. the list of killed and wounded officers comprised nearly all the officers present with the regiment, a majority of the rest being absent recruiting." [illustration: battle of milliken's bend] "we had about fifty men killed in the regiment and eighty wounded; so you can judge of what part of the fight my company sustained. i never felt more grieved and sick at heart, than when i saw how my brave soldiers had been slaughtered,--one with six wounds, all the rest with two or three, none less than two wounds. two of my colored sergeants were killed; both brave, noble men, always prompt, vigilant, and ready for the fray. i never more wish to hear the expression, 'the niggers won't fight.' come with me, a hundred yards from where i sit, and i can show you the wounds that cover the bodies of sixteen as brave, loyal, and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a rebel. "the enemy charged us so close that we fought with our bayonets, hand to hand. i have six broken bayonets to show how bravely my men fought. the twenty-third iowa joined my company on the right; and i declare truthfully that they had all fled before our regiment fell back, as we were all compelled to do. "under command of col. page, i led the ninth and eleventh louisiana when the rifle-pits were retaken and held by our troops, our two regiments doing the work. "i narrowly escaped death once. a rebel took deliberate aim at me with both barrels of his gun; and the bullets passed so close to me that the powder that remained on them burnt my cheek. three of my men, who saw him aim and fire, thought that he wounded me each fire; one of them was killed by my side, and he fell on me, covering my clothes with his blood; and, before the rebel could fire again, i blew his brains out with my gun. "it was a horrible fight, the worst i was ever engaged in,--not even excepting shiloh. the enemy cried, 'no quarter!' but some of them were very glad to take it when made prisoners. "col. allen, of the sixteenth texas, was killed in front of our regiment, and brig.-gen. walker was wounded. we killed about one hundred and eighty of the enemy. the gunboat "choctaw" did good service shelling them. i stood on the breastworks after we took them, and gave the elevations and direction for the gunboat by pointing my sword; and they sent a shell right into their midst, which sent them in all directions. three shells fell there, and sixty-two rebels lay there when the fight was over. * * * * "this battle satisfied the slave-masters of the south that their charm was gone; and that the negro as a slave, was lost forever. yet there was one fact connected with the battle of milliken's bend which will descend to posterity, as testimony against the humanity of slave-holders; and that is, that no negro was ever found alive that was taken a prisoner by the rebels in this fight." the department of the gulf contained a far greater proportion of the phalanx than did any other department, and there were very few, if any, important engagements fought in this department in which the phalanx did not take part. it is unpleasant here, in view of the valuable services rendered by the phalanx, to be obliged to record that the black soldiers were subjected to many indignities, and suffered much at the hands of their white fellow comrades in arms. repeated assaults and outrages were committed upon black men wearing the united states' uniform, not only by volunteers but conscripts from the various states, and frequently by confederate prisoners who had been paroled by the united states; these outrages were allowed to take place, without interference by the commanding officers, who apparently did not observe what was going on. at ship island, miss., there were three companies of the th maine, general neal dow's old regiment, and seven companies of the nd regiment phalanx, commanded by colonel daniels, which constituted the garrison at that point. ship island was the key to new orleans. on the opposite shore was a railroad leading to mobile by which re-enforcements were going forward to charleston. colonel daniels conceived the idea of destroying the road to prevent the transportation of the confederate troops. accordingly, with about two hundred men he landed at pascagoula, on the morning of the th of april. pickets were immediately posted on the outskirts of the town, while the main body marched up to the hotel. before long some confederate cavalry, having been apprised of the movement, advanced, drove in the pickets, and commenced an attack on the force occupying the town. the cavalry made a bold dash upon the left of the negroes, which was the work of but a moment; the brave blacks met their charge manfully, and emptied the saddles of the front rank, which caused the rear ones first to halt and then retire. the blacks were outnumbered, however, five to one, and finally were forced to abandon the town; they went, taking with them the stars and stripes which they had hoisted upon the hotel when entering it. they fell back towards the river to give the gunboat "jackson" a chance to shell their pursuers, but the movement resulted in an apparently revengeful act on the part of the crew of that vessel, they having previously had some of their number killed in the course of a difficulty with a black sentry at ship island. the commanding officer of the land force, doubtless from prudential reasons, omitted to state in his report that the men fought their way through the town while being fired upon from house-tops and windows by boys and women. that the gunboat opened fire directly on them when they were engaged in a hand to hand conflict, which so completely cut off a number of the men from the main body of the troops that their capture appeared certain. major dumas, however, seeing the condition of things, put spurs to his horse and went to their succor, reaching them just as a company of the enemy's cavalry made a charge. the major, placing himself at the head of the hard-pressed men, not only repulsed the cavalry and rescued the squad, but captured the enemy's standard-bearer. the retreating force reached their transport with the loss of only one man; they brought with them some prisoners and captured flags. colonel daniels, in his report, speaks as follows of the heroism of the soldiers: [illustration: unloading govt. stores] * * * * "the expedition was a perfect success, accomplishing all that was intended; resulting in the repulse of the enemy in every engagement with great loss; whilst our casualty was only two killed and eight wounded. great credit is due to the troops engaged, for their unflinching bravery and steadiness under this their first fire, exchanging volley after volley with the coolness of veterans; and for their determined tenacity in maintaining their position, and taking advantage of every success that their courage and valor gave them; and also to their officers, who were cool and determined throughout the action, fighting their commands against five times their numbers, and confident throughout of success,--all demonstrating to its fullest extent that the oppression which they have heretofore undergone from the hands of their foes, and the obloquy that had been showered upon them by those who should have been friends, had not extinguished their manhood, or suppressed their bravery, and that they had still a hand to wield the sword, and a heart to vitalize its blow. "i would particularly call the attention of the department to major f. e. dumas, capt. villeverd, and lieuts. jones and martin, who were constantly in the thickest of the fight, and by their unflinching bravery, and admirable handling of their commands, contributed to the success of the attack, and reflected great honor upon the flag under and for which they so nobly struggled. repeated instances of individual bravery among the troops might be mentioned; but it would be invidious where all fought so manfully and so well. "i have the honor to be, most respectfully your obedient servant, "n. u. daniels, "_col. second regiment la. n. g. vols., commanding post._" the nd regiment, with the exception of the colonel, lieut.-colonel and adjutant, was officered by negroes, many of whom had worn the galling chains of slavery, while others were men of affluence and culture from new orleans and vicinity. the nd regiment had its full share of prejudice to contend with, and perhaps suffered more from that cause than any other regiment of the phalanx. once while loading transports at algiers, preparatory to embarking for ship island, they came in contact with a section of the famous nim's battery, rated as one of the finest in the service. the arms of the nd regiment were stacked and the men were busy in loading the vessel, save a few who were doing guard duty over the ammunition stored in a shed on the wharf. one of the battery-men attempted to enter the shed with a lighted pipe in his mouth, but was prevented by the guard. it was more than the celt could stand to be ordered by a negro; watching for a chance when the guard about-faced, he with several others sprang upon him. the guard gave the phalanx signal, and instantly hundreds of black men secured their arms and rushed to the relief of their comrade. the battery-men jumped to their guns, formed into line and drew their sabres. lieut.-colonel hall, who was in command of the nd regiment, stepped forward and demanded to know of the commander of the battery if his men wanted to take the men the guard had arrested. "yes," was the officer's reply, "i want you to give them up." "not until they are dealt with," said colonel hall. and then a shout and yell, such as the phalanx only were able to give, rent the air, and the abortive menace was over. the gunners returned their sabres and resumed their work. col. hall, who always had perfect control of his men, ordered the guns stacked, put on a double guard, and the men of the nd regiment resumed their labor of loading the transport. of course this was early in the struggle, and before a general enlistment of the blacks. the first, second and third regiments of the phalanx were the nucleus of the one hundred and eighty that eventually did so much for the suppression of the rebellion and the abolition of slavery. the st and rd regiments went up the mississippi; the nd garrisoned ship island and fort pike, on lake pontchartrain, after protecting for several months the opelousa railroad, so much coveted by the confederates. a few weeks after the fight of the nd regiment at pascagoula, general banks laid siege to port hudson, and gathered there all the available forces in his department. among these were the st and rd infantry regiments of the phalanx. on the rd of may the federal forces, having completely invested the enemy's works and made due preparation, were ordered to make a general assault along the whole line. the attack was intended to be simultaneous, but in this it failed. the union batteries opened early in the morning, and after a vigorous bombardment generals weitzel, grover and paine, on the right, assaulted with vigor at a. m., while gen. augur in the center, and general w. t. sherman on the left, did not attack till p. m. never was fighting more heroic than that of the federal army and especially that of the phalanx regiments if valor could have triumphed over such odds, the assaulting forces would have carried the works, but only abject cowardice or pitiable imbecility could have lost such a position under existing circumstances. the negro regiments on the north side of the works vied with the bravest, making three desperate charges on the confederate batteries, losing heavily, but maintaining their position in the advance all the while. the column in moving to the attack went through the woods in their immediate front, and then upon a plane, on the farther side of which, half a mile distant, were the enemy's batteries. the field was covered with recently felled trees, through the interlaced branches of which the column moved, and for two or more hours struggled through the obstacles, stepping over their comrades who fell among the entangled brushwood pierced by bullets or torn by flying missiles, and braved the hurricane of shot and shell. what did it avail to hurl a few thousand troops against those impregnable works? the men were not iron, and were they, it would have been impossible for them to have kept erect, where trees three feet in diameter were crashed down upon them by the enemy's shot; they would have been but as so many ten-pins set up before skillful players to be knocked down. the troops entered an enfilading fire from a masked battery which opened upon them as they neared the fort, causing the column first to halt, then to waver and stagger; but it recovered and again pressed forward, closing up the ranks as fast as the enemy's shells thinned them. on the left the confederates had planted a six-gun battery upon an eminence, which enabled them to sweep the field over which the advancing column moved. in front was the large fort, while the right of the line was raked by a redoubt of six pieces of artillery. one after another of the works had been charged, but in vain. the michigan, new york and massachusetts troops--braver than whom none ever fought a battle--had been hurled back from the place, leaving the field strewn with their dead and wounded. the works must be taken. general nelson was ordered by general dwight to take the battery on the left. the st and rd regiments went forward at double quick time, and they were soon within the line of the enemy's fire. louder than the thunder of heaven was the artillery rending the air shaking the earth itself; cannons, mortars and musketry alike opened a fiery storm upon the advancing regiments; an iron shower of grape and round shot, shells and rockets, with a perfect tempest of rifle bullets fell upon them. on they went and down, scores falling on right and left. "the flag, the flag!" shouted the black soldiers, as the standard-bearer's body was scattered by a shell. two file-closers struggled for its possession; a ball decided the struggle. they fell faster and faster; shrieks, prayers and curses came up from the fallen and ascended to heaven. the ranks closed up while the column turned obliquely toward the point of fire, seeming to forget they were but men. then the cross-fire of grape shot swept through their ranks, causing the glittering bayonets to go down rapidly. "steady men, steady," cried bold cailloux; his sword uplifted, his face the color of the sulphureous smoke that enveloped him and his followers, as they felt the deadly hail which came apparently from all sides. captain cailloux[ ] was killed with the colors in his hands; the column seemed to melt away like snow in sunshine, before the enemy's murderous fire; the pride, the flower of the phalanx, had fallen. then, with a daring that veterans only can exhibit, the blacks rushed forward and up to the brink and base of the fortified elevation, with a shout that rose above it. the defenders emptied their rifles, cannon and mortars upon the very heads of the brave assaulters, making of them a human hecatomb. those who escaped found their way back to shelter as best they could. [illustration: port hudson. brilliant charge of the phalanx upon the confederate works.] the battery was not captured; the battle was lost to all except the black soldiers; they, with their terrible loss, had won and conquered a much greater and stronger battery than that upon the bluff. nature seems to have selected the place and appointed the time for the negro to prove his manhood and to disarm the prejudice that at one time prompted the white troops to insult and assault the negro soldiers in new orleans. it was all forgotten and they mingled together that day on terms of perfect equality. the whites were only too glad to take a drink from a negro soldier's canteen, for in that trying hour they found a brave and determined ally, ready to sacrifice all for liberty and country. if greater heroism could be shown than that of the regiments of the phalanx already named, surely the st regiment of engineers displayed it during the siege at port hudson. this regiment, provided with picks and spades for the purpose of "mining" the enemy's works, often went forward to their labor without any armed support except the cover of heavy guns, or as other troops happened to advance, to throw up breastworks for their own protection. it takes men of more than ordinary courage to engage in such work, without even a revolver or a bayonet to defend themselves against the sallies of an enemy's troops. nevertheless this engineer regiment of the black phalanx performed the duty under such trying and perilous circumstances. many times they went forward at a double-quick to do duty in the most dangerous place during an engagement, perhaps to build a redoubt or breastworks behind a brigade, or to blow up a bastion of the enemy's. "they but reminded the lookers on," said a correspondent of a western newspaper, "of just so many cattle going to a slaughterhouse." a writer, speaking of the other regiments of the phalanx, says: "they were also on trial that day, and justified the most sanguine expectations by their good conduct. not that they fought better than our white veterans; they did not and could not." but there had been so much incredulity avowed regarding the courage of the negroes; so much wit lavished on the idea of negroes fighting to any purpose, that general banks was justified in according a special commendation to the st, nd and rd regiments, and to the st engineer regiment, of the phalanx, saying, "no troops could be more determined or daring." the st lost its cailloux, the nd its paine, but the phalanx won honor for the race it represented. no higher encomium could be paid a regiment than that awarded the gallant nd by the poet boker: "the black regiment, or the second louisiana at the storming of port hudson. dark as the clouds of even, banked in the western heaven, waiting the breath that lifts all the dread mass, and drifts tempest and falling brand, over a ruined land-- so still and orderly arm to arm, and knee to knee waiting the great event, stands the black regiment. down the long dusky line teeth gleam and eyeballs shine; and the bright bayonet, bristling and firmly set, flashed with a purpose grand, long ere the sharp command of the fierce rolling drum told them their time had come-- told them what work was sent for the black regiment. 'now,' the flag sergeant cried, 'though death and hell betide, let the whole nation see if we are fit to be, free in this land; or bound down like the whining hound-- bound with red stripes of pain in our old chains again!' oh! what a shout there went from the black regiment. 'charge!' trump and drum awoke; onward the bondmen broke bayonet and sabre stroke vainly opposed their rush through the wild battle's crush, with but one thought aflush, driving their lords like chaff, in the gun's mouth they laugh; or at the slippery brands leaping with open hands, down they tear, man and horse, down in their awful course; trampling with bloody heel over the crashing steel, all their eyes forward bent, rushed the black regiment. 'freedom!' their battle cry, 'freedom!' or leave to die!' ah! and they meant the word, not as with us its heard, nor a mere party shout, they gave their spirits out; trusted the end to god, and on the gory sod rolled in triumphant blood, glad to strike one free blow, whether for weal or woe; glad to breathe one free breath, though on the lips of death praying--alas! in vain! that they might fall again, so they could once more see that burst of liberty! this was what 'freedom' lent to the black regiment. hundreds on hundreds fell; but they are resting well; scourges and shackles strong never shall do them wrong. oh! to the living few, soldiers, be just and true! hail them as comrades tried; fight with them side by side; never in field or tent, scorn the black regiment." [see appendix for further matter relating to the department of the gulf.] footnotes: [ ] in november, while the nd regiment was guarding the opelousas railway, about twenty miles from algiers, la., their pickets were fired upon, and quite a skirmish and firing was kept up during the night. next morning the cane field along the railroad was searched but no trace of the firing party was found. a company of the th vermont (white) regiment was encamped below that of the nd regiment, but they broke camp that night and left. the supposition was that it was this company who fired upon and drove in the pickets of the phalanx regiment. [ ] captain andre cailloux fell, gallantly leading his men (co. e) in the attack. with many others of the charging column, his body lay between the lines of the confederates and federals, but nearer the works of the former, whose sharpshooters guarded it night and day, and thus prevented his late comrades from removing it. several attempts were made to obtain the body, but each attempt was met with a terrific storm of lead. it was not until after the surrender that his remains were recovered, and then taken to his native city, new orleans. the writer of this volume, himself wounded, was in the city at the time, and witnessed the funeral pageant of the dead hero, the like of which was never before seen in that, nor, perhaps, in any other american city, in honor of a dead negro. the negro captains of the nd regiment acted as pall-bearers, while a long procession of civic societies followed in the rear of detachments of the phalanx. a correspondent who witnessed the scene thus describes it: " * * * * the arrival of the body developed to the white population here that the colored people had powerful organizations in the form of civic societies; as the friends of the order, of which capt. cailloux was a prominent member, received the body, and had the coffin containing it, draped with the american flag, exposed in state in the commodious hall. around the coffin, flowers were strewn in the greatest profusion, and candles were kept continually burning. all the rites of the catholic church were strictly complied with. the guard paced silently to and fro, and altogether it presented as solemn a scene as was ever witnessed. "in due time, the band of the forty-second massachusetts regiment made its appearance, and discoursed the customary solemn airs. the officiating priest, father le maistre, of the church of st. rose of lima, who has paid not the least attention to the excommunication and denunciations issued against him by the archbishop of this this diocese, then performed the catholic service for the dead. after the regular services, he ascended to the president's chair, and delivered a glowing and eloquent eulogy on the virtues of the deceased. he called upon all present to offer themselves, as cailloux had done, martyrs to the cause of justice, freedom, and good government. it was a death the proudest might envy. "immense crowds of colored people had by this time gathered around the building, and the streets leading thereto were rendered almost impassable. two companies of the sixth louisiana (colored) regiment, from their camp on the company canal, were there to act as an escort; and esplanade street, for more than a mile, was lined with colored societies, both male and female, in open order, waiting for the hearse to pass through. "after a short pause, a sudden silence fell upon the crowd, the band commenced playing a dirge; and the body was brought from the hall on the shoulders of eight soldiers, escorted by six members of the society, and six colored captains, who acted as pall-bearers. the corpse was conveyed to the hearse through a crowd composed of both white and black people, and in silence profound as death itself. not a sound was heard save the mournful music of the band, and not a head in all that vast multitude but was uncovered. "the procession then moved off in the following order: the hearse containing the body, with capts. j. w. ringgold, w. b. barrett, s. j. wilkinson, eugene mailleur, j. a. glea, and a. st. leger, (all of whom, we believe, belong to the second louisiana native guards), and six members of the friends of the order, as pall-bearers; about a hundred convalescent sick and wounded colored soldiers; the two companies of the sixth regiment; a large number of colored officers of all native guard regiments; the carriages containing capt. cailloux's family, and a number of army officers; followed by a large number of private individuals, and thirty-seven civic and religious societies. "after moving through the principal down-town streets the body was taken to the beinville-street cemetery, and there interred with military honors due his rank." * * the following lines were penned at the time: andre cailloux. he lay just where he fell, soddening in a fervid summer's sun. guarded by an enemy's hissing shell, rotting beneath the sound of rebels' gun forty consecutive days, in sight of his own tent. and the remnant of his regiment. he lay just where he fell. nearest the rebel's redoubt and trench, under the very fire of hell, a volunteer in a country's defence, forty consecutive days. and not a murmur of discontent, went from the loyal black regiment. a flag of truce couldn't save, no, nor humanity could not give this sable warrior a hallowed grave. nor army of the gulf retrieve. forty consecutive days, his lifeless body pierced and rent, leading in assault the black regiment. but there came days at length, when hudson felt their blast, though less a thousand in strength, for "our leader" vowed the last; forty consecutive days they stormed, they charged, god sent victory to the loyal black regiment. he lay just where he fell, and now the ground was their's, around his mellowed corpse, heavens tell, how his comrades for freedom swears. forty consecutive nights the advance pass-word went. captain cailloux of the black regiment. chapter vi. the army of the frontier. at the far west the fires of liberty and union burned no less brightly upon the altar of the negro's devotion than at the north, east and south. the blacks of iowa responded with alacrity to the call of the governor to strengthen the army of the ohio. though the negro population was sparse--numbering in , only --and thinly scattered over the territory, and were enjoying all the rights and privileges of american citizenship, nevertheless they gave up the luxuries of happy homes, threw down their implements of peaceful industry, broke from the loving embrace of wives and children, and with the generous patriotism which has always characterized the conduct of the race, they rushed to the aid of their yet oppressed countrymen, and the defense of the union. the gibralters of the mississippi, vicksburg and port hudson, had fallen by the might of the union armies; the mississippi was open to the gulf. the shattered ranks of the victorious troops, and the depleted ranks of the phalanx, rent and torn by the enemy during the long siege of port hudson, lent an inspiring zeal to the negroes of the country, which manifested itself in the rapidity of the enlistment of volunteers to fill up the gaps. [illustration: a phalanx regiment receiving a gift of colors.] in august, , the authorities of the state of iowa began the enlistment of negroes as a part of her quota. keokuk was selected as the place of rendezvous. on the th of the following october nine full companies under the command of colonel john g. hudson, took the oath of allegiance to the united states, and became a part of the active military force of the national government. the regiment was designated the st a. d. (african descent) regiment iowa volunteers, and was mustered for three years, or during the war. leaving keokuk barracks, the regiment proceeded to st. louis, mo., and was quartered in benton barracks, as a part of the forces under command of major-general j. m. schofield. here company g. joined the regiment, making ten full companies. a memorable and patriotic incident occurred here: mrs. i. n. triplet, in behalf of the ladies of the state of iowa, and of the city of muscatine, presented the regiment with a beautiful silk national flag, which was carried through the storms of battle, and returned at the close of the war to the state. on the first day of january, , the regiment was ordered to report to general beaufort at helena, ark., becoming a part of the garrison of that place until the following march. one sergeant phillips, with some others, agitated the propriety of refusing to accept the seven dollars per month offered them by the government, and of refusing to do duty on account of it. sergeant barton, however, held it was better to serve without pay than to refuse duty, as the enforcement of the president's emancipation proclamation was essential to the freedom of the negro race. to this latter the regiment agreed, and passed concurrent resolutions, which quelled a discussion which otherwise might have led to mutiny. while the regiment was at helena it took part in several skirmishes and captured a number of prisoners. in july, colonel w. s. brooks, in command of the th, th, and a detachment of the rd artillery phalanx regiment, with two field guns, sallied out of helena and proceeded down the mississippi river, to the mouth of white river, on a transport. here the troops disembarked. the next morning, after marching all night, brooks halted his command for breakfast; arms were stacked and the men became scattered over the fields. suddenly, general dobbins, at the head of a superior confederate force, made an attack upon them; the confederates at first formed no regular line of battle, but rushed pell-mell on the scattered federals, intending, doubtless, to annihilate them at once. the union men soon recovered their arms, but before they got into line, their commander, colonel brooks, had been killed, and captain ransey of co. c, th regiment, assumed command. the men of the phalanx, though they had had but a short time to rest from a long march, rallied with the ardor of veterans, and fought with that desperation that men display when they realize that the struggle is either victory or death. it was not a question of numbers with them; it was one of existence, and the phalanx resolved itself into a seeming column of iron to meet the foe as it rushed over the bodies of their dead and wounded with the rage of madmen. the two field guns, skillfully handled by black artillery-men, did good work, plowing huge furrows through the assailants and throwing them into confusion at every charge. still the confederates, having finally organized into line of battle, continued to charge after each repulse, pouring a terrific fire upon the united states force at each advance. it seemed as if the phalanx must surrender; they were outnumbered two to one, and every line officer was dead or wounded. sergeant triplet was directing the fire of company c; the artillery sergeant was in command of the field guns, and worked them well for two long hours. the enemy's sharpshooters stationed in the trees no longer selected their victims, for one man of the phalanx was as conspicuous as another. yet another assault was made; firm stood the little band of iron men, not flinching, not moving, though the dead lay thick before them. the cannon belched out their grape shot, the musketry rattled, and once more the enemy fled back to the woods with ranks disordered. thus from six o'clock till noonday did the weary soldiers hold their foes back. the situation became critical with the phalanx. their ammunition was nearly exhausted; a few more rounds and their bayonets would be their only protection against a massacre; this fact however, did not cool their determination. in front and on their flanks the enemy began massing for a final onset. for five hours the phalanx had fought like tigers, against a ruthless foe, and though no black flag warned them, they were not unmindful of the fate of their comrades at fort pillow. general dobbins was evidently preparing to sweep the field. several times already had he sent his men to annihilate the blacks, and as many times had they been repulsed. there was no time for the phalanx soldiers to manoeuvre; they were in the closing jaws of death, and though they felt the day was lost, their courage did not forsake them; it was indeed a dreadful moment. the enemy was about to move upon them, when suddenly a shout,--not the yell of a foe, was heard in the enemy's rear, and the next moment a detachment of the th illinois cavalry, under command of major carminchæl, broke through the confederate ranks and rushed to the support of the phalanx, aligning themselves with the black soldiers, amid the cheers of the latter. gathering up their dead and wounded, the federal force now began a retreat, stubbornly yielding, inch by inch, each foot of ground, until night threw her mantle of darkness over the scene and the confederates ceased their firing. the phalanx loss was , while that of the enemy was . at the beginning couriers were dispatched to helena for re-enforcements, and colonel hudson, with the remainder of the phalanx troops, reached them at night too late to be of any assistance, as the confederates did not follow the retreating column. two days later, colonel hudson, with all the available men of the two phalanx regiments,-- th, th and a detachment of the rd phalanx artillery, with two cannons,--went down the mississippi and up the white river, disembarked and made a three days march across the country, where the enemy was found entrenched. the phalanx, after a spirited contest, drove them out of their works, burned their store, captured a few texas rangers and returned to helena. in march, , the th regiment was ordered to join brig.-gen. reynolds' command at little rock, where the regiment was brigaded with the th, th and rd phalanx regiments. the brigade was ordered to texas overland, but the surrender of general lee to grant obviated this march. the gallant th was mustered out at davenport, iowa, on the nd of november, , "where," says sergeant burton, the regimental historian, "they were greeted by the authorities and the loyal thousands of iowa." kansas has undoubtedly the honor of being the first state in the union to _begin_ the organization of negroes as soldiers for the federal army. the state was admitted into the union january , , after a long reign of hostilities within her borders, carried on by the same character of men and strictly for the same purpose which brought on the war of the great rebellion. in fact, it was but a transfer of hostilities from missouri and kansas to south carolina and virginia. missouri and the south had been whipped out of kansas and the territory admitted into the union as a free state. this single fact was accepted by the south as a precursor of the policy of the incoming republican administration, and three southern senators resigned or left the united states senate before the vote was taken for the admission of kansas. the act of admitting kansas as a free state, was the torch that inflamed the south, and led to the firing upon fort sumter the following april. the men of kansas had long been inured to field service, and used to practice with sharps' rifles. the men of kansas, more than in any other state of the union, had a right to rush to the defence of the federal government, and they themselves felt so. on the th of february, eleven days after the admission of the state into the union, governor robinson took the oath of office, and on the th of april president lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers. the first regiment responded to the call by the close of may; others speedily followed, until kansas had in the field , soldiers. of the regiments and companies which represented this state in the federal army, several were composed of negroes, with a slight mixture of indians. it has been no easy task to learn about these regiments, but, after a long search, the writer has been enabled, through the patriotic efforts of governor crawford, of kansas, who is also ex-colonel of the nd kansas regiment, to find mr. j. b. mcafee, late chaplain of the same regiment and adjutant-general of kansas, now engaged in business in topeka. with the finding of mr. mcafee came another difficulty; the report of the adjutant-general, containing an account of the regiments in the war, had been accidentally burned before leaving the printing office. this difficulty was overcome, however, by the consideration ever shown the negro by mr. mcafee, who kindly loaned his only volume of the "military history of kansas." the service rendered by the phalanx soldiery of kansas stands second to none upon the records of that state. their patriotism was nothing less than a fitting return for the love of liberty shown by the free state men in rescuing kansas from the clutches of the slave power. the discussions at the national capitol pointed kansas out to the negro as a place where he might enjoy freedom in common with all other american citizens. he regarded it then as he does now,[ ] the _acme_ of republican states. those negroes who enjoyed and appreciated the sentiment that made her so, were determined as far as they were able, to stand by the men who had thus enlarged the area of freedom. without comment upon the bravery of these troops, the report is submitted of their conduct in camp, field, on the march and in battle, as made by those who commanded them on various occasions. "on the th day of august, , captain james m. williams, co. f, th kansas cavalry, was appointed by hon. james h. lane, recruiting commissioner for that portion of kansas lying north of the kansas river, for the purpose of recruiting and organizing a regiment of infantry for the united states service, to be composed of men of african descent. he immediately commenced the work of recruiting by securing the muster-in of recruiting officers with the rank of nd lieutenant, and by procuring supplies from the ordnance quartermaster and commissary departments, and by establishing in the vicinity of leavenworth a camp of rendezvous and instruction. "capt. h. c. seaman was about the same time commissioned with like authority for that portion of kansas lying south of the kansas river. the work of recruiting went forward with rapidity, the intelligent portion of the colored people entering into the work heartily, and evincing by their actions a willing readiness to link their future and share the perils with their white brethren in the war of the rebellion, which then waged with such violence as to seriously threaten the nationality and life of the republic. "within sixty days five hundred men were recruited and placed in camp, and a request made that a battallion be mustered into the united states service. this request was not complied with, and the reasons assigned were wholly unsatisfactory, yet accompanied with assurances of such a nature as to warrant the belief that but a short time would elapse ere the request would be complied with. "in the meantime complications with the civil authorities in the northern district had arisen, which at one time threatened serious results. these complications originated from the following causes, each affecting different classes: " st.--an active sympathy with the rebellion. " nd.--an intolerant prejudice against the colored race, which would deny them the honorable position in society which every soldier is entitled to, even though he gained that position at the risk of his life in the cause of the nation, which could ill afford to refuse genuine sympathy and support from any quarter. " rd.--on the part of a few genuine loyalists who believed that this attempt to enlist colored men would not be approved by the war department, and that the true interests of the colored man demanded that their time should not be vainly spent in the effort. " th.--a large class who believed that the negro did not possess the necessary qualifications to make efficient soldiers, and that consequently the experiment would result in defeat, disaster and disgrace. "col. williams, acting under the orders of his military superiors felt that it was no part of his duty to take council of any or all of these classes. he saw no course for him to pursue but to follow his instructions to the letter. consequently, when the civil authorities placed themselves in direct opposition to those of the military, by arresting and confining the men of the command on the most frivolous charges, and indicting their commanders for crime, such as unlawfully restraining persons of their liberty, &c., by enforcing proper military discipline, he ignored the right of the civil authorities to interfere with his military actions in a military capacity and under proper authority. "on the th of october, , a command consisting of detachments from captain seaman's and captain william's recruits, were moved and camped near butler. this command--about two hundred and twenty-five men, under captain seaman,--was attacked by a confederate force of about five hundred, commanded by colonel cockrell but after a severe engagement the enemy was defeated with considerable loss. the negro loss was ten killed and twelve wounded, including captain a. j. crew; a gallant young officer, being among the first mentioned. the next morning the command was re-enforced by a few recruits under command of captain j. m. williams, when the enemy was pursued a considerable distance but without further fighting. this is supposed to have been the first engagement in the war in which colored troops were actually engaged. the work of recruiting, drilling and disciplining the regiment was continued under the adverse circumstances until the th of january, , when a battallion of six companies, formed by the consolidation of colonel williams' recruits with those of captain seaman, was mustered into the u. s. service by lieutenant sabin, of the regular army. between january th and may nd, , the other four companies were organized, when the regimental organization was completed, appears by the roster of the regiment. [illustration: phalanx soldiers repelling an attack.] "immediately after its organization, the regiment was ordered to baxter springs, where it arrived in may, , and the work of drilling the regiment was vigorously prosecuted. "parts of two companies of the regiment, and a detachment of cavalry, and one piece of artillery, made a diversion on shawnee, mo. attacked and dispersed a small opposing force and captured five prisoners. "while encamped here, on the th of may, a foraging party, consisting of twenty-five men from the phalanx regiment and twenty men of the nd kansas battery, major r. g. ward commanding, was sent into jasper county, mo. this party was surprised and attacked by a force of three hundred confederates commanded by major livingston, and defeated, with a loss of sixteen killed and five prisoners, three of which belonged to the nd kansas battery and two of the black regiment. the men of the nd kansas battery were afterwards exchanged under a flag of truce for a like number of prisoners captured by the negro regiment. livingston refused to exchange the black prisoners in his possession, and gave as his excuse that he should hold them subject to the orders of the confederate war department. shortly after this col. williams received information that one of the prisoners held by livingston had been murdered by the enemy. he immediately sent a flag of truce to livingston demanding the body of the person who committed the barbarous act. receiving an evasive and unsatisfactory reply, col. williams determined to convince the major that was a game at which two could play, and directed that one of the prisoners in his possession be shot, and within thirty minutes the order was executed. he immediately informed major livingston of his action, sending the information by the same party that brought the despatch to him. suffice it to say that this ended the barbarous practice of murdering prisoners of war, so far as livingston's command was concerned. "colonel williams says: 'i visited the scene of this engagement the morning after its occurrence, and for the first time beheld the horrible evidences of the demoniac spirit of these rebel fiends in their treatment of our dead and wounded. men were found with their brains beaten out with clubs, and the bloody weapons left by their sides and their bodies most horribly mutilated.' "it was afterwards ascertained that the force who attacked this foraging party consisted partially of citizens of the neighborhood, who, while enjoying the protection of our armies, had collected together to assist the rebel forces in this attack. colonel williams directed that the region of country within a radius of five miles from the scene of conflict should be devastated, and is of opinion that this effectually prevented a like occurrence in the same neighborhood. "subsequently, while on this expedition, the command captured a prisoner in arms who had upon his person the evidence of having been paroled by the commanding officer at fort scott, kansas, he was shot on the spot. "the regiment remained in camp at baxter springs until the th of june, , when it struck tents and marched for fort gibson in connection with a large supply train from fort scott _en route_ to the former place. "colonel williams had received information that satisfied him that the train would be attacked in the neighborhood of cabin creek, cherokee nation. he communicated this information to lieutenant-colonel dodd, of the nd colorado infantry, who was in command of the escort, and volunteered to move his regiment in such manner as would be serviceable in case the expected attack should be made. the escort proper to the train consisted of six companies of the nd colorado infantry, a detachment of three companies of cavalry from the th and th kansas, and one section of the nd kansas battery. this force was joined, on the th of june, by three hundred men from the indian brigade, commanded by major foreman, making altogether a force of about eight hundred effective men. "on arriving at cabin creek, july st, , the rebels were met in force--under command of gen. cooper. some skirmishing occurred on that day, when it was ascertained that the enemy occupied a strong position on the south bank of the creek, and upon trial it was found that the stream was not fordable for infantry, on account of a recent shower, but it was supposed that the swollen current would have sufficiently subsided by the next morning to allow the infantry to cross. the regiment then took a strong position on the north side of the stream and camped for the night. after a consultation of officers, it was agreed that the train should be parked in the open prairie and guarded by three companies of the nd colorado and a detachment of one hundred men of the st colorado, and that the balance of the troops, col. williams commanding, should engage the enemy and drive him from his position. "accordingly, the next morning, july nd, , the command moved, which consisted of the st kansas volunteer colored infantry, three companies of the nd colorado infantry, commanded by the gallant major smith, of that regiment, the detachments of cavalry and indian troops before mentioned and four pieces of artillery, making altogether a force of about twelve hundred men. with this force, after an engagement of two hours duration, the enemy was dislodged and driven from his position in great disorder, with a loss of one hundred killed and wounded and eight prisoners. the loss on our side was eight killed and twenty-five wounded, including major foreman, who was shot from his horse while attempting to lead his men across the creek under the fire of the enemy, and captain ethan earl, of the st colored, who was wounded at the head of his company. this was the first battle in which the whole regiment had been engaged, and here they evinced a coolness and true soldiery spirit which inspired the officers in command with that confidence which subsequent battle scenes satisfactorily proved was not unfounded. "the road being now open, the entire command proceeded to fort gibson, where it arrived on the evening of the th of july, . on the th of july the entire force at fort gibson, under command of gen. blunt, moved upon the enemy, about six thousand strong, commanded by gen. cooper, and encamped at honey springs, twenty miles south of fort gibson. our forces came upon the enemy on the morning of the th of july, and after a sharp and bloody engagement of two hours' duration, the enemy was totally defeated, with a loss of four hundred killed and wounded, and one hundred prisoners. at the height of the engagement, gen. blunt ordered colonel williams to move his regiment against that portion of the enemy's line held by the th and th texas regiments and a rebel battery, with directions to charge them if he thought he could carry and hold the position. the regiment was moved at a shoulder arms, pieces loaded and bayonets fixed, under a sharp fire, to within forty paces of the rebel lines, without firing a shot. the regiment then halted and poured into their ranks a well directed volley of 'buck and ball' from the entire line, such as to throw them into perfect confusion, from which they could not immediately recover. col. williams' intention was, after the delivery of this volley, to charge their line and capture their battery, which the effect of this volley had doubtless rendered it possible for him to accomplish. but he was at that instant rendered insensible from gunshot wounds, and the next officer in rank, lieutenant-colonel bowles, not being aware of his intentions, the project was not fully carried out. had the movement been made as contemplated, the entire rebel line must have been captured. as it was, most of the enemy escaped, receiving a lesson, however, which taught them not to despise on the battle field the race they had long tyrannized over as having 'no rights which a white man was bound to respect.' "colonel williams says: 'i had long been of the opinion that this race had a right to kill rebels, and this day proved their capacity for the work. forty prisoners and one battle flag fell into the hands of my regiment on this field.' "the loss to the regiment in this engagement was five killed and thirty-two wounded. after this, the regiment returned to fort gibson and went into camp, where it remained until the month of september, when it again moved with the division against the confederate force under general cooper, who fled at our approach. "after a pursuit of one hundred miles, and across the canadian river to perryville, in the choctaw nation, all hopes of bringing them to an engagement was abandoned, and the command returned to camp on the site of the confederate fort davis, situated on the south side of the arkansas river, near its junction with grand river. "the regiment remained in this camp, doing but little duty, until october, when orders were received to proceed to fort smith, where it arrived during the same month. at this point it remained until december st, making a march to waldron and returning via roseville, arkansas, and in the same month went into winter quarters at the latter place, situated fifty miles east of fort smith, on the arkansas river. the regiment remained at roseville until march, , when the command moved to join the forces of gen. steele, then about starting on what was known as the camden expedition. joining gen. steele's command at the little missouri river, distant twenty-two miles northeast of washington, arkansas, the entire command moved upon the enemy, posted on the west side of prairie de anne, and within fifteen miles of washington. the enemy fled, and our forces occupied their works without an engagement. "the pursuit of the enemy in this direction was abandoned. the command arrived at camden on the th of april, , and occupied the place with its strong fortifications without opposition. on the day following, colonel williams started with five hundred men of the st colorado, two hundred cavalry, detailed from the nd, th and th, kansas regiments, and one section of the nd indian battery, with a train to load forage and provisions at a point twenty miles west of camden, on the washington road. on the th he reached the place and succeeded in loading about two-thirds of the train, which consisted of two hundred wagons. at dawn the command moved towards camden, and loaded the balance of the wagons from plantations by the wayside. at a point fourteen miles west of camden the advance encountered a small force of the enemy, who, after a slight skirmishing, retreated down the road in such a manner as to lead col. williams to suspect that this movement was a feint intended to cover other movements or to draw the command into an ambuscade. "just previous to this he had been re-enforced by a detachment of three hundred men of the th iowa infantry, and one hundred additional cavalry, commanded by capt. duncan, of the th iowa. "in order to prevent any surprise, all detached foraging parties were called in, and the original command placed in the advance, leaving the rear in charge of captain duncan's command, with orders to keep flankers well out and to guard cautiously against a surprise. colonel williams at the front, with skirmishers and flankers well out, advanced cautiously to a point about one and a half miles distant, sometimes called cross roads, but more generally known as poison springs, where he came upon a skirmish line of the enemy, which tended to confirm his previous suspicion of the character and purpose of the enemy. he therefore closed up the train as well as possible in this thickly timbered region, and made the necessary preparations for fighting. he directed the cavalry, under lieutenant henderson, of the th, and mitchell, of the nd, to charge and penetrate the rebel line of skirmishers, in order to develop their strength and intentions. the movement succeeded most admirably in its purposes, and the development was such that it convinced colonel williams that he had before him a struggle of no ordinary magnitude. "the cavalry, after penetrating the skirmish line, came upon a strong force of the enemy, who repulsed and forced them back to their original line, not, however, without hard fighting and severe loss on our part in killed and wounded, including in the latter the gallant lieutenant henderson, who afterwards fell into the hands of the enemy. "the enemy now opened on our lines with ten pieces of artillery--six in front and four on the right flank. from a prisoner colonel williams learned that the force of the enemy was from eight to ten thousand, commanded by generals price and maxey. these developments and this information convinced him that he could not hope to defeat the enemy; but as there was no way to escape with the train except through their lines, and as the train and its contents were indispensable to the very existence of our forces at camden, who were then out of provisions, he deemed it to be his duty to defend the train to the last extremity, hoping that our forces at camden, on learning of the engagement, would attack the enemy in his rear, thus relieving his command and saving the train. "with this determination, he fought the enemy's entire force from a. m. until p. m., repulsing three successive assaults and inflicting upon the enemy severe loss. "in his report colonel williams says: 'the conflict during these four hours was the most terrific and deadly in its character of any that has ever fallen under my observation.' "at p. m. nearly one-half of our force engaged had been placed _hors de combat_, and the remainder were out of ammunition. no supplies arriving, the colonel was reluctantly compelled to abandon the train to the enemy and save as much of the command as possible by taking to the swamps and canebrakes and making for camden by a circuitous route, thereby preventing pursuit by cavalry. in this manner most of the command that was not disabled in the field reached camden during the night of the th. for a more specific and statistical report of this action, in which the loss to the st colored alone was men and officers, the official report of colonel j. m. williams is herewith submitted: 'camden, arkansas. april , . 'captain:--i have the honor to submit the following report of a foraging expedition under my command: 'in obedience to verbal orders received from brigadier-general thayer, i left camden, arkansas on the th instant with men and two guns, with a forage train of wagons. 'i proceeded westerly on the washington road a distance of eighteen miles, where i halted the train and dispatched part of it in different directions to load; one hundred wagons with a large part of the command, under major ward, being sent six miles beyond the camp. these wagons returned to camp at midnight, nearly all loaded with corn. 'at sunrise on the th, the command started on the return, loading the balance of the train as it proceeded, there being but a few wagon loads of corn to be found at any one place. i was obliged to detail portions of the command in different directions to load the wagons, until nearly all of my available force was so employed. 'at a point known as cross roads, four miles west of my camping ground, i was met by a re-enforcement of three hundred and seventy-five men of the th iowa infantry, commanded by capt. duncan, twenty-five men of the th kansas, lieut. phillips commanding, forty-five men of the nd kansas cavalry, lieut. ross commanding, twenty men of the th kansas cavalry, lieut. smith commanding, and two mountain howitzers from the th kansas cavalry, lieut. walker commanding,--in all, men and two mountain howitzers. these, added to my former command, made my entire force consist of eight hundred and seventy-five, two hundred and eighty-five cavalry, and four guns. but the excessive fatigue of the preceeding day, coming as it did at the close of a toilsome march of twenty-four hours without halting, had so affected the infantry that fully one hundred of the st kansas colored were rendered unfit for duty. many of the cavalry had, in violation of orders, straggled from their command, so that at this time my effective force did not exceed one thousand men. 'at a point one mile east of this, my advance came upon a picket of the enemy, which was driven back one mile, when a line of the enemy's skirmishers presented itself. here i halted the train, formed a line of the small force i then had in advance, and ordered that portion of the st kansas colored which had previously been guarding the rear of the train to the front, and gave orders for the train to be packed as closely as the nature of the ground would permit. i also opened a fire upon the enemy's line from the section of the nd indiana battery, for the double purpose of ascertaining if possible if the enemy had artillery in position in front, and also to draw in some foraging parties which had previously been dispatched upon either flank of the train. no response was elicited save a brisk fire from the enemy's skirmishers. 'meanwhile, the remainder of the first kansas colored had come to the front, as also three detachments, which formed part of the original escort, which i formed in line facing to the front, with a detachment of the th kansas cavalry, on my right, and detachments of the nd and th kansas cavalry on the left flank. i also sent orders to capt. duncan, commanding the th iowa infantry, to so dispose of his regiment and the cavalry and howitzers which came out with him as to protect the rear of the train, and to keep a sharp lookout for a movement upon his rear and right flank. 'meanwhile a movement of the enemy's infantry toward my right flank had been observed through the thick brush which covered the face of the country in that direction. seeing this, i ordered forward the cavalry on my right, under lieuts. mitchell and henderson, with orders to press the enemy's line, force it if possible, and at all events to ascertain his position and strength, fearing as i did that the silence of the enemy in front was but for the purpose of drawing me on to the open ground which lay in my front. at this juncture, a rebel rode into my lines and inquired for col. demorse. from him i learned that general price was in command of the rebel force and that col. demorse was in command of the force on my right. 'the cavalry had advanced but four hundred yards, when a brisk fire of musketry was opened upon them from the brush, which they returned with true gallantry, but were forced to fall back. in this skirmish many of the cavalry were unhorsed, and lieut. henderson, of the th kansas cavalry, fell, wounded in the abdomen, while bravely and gallantly urging his command forward. 'in the meantime i formed five companies of the st kansas colored, with one piece of artillery, on my right flank, and ordered up to their assistance four companies of the th iowa infantry. soon my orderly returned from the rear with a message from captain duncan, stating that he was so closely pressed in the rear by the enemy's infantry and artillery that the men could not be spared. 'at this moment the enemy opened on me with two batteries,--one of six pieces, in front, and one, of three pieces, on my right flank,--pouring in an incessant and well directed cross-fire of shot and shell. at the same time he advanced his infantry both in front and on my right flank. 'from the force of the enemy--now the first time made visible--i saw that i could not hope to defeat him, but still resolved to defend the train to the last, hoping that re-enforcements would come up from camden. 'i suffered them to approach within one hundred yards of my line, when i opened upon them with musketry charged with buck and ball, and after a contest of fifteen minutes duration compelled them to fall back. two fresh regiments coming up, they again rallied and advanced upon my line, this time with colors flying and continuous cheering, so loud as to drown even the roar of the musketry. again i suffered them to approach even nearer than before, and opened upon them with buck and ball, their artillery still pouring in a cross-fire of shot and shell over the heads of their infantry, and mine replying with vigor and effect. and thus, for another quarter of an hour, the battle was waged with desperate fury. the noise and din of this almost hand to hand conflict was the loudest and most terrific it has ever been my lot to listen to. again were they forced to fall back, and twice during this conflict were their colors brought to the ground, but as often raised. [illustration: phalanx cavalry bringing in confederate prisoners.] 'during these engagements fully one-half of my infantry engaged were either killed or wounded. three companies were left without any officers, and seeing the enemy again re-enforced with fresh troops, it became evident that i could hold my line but little longer. i now directed maj. ward to hold the line until i could ride back and form the th iowa in proper shape to support the retreat of the advanced line. 'meanwhile, so many of the gunners had been shot from around their pieces that there were not enough to serve the guns, so i ordered them to retire to the rear of the train, and report to the cavalry officer there. just as i was starting for the line of the th iowa, my horse was shot, which delayed me until another could be procured, when i rode to the rear and formed a line of battle facing in the direction the enemy was advancing. 'again did the enemy hurl his columns against the remnant of men that formed my front and right flank, and again were they met as gallantly as before. but my decimated ranks were unable to resist the overpowering force hurled against them, and after their advance had been checked, seeing that our lines were completely flanked on both sides, major ward gave the order to retire, which was done in good order, forming and charging the enemy twice before reaching the rear of the train. 'with the assistance of major ward and other officers, i succeeded in forming a portion of the st kansas colored in the rear of the th iowa, and when the enemy approached this line, they gallantly advanced to the line of the th, and with them poured in their fire. the th maintained their line manfully, and stoutly contested the ground until nearly surrounded, when they retired, and forming again, checked the advancing foe, and still held their ground until again nearly surrounded, when they again retired across a ravine which was impassable for artillery, and i gave orders for the piece to be spiked and abandoned. 'after crossing the ravine i succeeded in forming a portion of the cavalry, which i kept in order to give the infantry time to cross the swamp which lay in our front, which they succeeded in doing. by this means nearly all, except the badly wounded, were enabled to reach the camp. many wounded men belonging to the st kansas colored fell into the hands of the enemy, and i have the most positive assurance from eyewitnesses that they were murdered on the spot. i was forced to abandon everything to the enemy, and they thereby became possessed of the large train. 'with two six pounder guns and two twelve pounder mountain howitzers, together with what force could be collected, i made my way to this post, where i arrived at p. m. of the same day. 'at no time during the engagement, such was the nature of the ground and size of the train, was i obliged to employ more than five hundred men and two guns to repel the assaults of the enemy, whose force, from the statement of prisoners, i estimate at ten thousand men and twelve guns. the columns of assault which were again thrown against my front and right flank consisted of five regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, supported by a strong force which operated against my left flank and rear. my loss, in killed, wounded and missing during this engagement was as follows: killed--ninety-two, wounded--ninety-seven, missing--one hundred and six. 'many of those reported missing are supposed to have been killed, others are supposed to have been wounded and taken prisoners. the loss of the enemy is not known, but in my opinion it will exceed our own. the conduct of all the troops under my command, officers and men, were characterized by true soldiery bearing, and in no case was a line broken, except when assaulted by an overwhelming force, and then falling back only when so ordered. the officers and men all evinced the most heroic spirit, and those that fell died the death of the true soldier. the action commenced at a. m., and terminated at p. m. i have named this engagement the action of poison springs, from a spring of that name in the vicinity. 'very respectfully yours, 'j. m. williams, '_colonel st kansas colored vol. infantry, commanding expedition._ 'capt. wm. s. whitten, _assistant adjutant general._' "on the th day of april following, gen. steele's command evacuated camden and marched for little rock. at saline crossing, on the th of april, the rear of gen. steele's command was attacked by the entire force of the enemy, commanded by gen. kirby smith. the engagement which followed resulted in the complete defeat of the enemy, with great loss on his part. in this engagement the st kansas colored was not an active participant, being at the moment of the attack in the advance, distant five miles from the rear and scene of the engagement. the regiment was ordered back to participate in the battle, but did not arrive on the line until after the repulse of the enemy and his retirement from the field. "on the day following, may st, , colonel williams was ordered to take command of the nd brigade, composed of the following phalanx regiments: st regiment, commanded by major ward; nd regiment, commanded by colonel s. j. crawford; th regiment, commanded by lieut.-col. james m. steele; th regiment, lieut.-col. chas. fair; of the frontier division th army corps. "colonel williams never afterwards resumed direct command of his regiment. it constituted for most of the time, however, a part of the brigade, which he commanded until he was mustered out of service with the regiment. "the regiment remained with the division at little rock until some time during the month of may, when it marched for fort smith,--then threatened by the enemy,--at which point it arrived during the same month. this campaign was one of great fatigue and privation, and accomplished only with great loss of life and material, with no adequate recompense or advantage gained. "the regiment remained on duty at fort smith until january th, , doing heavy escort and fatigue duty. on the th of september, , a detachment of forty-two men of co. k, commanded by lieut. d. m. sutherland, while guarding a hay-making party near fort gibson, were surprised and attacked by a large force of rebels under gen. gano, and defeated after a gallant resistence, with a loss of twenty-two killed and ten prisoners--among the latter the lieutenant commanding. on the th of january, , the regiment moved to little rock, where it arrived on the st of the same month, here it remained on duty until july , when it was ordered to pine bluffs, ark. here it remained, doing garrison and escort duty, until october st, , when it was mustered out of service and ordered to fort leavenworth for final payment and discharge. the regiment received its final payment and was discharged at fort leavenworth on the th day of october, ." the heroism of the negro people of kansas was not all centered in this one regiment. elated with the success of their brethren already in the field, there was a general desire to emulate their heroic deeds. in june, , the second regiment was organized at fort scott. the regimental organization was completed at fort smith, ark., by the mustering in of the field and staff officers. the regiment went into camp on the poteau river, about two miles south of fort smith. here the work of drill and discipline was the daily routine of duty until the regiment maintained a degree of proficiency second to none in the army of the frontier. on the th of march, , the regiment left fort smith and started on what was known as the camden expedition, forming a part of colonel williams' brigade of general thayer's division. major-general steele's forces left little rock about the same time that general thayer's division left fort smith, the latter uniting with the former on the little missouri river, all destined for active operations in the direction of red river. colonel crawford, in reply to the writer's circular letter asking for information respecting the nd regiment's service on the frontier, thus pungently details the operations of the army of which his regiment was a part: "washington. d. c., dec. st., . "joseph t. wilson, esq., richmond, va. "my dear sir: "the second kansas, afterwards designated as the rd united states colored troops, was organized at fort scott, kansas, on the rd day of october, . most of the companies were organized and mustered into service during the spring and summer preceding. the regiment, when organized, was full to the maximum, or nearly so, and composed of active, able-bodied young men. immediately upon assuming command of the regiment, i moved to the front through missouri, to fort smith, in arkansas, where the regiment was stationed during the winter - , and when not on other duty or in the field, spent the time in company and regimental drill. "on the th day of march, , with the kansas division of the frontier army under the command of general thayer, i moved south and joined the th army corps under the command of major-general fred. steele, in an expedition against the rebel armies under generals price, kirby smith and dick taylor, then encamped in the vicinity of shreveport, la. "while steele was advancing from the north, general banks was at the same time moving up the red river from the east. price, smith and taylor, seeing the two armies of steele and banks, closing in upon them, concentrated their forces, first upon banks, and after defeating and routing his forces, turned upon steele, who was then near red river, in south-western arkansas. "steele hearing of the banks disaster, changed his course and moved eastward, to camden, a strongly fortified town on the washita river. from the point at which he turned eastward, to camden, a distance of about sixty miles, the march was almost continuous, except when it became necessary to skirmish with the enemy's cavalry, which hovered unpleasantly close during the greater part of the distance. "in each of the light engagements which took place on this march from red river to camden, the nd regiment participated, and behaved in a manner creditable to itself and the army. "after remaining at camden about three days (so as to give the victorious rebel armies full time to concentrate upon him) general steele crossed the washita to the north and commenced a disgraceful retreat or run back toward little rock. "the enemy, under price and kirby smith, followed in close pursuit, and within a few hours were again upon our flank and rear. the march or retreat was continuous, night and day, until the village of princeton was reached, where steele's army encamped one night, and received a full ration of fresh beef and new orleans sugar, the latter of which had been captured, or rather found in camden. early on the following morning the army resumed its onward march, towards the north pole as the apparent objective point. "now mind you this was an army (the th army corps) about thirty thousand strong; mostly western troops, and splendidly armed and equipped. better soldiers never wore spurs or carried muskets. yet under the command of a tenor singing dog fancier, that magnificent army was thus retreating before an army in every way its inferior save, and except, the commanding general. "thus things went, disgracefully, until the afternoon of the day on which we left princeton, april , . then, for the first time after turning our backs to the enemy, in the vicinity of red river, there seemed to be a bare possibility of escape,--not from the enemy, but from absolute disgrace and humiliation. "at no time during that disgraceful retreat, was there a moment when the whole army corps, except the commanding general, would not have welcomed a battle, with one universal shout. "about o'clock in the afternoon of the day mentioned, the rebel cavalry appeared in force and commenced skirmishing with our forces in the rear, which continued, more or less, until darkness set in. meantime our distinguished leader, the major-general commanding, had arrived at the crossing of the saline river, thrown a pontoon bridge over that swollen stream, and made good his escape to the north side, taking with him the whole army, except one section of artillery and two brigades of infantry of which the nd kansas colored formed a part. "these two brigades--six regiments in all--stood in line of battle all night long, while the rain poured in torrents most of the time. "during the night the enemy's infantry moved up and formed in our immediate front; in fact made every necessary preparation for battle, while the dog fancier, who was unfortunately at the head of our army across the river, was either sleeping or devising the ways and means by which he could most easily elude the enemy. "but when daylight came the six regiments were there in line, every man ready, willing and determined to return, volley for volley, and if necessary force the fighting, so as to bring on a general engagement. "there were but six regiments of us south of the river, with two pieces of artillery. but we were there to stay until a battle was fought. "general rice of iowa, formed his brigade in the center; the th kansas infantry, commanded by col. hayes was on his left, and the nd kansas colored infantry, commanded by myself, was on the right. "as soon as it was fairly light, the battle began; both lines moving slightly forward until within close range. from the beginning, the crash of musketry was terrific. our men stood firm against the advanced division of the enemy's infantry, and used their springfield and enfield rifles with deadly effect. "the enemy seeing our weakness in numbers, pressed heavily in the center and upon both flanks, with the evident design of breaking our line before re-enforcements could reach us. "but in this they were disappointed. we held our position until re-enforcements arrived. "at one time my regiment was under a heavy fire from the front and also from the flank, but not a man wavered. in fact it seemed to inspire them with additional courage. the re-enforcements as they arrived, passed to the rear and formed on the left, leaving me to hold the right. after about three hours hard fighting, the enemy having failed to dislodge my regiment from its position, which was regarded as the key to the situation, brought into position a battery of artillery, planted it immediately in front of my regiment and opened with canister. "as soon as this was done i gave the order to cease firing and fix bayonets, and followed that immediately with the order to charge the battery. "these orders were executed with a courage and daring seldom equaled by even older troops, and never excelled by a volunteer regiment. "in less than two minutes from the time the charge was ordered, the rebel battery was in our possession, and out of thirty-six horses used in the battery, but two were left standing when we passed the guns. "most of the artillery-men lay dead and wounded around the battery while the line of infantry support in the rear of battery, fell back in disorder before our bayonets; not, however, until many of them had for the first time felt the effects of cold steel. "the charge, though bloody on both sides, was pre-eminently successful, and my regiment, "the nd iron clads," as it was called, brought away the battery so captured. "in the charge, the regiment lost in killed and wounded, some forty odd men and officers. all of our horses, field and staff, were shot and most of them killed. the color bearer harrison young, a hero among men, was wounded and fell, raised to his feet and was again twice wounded. a comrade then took the flag and was wounded, and a third man brought it off the field. "a wounded lieutenant of the battery was brought to me, as a prisoner;[ ] but in view of the massacre of colored troops by the rebels at fort pillow and other places, i sent the lieutenant immediately back through the lines, pointing him to the regiment that had made the charge, and telling him that since the rebel authorities had concluded to take no prisoners, belonging to colored regiments, it would hardly be proper for me to hold him as a prisoner; that they had established the precedent, and that in so far as i was concerned, they could 'lay on macduff.' the lieutenant rejoined his command a sadder if not a wiser man. "after the charge i moved with my regiment to the centre, where the battle was then raging hottest. here it remained in the thickest of the fight until an advance was ordered all along the line, which was made, the enemy falling back slowly before our troops, and finally retired from the field, leaving us in full possession, with a complete victory. [illustration: phalanx soldiers bringing in a captured battery] "only infantry was engaged on either side except the rebel battery, which my regiment captured. "our cavalry, some five thousand strong, and artillery, about forty pieces, as already stated, were on the north side of the river, and could not be brought into action, to advantage, on account of the dense forest and swampy nature of the ground. we had about fifteen thousand men engaged, while the enemy had the armies of price and kirby smith, from which our _gallant_ commander, steele, had for many days been fleeing, as from the wrath to come. during the entire battle steele remained on the north side of the river, beyond the reach of the enemy's guns, and at a point from which he could continue his flight with safety in case of defeat. but the victory was ours, so the march from saline river to little rock was made in peace. "during this battle my regiment lost in killed and wounded about eighty men, but we were richly rewarded by the achievements of the day. we, perhaps, had as much to do with bringing on the battle as any other one regiment. i went into action in the morning without orders. in fact i disobeyed an order to cross the river at daylight, and instead, i formed my regiment and faced the enemy. the regiment charged the battery by my orders, and against an order from a superior officer, to hold back and wait for orders. "my regiment, though among the first in action, and having suffered a greater loss than that of any other, was the last to leave the field. "from this time forward until the close of the war, in so far as the western army was concerned, we heard no more of the question, 'will they fight?' "the reputation of at least one colored regiment was established, and it stands to-day, in the estimation of men who served in the western army, as the equal of any other volunteer regiment. "after the saline river battle the regiment moved back to little rock and thence to fort smith, in western arkansas. "in july , with the nd and other troops, i conducted an expedition through the choctaw nation in the indian territory, against, or rather in pursuit of a brigade of rebel forces, driving them out of that country. during this campaign several light engagements were fought, in each of which the nd took a prominent part, and in each of which the nd was invariably successful. "in the fall of [ ], i resigned my position as colonel to assume other duties. "what took place from then until the regiment was mustered out of service, i only know from heresay, but it is safe to say that the regiment maintained its reputation as one of the best infantry regiments in the th army corps. "a short time before i left the regiment, general marcy, then inspector general of the u.s. army, inspected the kansas division, to which my regiment belonged, and his report, which is now on file in the war department, if i am not mistaken, shows that the nd colored in point of drill, discipline and military appearance, stood first of all the regiments in that division. "yours truly, "samuel j. crawford. lieutenant-colonel gilpatrick, promoted from major, took command of the regiment succeeding colonel crawford, and in december made a forced march to hudson's crossing on the neosho river, by way of fort gibson, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, on quarter rations, and returned as escort to a large supply train. it was then, with all the phalanx regiments at fort smith, ordered to little rock, where it arrived with a very large train of refugees under charge, on the th of february, after a march of seventeen days. colonel gilpatrick says: "the men suffered severely on the march by exposure to wet and cold and for the want of proper and sufficient food, clothing and shelter. many of them were barefooted, almost naked, and without blankets." the regiment remained at little rock until the spring of , when it formed part of an expedition which proceeded some distance south of little rock, and operated against a band of guerillas on the saline river, which they succeeded in driving out and partly capturing. on the th of july the regiment broke camp and proceeded to camden, arkansas, and was mustered out of the united states service, and proceeding by way of pine bluff, ark., memphis, tenn., and st. louis, mo., reached leavenworth, kansas, where the men were finally paid and discharged on the th of november, . these brave men immediately returned to their homes to enjoy the blessings of a free government. [illustration: the wooden horse. a mode of punishment for slight offences.] footnotes: [ ] not less than , negroes-- , at least of which fought for the union.--have been driven by persecution into kansas from the southern states, and the exodus still continues. [ ] "colonel crawford ordered the prisoners to be taken to the rear without insult or injury, which conduct on his part is in striking contrast to the treatment bestowed upon our colored troops at poison springs. he also told a rebel lieutenant and other prisoners to inform their commanding general that colored troops had captured them, and that he must from necessity leave some of his wounded men in hospitals by the way, and that he should expect the same kind treatment shown to them that he showed to those falling into his hands; but that just such treatment as his wounded men received at their hands, whether kindness or death, should from this time forward, be meted out to all rebel falling into his hands. that if they wished to treat as prisoners of war our colored soldiers, to be exchanged for theirs, the decision was their own; but if they could afford to murder our colored prisoners to gratify their fiendish dispositions and passions, the responsibility of commensurate retaliation, to bring them to a sense of justice, was also their own. but, notwithstanding the kindness shown to their prisoners, so soon as our command left, a texas soldier, in the presence of one of their officers, killed, in the hospital, nine of the wounded men belonging to the nd kansas colored infantry."--_mcafee's military history of kansas._ [ ] about the middle of october, colonel crawford received information of his nomination for the office of governor, and came from fort smith to kansas, arriving about the th instant, just in time to be an active participant in the expulsion of general price and his army from the border of the state. chapter vii. department of the south. the appearance of the negro in the union army altered the state of affairs very much. the policy of the general government was changed, and the one question which mr. lincoln had tried to avoid became _the_ question of the war. general butler, first at fortress monroe and then at new orleans, had defined the status of the slave, "contraband" and then "soldiers," in advance of the emancipation proclamation. general hunter, in command at the south, as stated in a previous chapter, had taken an early opportunity to strike the rebellion in its most vital part, by arming negroes in his department, after declaring them free. notwithstanding the president revoked hunter's order, a considerable force was organized and equipped as early as december, ; in fact a regiment of blacks was under arms when the president issued the emancipation proclamation. this regiment, the st south carolina, was in command of colonel t. w. higginson, who with a portion of his command ascended the st. mary's river on transports, visited florida and georgia, and had several engagements with the enemy. after an absence of ten or more days, the expedition returned to south carolina without the loss of a man. had there been but one army in the field, and the fighting confined to one locality, the phalanx would have been mobilized, but as there were several armies it was distributed among the several forces, and its conduct in battle, camp, march and bivouac, was spoken of by the commanders of the various armies in terms which any class of soldiers, of any race, might well be proud of. general grant, on the th of july, following the capture of vicksburg, wrote to the adjutant-general: "the negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than are our white troops, and i doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. all that have been tried have fought bravely." this was six days after the unsurpassed bravery of the th regiment massachusetts volunteers--representing the north in the black phalanx--had planted its bloodstained banner on the ramparts of fort wagner. it was the southern negroes, who, up to this time, had reddened the waters of the mississippi. it was the freedman's blood that had moistened the soil, and if ignorance could be so intrepid still greater daring might be expected on the part of the more intelligent men of the race. the assault on fort wagner, july , , was one of the most heroic of the whole four years' war. a very graphic account of the entire movement is given in the following article: "at daylight, on the morning of the th of july a strong column of our troops advanced swiftly to the attack of fort wagner. the rebels were well prepared, and swept with their guns every foot of the approach to the fort, but our soldiers pressed on, and gained a foothold on the parapet; but, not being supported by other troops, nor aided by the guns of the fleet, which quietly looked on, they were forced to retreat, leaving many of their comrades in the hands of the enemy. "it is the opinion of many that if the fleet had moved up at the same time, and raked the fort with their guns, our troops would have succeeded in taking it; but the naval captains said in their defence that they knew nothing of the movement, and would have gladly assisted in the attack had they been notified. "this, unfortunately, was not the only instance of a want of harmony or co-operation between the land and naval forces operating against charleston. had they been under the control of one mind, the sacrifice of life in the siege of forts wagner and sumter would have been far less. we will not assume to say which side was at fault, but by far the greater majority lay the blame upon the naval officers. warfare kindles up the latent germs of jealousy in the human breast, and the late rebellion furnished many cruel examples of its effects, both among the rebels and among the patriots. we have had the misfortune to witness them in more than one campaign, and upon more than one bloody and disastrous field. "by the failure of this attack, it was evident that the guns of wagner must be silenced before a successful assault with infantry could be made; and, in order to accomplish this, a siege of greater or less duration was required. therefore earthworks were immediately thrown up at the distance of about a thousand yards from the fort, and the guns and mortars from folly island brought over to be placed in position. "this morris island is nothing but a narrow bed of sand, about three miles in length, with a breadth variable from a few hundred yards to a few feet. along the central portion of the lower end a ridge of white sand hills appear, washed on one side by the tidal waves, and sloping on the other into broad marshes, more than two miles in width, and intersected by numerous deep creeks. upon the extreme northern end, battery gregg, which the rebels used in reducing fort sumter in , had been strengthened, and mounted with five heavy guns, which threw their shot more than half way down the island. a few hundred yards farther down the island, and at its narrowest portion, a strong fort had been erected, and armed with seventeen guns and mortars. this was the famous fort wagner; and, as its cannon prevented any farther progress up the island, it was necessary to reduce it before our forces could approach nearer to fort sumter. "it was thought by our engineers that a continuous bombardment of a few days by our siege batteries and the fleet might dismount the rebel cannon, and demoralize the garrison, so that our brave boys, by a sudden rush, might gain possession of the works. accordingly our siege train was brought over from folly island, and a parallel commenced about a thousand yards from wagner. our men worked with such energy that nearly thirty cannon and mortars were in position on the th of july. on the th of july the bombardment commenced. the land batteries poured a tempest of shot into the south side of wagner, while the fleet moved up to within short range, and battered the east side with their great guns. in the mean time the rebels were not silent, but gallantly stood to their guns, returning shot for shot with great precision. but, after a few hours, their fire slackened; gun after gun became silent, as the men were disabled, and, when the clock struck four in the afternoon, wagner no longer responded to the furious cannonade of the federal forces. even the men had taken shelter beneath the bomb-proofs, and no sign of life was visible about the grim and battered fortress. "many of our officers were now so elated with the apparent result of demolition, that they urged general gillmore to allow them to assault the fort as soon as it became dark. general gillmore yielded to the solicitations of the officers, but very reluctantly, for he was not convinced that the proper time had arrived; but the order was finally given for the attack to take place just after dark. fatal error as to time, for our troops in the daytime would have been successful, since they would not have collided with each other; they could have seen their foes, and the arena of combat, and the fleet could have assisted them with their guns, and prevented the landing of the re-enforcements from charleston. "it was a beautiful and calm evening when the troops who were to form the assaulting column moved out on to the broad and smooth beach left by the receding tide. "the last rays of the setting sun illumined the grim walls and shattered mounds of wagner with a flood of crimson light, too soon, alas! to be deeper dyed with the red blood of struggling men. "our men halted, and formed their ranks upon the beach, a mile and more away from the deadly breach. quietly they stood leaning upon their guns, and awaiting the signal of attack. there stood, side by side, the hunter of the far west, the farmer of the north, the stout lumber-man from the forests of maine, and the black phalanx massachusetts had armed and sent to the field. "in this hour of peril there was no jealousy, no contention. the black phalanx were to lead the forlorn hope. and they were proud of their position, and conscious of its danger. although we had seen many of the famous regiments of the english, french, and austrian armies, we were never more impressed with the fury and majesty of war than when we looked upon the solid mass of the thousand black men, as they stood, like giant statues of marble, upon the snow-white sands of the beach, waiting the order to advance. and little did we think, as we gazed with admiration upon that splendid column of four thousand brave men, that ere an hour had passed, half of them would be swept away, maimed or crushed in the gathering whirlwind of death! time passed quickly, and twilight was fast deepening into the darkness of night, when the signal was given. onward moved the chosen and ill-fated band, making the earth tremble under the heavy and monotonous tread of the dense mass of thousands of men. wagner lay black and grim in the distance, and silent. not a glimmer of light was seen. not a gun replied to the bombs which our mortars still constantly hurled into the fort. not a shot was returned to the terrific volleys of the giant frigate ironsides, whose shells, ever and anon, plunged into the earthworks, illuminating their recesses for an instant in the glare of their explosion, but revealing no signs of life. "were the rebels all dead? had they fled from the pitiless storm which our batteries had poured down upon them for so many hours? where were they? "down deep beneath the sand heaps were excavated great caverns, whose floors were level with the tide, and whose roofs were formed of huge trunks of trees laid in double rows. still above these massive beams sand was heaped so deeply that even our enormous shells could not penetrate the roofs, though they fell from the skies above. in these dark subterranean retreats two thousand men lay hid, like panthers in a swamp, waiting to leap forth in fury upon their prey. "the signal given, our forces advanced rapidly towards the fort, while our mortars in the rear tossed their bombs over their heads. the fifty-fourth massachusetts [phalanx regiment] led the attack, supported by the th conn., th n. y., rd n. h., th penn. and the th maine regiments. onward swept the immense mass of men, swiftly and silently, in the dark shadows of night. not a flash of light was seen in the distance! no sentinel hoarsely challenged the approaching foe! all was still save the footsteps of the soldiers, which sounded like the roar of the distant surf, as it beats upon the rock-bound coast. [illustration: at fort wagner. desperate charge of the th mass. vols. in the assault on fort wagner, july , .] "ah, what is this! the silent and shattered walls of wagner all at once burst forth into a blinding sheet of vivid light, as though they had suddenly been transformed by some magic power into the living, seething crater of a volcano! down came the whirlwind of destruction along the beach with the swiftness of lightning! how fearfully the hissing shot, the shrieking bombs, the whistling bars of iron, and the whispering bullet struck and crushed through the dense masses of our brave men! i never shall forget the terrible sound of that awful blast of death, which swept down, shattered or dead, a thousand of our men. not a shot had missed its aim. every bolt of steel, every globe of iron and lead, tasted of human blood. "'forward!' shouted the undaunted putnam, as the column wavered and staggered like a giant stricken with death. "'steady, my boys!' murmured the brave leader, general strong, as a cannon-shot dashed him, maimed and bleeding, into the sand. "in a moment the column recovered itself, like a gallant ship at sea when buried for an instant under an immense wave. "the ditch is reached; a thousand men leap into it, clamber up the shattered ramparts, and grapple with the foe, which yields and falls back to the rear of the fort. our men swarm over the walls, bayoneting the desperate rebel cannoneers. hurrah! the fort is ours! "but now came another blinding blast from concealed guns in the rear of the fort, and our men went down by scores. now the rebels rally, and, re-enforced by thousands of the chivalry, who have landed on the beach under cover of darkness, unmolested by the guns of the fleet. they hurl themselves with fury upon the remnant of our brave band. the struggle is terrific. our supports hurry up to the aid of their comrades, but as they reach the ramparts they fire a volley which strikes down many of our men. fatal mistake! our men rally once more; but, in spite of an heroic resistance, they are forced back again to the edge of the ditch. here the brave shaw, with scores of his black warriors went down, fighting desperately. here putnam met his death wound, while cheering and urging on the overpowered phalanx men. "what fighting, and what fearful carnage! hand to hand, breast to breast! here, on this little strip of land, scarce bigger than the human hand, dense masses of men struggled with fury in the darkness; and so fierce was the contest that the sands were reddened and soaked with human gore. "but resistance was vain. the assailants were forced back again to the beach, and the rebels trained their recovered cannon anew upon the retreating survivors. "what a fearful night was that, as we gathered up our wounded heroes, and bore them to a place of shelter! and what a mournful morning, as the sun rose with his clear beams, and revealed our terrible losses! what a rich harvest death had gathered to himself during the short struggle! nearly two thousand of our men had fallen. more than six hundred of our brave boys lay dead on the ramparts of the fatal fort, in its broad ditch, and along the beach at its base. a flag of truce party went out to bury our dead, but general beauregard they found had already buried them, where they fell, in broad, deep trenches." colonel shaw, the young and gallant commander of the th regiment, was formerly a member of the famous th n. y. regiment. he was of high, social and influential standing, and in his death won distinction. the confederates added to his fame and glory, though unintentionally, by burying him with his soldiers, or as a confederate major expressed the information, when a request for the colonel's body was made, "we have buried him with his niggers!" a poet has immortalized the occurrence and the gallant shaw thus: 'they buried him with his niggers!' together they fought and died. there was room for them all where they laid him, (the grave was deep and wide). for his beauty and youth and valor, their patience and love and pain; and at the last together they shall be found again. 'they buried him with his niggers!' earth holds no prouder grave; there is not a mausoleum in the world beyond the wave, that a nobler tale has hallowed, or a purer glory crowned, than the nameless trench where they buried the brave so faithful found. 'they buried him with his niggers!' a wide grave should it be; they buried more in that shallow trench than human eye could see. aye, all the shames and sorrows of more than a hundred years lie under the weight of that southern soil despite those cruel sneers. 'they buried him with his niggers!' but the glorious souls set free are leading the van of the army that fights for liberty. brothers in death, in glory the same palm branches bear; and the crown is as bright o'er the sable brows as over the golden hair. * * * * buried with a band of brothers who for him would fain have died; buried with the gallant fellows who fell fighting by his side; buried with the men god gave him, those whom he was sent to save; buried with the martyr heroes, he has found an honored grave. buried where his dust so precious makes the soil a hallowed spot; buried where by christian patriot, he shall never be forgot. buried in the ground accursed, which man's fettered feet have trod; buried where his voice still speaketh, appealing for the slave to god; fare thee well, thou noble warrior, who in youthful beauty went on a high and holy mission, by the god of battles sent. chosen of him, 'elect and precious,' well didst thou fulfil thy part; when thy country 'counts her jewels,' she shall wear thee on her heart. the heroic courage displayed by the gallant phalanx at the assault upon fort wagner was not surpassed by the old guard at moscow. major-general taliaferro gives this confederate account of the fight, which is especially interesting as it shows the condition of affairs inside the fort: "on the night of the th the monster iron-plated frigate new ironsides, crossed the bar and added her formidable and ponderous battery to those destined for the great effort of reducing the sullen earthwork which barred the federal advance. there were now five monitors, the ironsides and a fleet of gunboats and monster hulks grouped together and only waiting the signal to unite with the land batteries when the engineers should pronounce them ready to form a cordon of flame around the devoted work. the confederates were prepared for the ordeal. for fear that communications with the city and the mainland, which was had by steamboat at night to cummings' point should be interrupted, rations and ordnance stores had been accumulated, but there was trouble about water. some was sent from charleston and wells had been dug in the sand inside and outside the fort, but it was not good. sand bags had been provided and trenching tools supplied sufficient for any supposed requirement. "the excitement of the enemy in front after the th was manifest to the confederates and announced an 'impending crisis.' it became evident that some extraordinary movement was at hand. the federal forces on james island had been attacked on the morning of the th by general hagood and caused to retire, hagood occupying the abandoned positions, and on the th the enemy's troops were transferred to little folly and morris islands. it has been stated that the key to the signals employed by the federals was in possession of general taliaferro at this time, and he was thus made acquainted with the intended movement and put upon his guard. that is a mistake. he had no such direct information, although it is true that afterwards the key was discovered and the signals interpreted with as much ease as by the federals themselves. the th of july was the day determined upon by the federal commanders for the grand attempt which, if successful, would level the arrogant fortress and confuse it by the mighty power of their giant artillery with the general mass of surrounding sand hills, annihilate its garrison or drive them into the relentless ocean, or else consign them to the misery of hostile prisons. "the day broke beautifully, a gentle breeze slightly agitated the balmy atmosphere, and with rippling dimples beautified the bosom of the placid sea. all nature was serene and the profoundest peace held dominion over all the elements. the sun, rising with the early splendors of his midsummer glory, burnished with golden tints the awakening ocean, and flashed his reflected light back from the spires of the beleaguered city into the eyes of those who stood pausing to gather strength to spring upon her, and of those who stood at bay to battle for her safety. yet the profound repose was undisturbed; the early hours of that fair morning hoisted a flag of truce between the combatants which was respected by both. but the tempest of fire which was destined to break the charm of nature, with human thunders then unsurpassed in war, was gathering in the south. at about half-past o'clock the ships of war moved from their moorings, the iron leviathan the ironsides, an agamemnon among ships, leading and directing their movements, then monitor after monitor, and then wooden flagships. steadily and majestically they marched; marched as columns of men would march, obedient to commands, independent of waves and winds, mobilized by steam and science to turn on a pivot and manoeuvre as the directing mind required them; they halted in front of the fort; they did not anchor as sir peter parker's ships had done near a hundred years before in front of moultrie, which was hard by and frowning still at her ancient enemies of the ocean. they halted and waited for word of command to belch their consuming lightnings out upon the foe. on the land, engineering skill was satisfied and the deadly exposure for details for labor was ended; the time for retaliation had arrived when the defiant shots of the rebel batteries would be answered; the batteries were unmasked; the cordon of fire was complete by land and by sea; the doomed fort was encircled by guns. "the confederates watched from the ramparts the approach of the fleet and the unmasking of the guns, and they knew that the moment had arrived in which the problem of the capacity of the resistant power of earth and sand to the forces to which science so far developed in war could subject them was to be solved and that battery wagner was to be that day the subject of the crucial test. the small armament of the fort was really inappreciable in the contest about to be inaugurated. there was but one gun which could be expected to be of much avail against the formidable naval power which would assail it and on the land side few which could reach the enemy's batteries. when these guns were knocked to pieces and silenced there was nothing left but passive resistance, but the confederates, from the preliminary tests which had been applied, had considerable faith in the capacity of sand and earth for passive resistance. "the fort was in good condition, having been materially strengthened since the former assault by the indefatigable exertions of colonel david harris, chief engineer, and his valuable assistant, captain barnwell. colonel harris was a virginian, ex-officer of the army of the united states and a graduate of west point, who had some years before retired from the service to prosecute the profession of civil engineering. under a tempest of shells he landed during the fiercest period of the bombardment at cummings' point, and made his way through the field of fire to the beleaguered fort to inspect its condition and to inspire the garrison by his heroic courage and his confidence in its strength. escaping all the dangers of war, he fell a victim to yellow fever in charleston, beloved and honored by all who had ever known him. the heavy work imposed upon the garrison in repairs and construction, as well as the strain upon the system by constant exposure to the enemy's fire, had induced general beauregard to adopt the plan of relieving the garrison every few days by fresh troops. the objection to this was that the new men had to be instructed and familiarized with their duties; but still it was wise and necessary, for the same set of officers and men, if retained any length of time, would have been broken down by the arduous service required of them. the relief was sent by regiments and detachments, so there was never an entirely new body of men in the works. "the garrison was estimated at one thousand seven hundred aggregate. the staff of general taliaferro consisted of captain twiggs, quartermaster general; captain w. t. taliaferro, adjutant general; lieutenants h. c. cunningham and magyck, ordnance officers; lieutenants meade and stoney, aides-de-camp; major holcombe; captain burke, quartermaster, and habersham, surgeon-in-chief; private stockman, of mcenery's louisiana battalion, who had been detailed as clerk because of his incapacity for other duty, from most honorable wounds, acted also in capacity of aid. "the charleston battalion was assigned to that part of the work which extended from the sally port or lighthouse inlet creek around to the left until it occupied part of the face to the south, including the western bastion; the fifty-first north carolina connected with these troops on the left and extended to the southeast bastion; the rest of the work was to be occupied by the thirty-first north carolina regiment, and a small force from that regiment was detailed as a reserve, and two companies of the charleston battalion were to occupy outside of the fort the covered way spoken of and some sand-hills by the seashore; the artillery was distributed among the several gun-chambers and the light pieces posted on a traverse outside so as to sweep to sea face and the right approach. the positions to be occupied were well known to every officer and man and had been verified repeatedly by day and night, so there was no fear of confusion, mistake or delay in the event of an assault. the troops of course were not ordered to these positions when at o'clock it was evident a furious bombardment was impending, but, on the contrary, to the shelter of the bomb-proofs, sand-hills and parapet; a few sentinels or videttes were detailed and the gun detachments only ordered to their pieces. "the charleston battalion preferred the freer air of the open work to the stifling atmosphere of the bomb-proofs and were permitted to shelter themselves under the parapet and traverses. not one of that heroic band entered the opening of a bomb-proof during that frightful day. the immense superiority of the enemy's artillery was well understood and appreciated by the confederate commander, and it was clear to him that his policy was to husband his resources and preserve them as best he could for the assault, which it was reasonable to expect would occur during the day. he recognized the fact that his guns were only defensive and he had little or no offensive power with which to contend with his adversaries. acting on this conviction he had the light guns dismounted and covered with sand bags, and the same precaution was adopted to preserve some of the shell guns or fixed carriages. the propriety of this determination was abundantly demonstrated in the end. "about a quarter past o'clock the storm broke, ship after ship and battery after battery, and then apparently all together, vomited forth their horrid flames and the atmosphere was filled with deadly missiles. it is impossible for any pen to describe or for anyone who was not an eye-witness to conceive the frightful grandeur of the spectacle. the writer has never had the fortune to read any official federal report or any other account of the operations of this day except an extract from the graphic and eloquent address of the rev. mr. dennison, a chaplain of one of the northern regiments, delivered on its nineteenth anniversary at providence, r. i. he says: 'words cannot depict the thunder, the smoke, the lifted sand and the general havoc which characterized that hot summer day. what a storm of iron fell on that island; the roar of the guns was incessant; how the shots ploughed the sand banks and the marshes; how the splinters flew from the beacon house; how the whole island smoked like a furnace and trembled as from an earthquake.' "if that was true outside of wagner it is easy to conceive how intensified the situation was within its narrow limits towards which every hostile gun was pointed. the sand came down in avalanches; huge vertical shells and those rolled over by the ricochet shots from the ships, buried themselves and then exploded, rending the earth and forming great craters, out of which the sand and iron fragments flew high in the air. it was a fierce sirocco freighted with iron as well as sand. the sand flew over from the seashore, from the glacis, from the exterior slope, from the parapet, as it was ploughed up and lifted and driven by resistless force now in spray and now almost in waves over into the work, the men sometimes half buried by the moving mass. the chief anxiety was about the magazines. the profile of the fort might be destroyed, the ditch filled up, the traverses and bomb-proof barracks knocked out of shape, but the protecting banks of sand would still afford their shelter; but if the coverings of the magazines were blown away and they became exposed, the explosion that would ensue would lift fort and garrison into the air and annihilate all in general chaos. they were carefully watched and reports of their condition required to be made at short intervals during the day. "wagner replied to the enemy, her -inch columbiad alone to the ships, deliberately at intervals of fifteen minutes, the other guns to the land batteries whenever in range, as long as they were serviceable. the -pounder rifled gun was soon rendered useless by bursting and within two hours many other guns had been dismounted and their carriages destroyed. sumter, colonel alfred rhett in command, and gregg, under charge of captain sesesne, with the sullivan and james island batteries at long range, threw all the power of their available metal at the assailants and added their thunders to the universal din; the harbor of charleston was a volcano. the want of water was felt, but now again unconsciously the enemy came to the assistance of the garrison, for water was actually scooped from the craters made in the sand by the exploded shells. the city of charleston was alive and aflame with excitement; the bay, the wharves, the steeples and streets filled with anxious spectators looking across the water at their defenders, whom they could not succor. "at o'clock the flag halliards were cut by a shot and the confederate garrison flag was blown over into the fort; there was an instant race for its recovery through the storm of missiles, over the broken earth and shells and splinters which lined the parade. major ramsey, sergeant shelton and private flinn, of the charleston battalion, and lieutenant riddick, of the sixty-third georgia, first reached it and bore it back in triumph to the flagstaff, and at the same moment captain barnwell, of the engineers, seized a battle-flag, and leaping on the ramparts, drove the staff into the sand. this flag was again shot away, but was again replaced by private gaillard, of the charleston battalion. these intrepid actions, emulating in a higher degree the conduct of sergeant jasper at moultrie during the revolution, were cheered by the command and inspired them with renewed courage. "the day wore on; thousands upon thousands of shells and round shot, shells loaded with balls, shells of guns and shells of mortars, percussion shells, exploding upon impact, shells with graded fuses--every kind apparently known to the arsenals of war leaped into and around the doomed fort, yet there was no cessation; the sun seemed to stand still and the long midsummer day to know no night. some men were dead and no scratch appeared on their bodies; the concussion had forced the breath from their lungs and collapsed them into corpses. captain twiggs, of the staff, in executing some orders was found apparently dead. he was untouched, but lifeless, and only strong restoratives brought him back to animation, and the commanding officer was buried knee-deep in sand and had to be rescued by spades from his imprisonment. the day wore on, hours followed hours of anxiety and grim endurance, but no respite ensued. at last night came; not however, to herald a cessation of the strife, but to usher in a conflict still more terrible. more than eleven hours had passed. the fort was torn and mutilated; to the outside observer it was apparently powerless, knocked to pieces and pounded out of shape, the outline changed, the exterior slope full of gaping wounds, the ditch half filled up, but the interior still preserved its form and its integrity; scarred and defaced it was yet a citadel which, although not offensive, was defiant. "it was nearly eight o'clock at night, but still twilight, when a calm came and the blazing circle ceased to glow with flame. the ominous pause was understood; it required no signals to be read by those to whom they were not directed to inform them that the supreme moment to test the value of the day's achievements was now at hand. it meant nothing but assault. dr. dennison says the assault was intended to be a surprise. he over-estimates the equanimity of the confederate commander if he supposes that that bombardment, which would have waked the dead, had lulled him into security and repose. the buried cannon were at once exhumed, the guns remounted and the garrison ordered to their appointed posts. the charleston battalion were already formed and in position; they had nestled under the parapet and stood ready in their places. the other troops with the exception of part of one regiment, responded to the summons with extraordinary celerity, and the echoes of the federal guns had hardly died away before more than three-fourths of the ramparts were lined with troops; one gap remained unfilled; the demoralized men who should have filled it clung to the bomb-proofs and stayed there. the gallant colonel simpkins called his men to the gun-chambers wherever guns existed. de pass, with his light artillery on the traverse to the left, his guns remounted and untouched, stood ready, and colonel harris moved a howitzer outside the fort to the right to deliver an enfilade fire upon the assailants. "the dark masses of the enemies columns, brigade after brigade, were seen in the fading twilight to approach; line after line was formed and then came the rush. a small creek made in on the right of the fort and intercepted the enemy's left attack; they did not know it, or did not estimate it. orders were given to gaillard to hold his fire and deliver no direct shot. it was believed the obstacle presented by the creek would confuse the assailants, cause them to incline to the right and mingle their masses at the head of the obstacle and thus their movements would be obstructed. it seemed to have the anticipated effect and the assaulting columns apparently jumbled together at this point were met by the withering volleys of mckethan's direct and gaillard's cross-fire and by the direct discharge of the shell guns, supplemented by the frightful enfilading discharges of the lighter guns upon the right and left. it was terrible, but with an unsurpassed gallantry the federal soldiers breasted the storm and rushed onward to the glacis. "the confederates, not fourteen hundred strong, with the tenacity of bull dogs and a fierce courage which was roused to madness by the frightful inaction to which they had been subjected, poured from the ramparts and embrasures sheets of flame and a tempest of lead and iron, yet their intrepid assailants rushed on like the waves of the sea by whose shore they fought. they fell by hundreds, but they pushed on, reeling under the frightful blasts that almost blew them to pieces, some up to the confederate bayonets. the southeast bastion was weakly defended, and into it a considerable body of the enemy made their way but they were caught in a trap, for they could not leave it. the fight continued; but it was impossible to stem the torrent of deadly missiles which poured out from the fort, the reflux of that terrible tide which had poured in all day, and the federals retreated, leaving near a thousand dead around the fort. "there was no cessation of the confederate fire. sumter and gregg threw their shells along with those of wagner upon the retiring foe; nor was the conflict over in the fort itself. the party which had gained access by the salient next the sea could not escape. it was certain death to attempt to pass the line of concentrated fire which swept the faces of the work, and they did not attempt it; but they would not surrender, and in desperation kept up a constant fire upon the main body of the fort. the confederates called for volunteers to dislodge them--a summons which was promptly responded to by major mcdonald, of the fifty-first north carolina, and by captain rion, of the charleston battalion, with the requisite number of men. rion's company was selected, and the gallant irishman, at the head of his company, dashed at the reckless and insane men, who seemed to insist upon immolation. the tables were now singularly turned; the assailants had become the assailed and they held a fort within the fort, and were protected by the traverses and gun chambers, behind which they fought. rion rushed at them, but he fell, shot outright, with several of his men, and the rest recoiled. at this time general hagood reported to general taliaferro with colonel harrison's splendid regiment, the thirty-second georgia, sent over by beauregard to his assistance as soon as a landing could be effected at cummings' point. these troops were ordered to move along on the traverses and bomb-proofs, and to plunge their concentrated fire over the stronghold. still, for a time, the enemy held out, but at last they cried out and surrendered. "the carnage was frightful. it is believed the federals lost more men on that eventful night than twice the entire strength of the confederate garrison. the confederates lost eight killed and twenty wounded by the bombardment and about fifty killed and one hundred and fifty wounded altogether from the bombardment and assault. among the killed were those gallant officers, lieutenant colonel simkins and major ramsey and among the wounded captains depass and twiggs, of the staff, and lieutenants storey (aide-de-camp), power and watties. according to the statement of chaplain dennison the assaulting columns in two brigades, commanded by general strong and colonel putnam (the division under general seymour), consisted of the fifty-fourth massachusetts, third and seventh new hampshire, sixth connecticut and one hundredth new york, with a reserve brigade commanded by general stephenson. one of the assaulting regiments was composed of negroes (the fifty-fourth massachusetts) and to it was assigned the honor of leading the white columns to the charge. it was a dearly purchased compliment. their colonel (shaw) was killed upon the parapet and the regiment almost annihilated, although the confederates in the darkness could not tell the color of their assailants. both the brigade commanders were killed as well as colonel chatfield. "the same account says: 'we lost officers and men, a total of , one of the choicest martyr rolls of the war.' by 'lost,' 'killed' is supposed to be meant, but still that number greatly falls short of the number reported by the confederates to have been buried on the th by them and by their own friends under a flag of truce. these reports show that were buried, and as a number were taken prisoners, and it is fair to estimate that three were wounded to one killed, the total loss of the federals exceeded , . the writer's official report estimates the federal loss at not less than , ; general beauregard's at , . the federal official reports have not been seen. "the limits prescribed for this paper would be exceeded if any account of the remaining forty-eight days of the heroic strife on morris island were attempted. it closes with the repulse of the second assault, and it is a fit conclusion to render the homage due to the gallantry of the contestants by quoting and adopting the language of dr. dennison's address: 'the truest courage and determination was manifested on both sides on that crimson day at that great slaughter-house, wagner.'" it was no longer a question of doubt as to the valor of northern negroes. the assault on fort wagner completely removed any prejudice that had been exhibited toward negro troops in the department of the south. general gillmore immediately issued an order forbidding any distinction to be made among troops in his command. so that while the black phalanx had lost hundreds of its members, it nevertheless won equality in all things save the pay. the government refused to place them on a footing even with their southern brothers, who received $ per month and the white troops $ . however, they were not fighting for pay, as "stonewall" of company c argued, but for the "_freedom of our kin_." nobly did they do this, not only at wagner, as we have seen, but in the battles on james island, honey hill, olustee and at bodkin's mill. in the winter of , the troops in the department of the south lay encamped on the islands in and about charleston harbor, resting from their endeavors to drive the confederates from their strongholds. the city was five miles away in the distance. sumter, grim, hoary and in ruins, yet defying the national authority, was silent. general gillmore was in command of the veteran legions of the th army corps, aided by a powerful fleet of ironclads and other war vessels. there laid the city of charleston, for the time having a respite. general gillmore was giving rest to his troops, before he began again to throw greek fire into the city and batter the walls of its defences. the shattered ranks of the phalanx soldiers rested in the midst of thousands of their white comrades-in-arms, to whom they nightly repeated the story of the late terrible struggle. the solemn sentry pacing the ramparts of fort wagner night and day, his bayonet glittering in the rays of the sun or in the moonlight, seemed to be guarding the sepulchre of col. shaw and those who fell beside him within the walls of that gory fort, and who were buried where they fell. only those who have lived in such a camp can appreciate the stories of hair-breadth escapes from hand-to-hand fights. the repose lasted until january, when an important movement took place for the permanent occupation of florida. the following account, written by the author of this book, was published in "the journal," of toledo, o.: "the twentieth day of february, , was one of the most disastrous to the federal arms, and to the administration of president lincoln, in the annals of the war for the union. through private advice mr. lincoln had received information which led him to believe that the people in the state of florida, a large number of them, at least, were ready and anxious to identify the state with the cause of the union, and he readily approved of the federal forces occupying the state, then almost deserted by the rebels. gen. gillmore, commanding the department of the south had a large force before charleston, s. c., which had been engaged in the capture of fort wagner and the bombardment of the city of charleston, and the reduction of sumter. "these objects being accomplished, the army having rested several months, gen. gillmore asked for leave to undertake such expeditions within his department as he might think proper. about the middle of december, , the war department granted him his request, and immediately he began making preparations for an expedition, collecting transports, commissary stores, drilling troops, etc., etc. "about the st of january, , general gillmore wrote to the general-in-chief, halleck, that he was about to occupy the west bank of st. johns river, with the view ( st) to open an outlet to cotton, lumber, etc., ( d) to destroy one of the enemy's sources of supplies, ( d) to give the negroes opportunity of enlisting in the army, ( th) to inaugurate measures for the speedy restoration of florida to the union. "in accordance with instructions from president lincoln received through the assistant adjutant general, major j. h. hay, who would accompany the expedition, on the th of february the troops began to embark under the immediate command of general truman seymour, on board of twenty steamers and eight schooners, consisting of the following regiments, numbering in all six thousand troops, and under convoy of the gunboat norwich: " th massachusetts mounted infantry, col. guy v. henry. " th connecticut, col. j. r. hawley. " th new hampshire, col. abbott. " th, th and th new york, col. barton's command. "the phalanx regiments were: th pennsylvania, col. fribley; st north carolina, lt.-col. reed; th massachusetts, col. hallowell; d south carolina, col. beecher; th massachusetts, col. hartwell, with three batteries of white troops, hamilton's, elder's and langdon's. excepting the two last named regiments, this force landed at jacksonville on the th of february, and pushed on, following the th massachusetts mounted infantry, which captured by a bold dash camp finnigan, about seven miles from jacksonville, with its equipage, eight pieces of artillery, and a number of prisoners. on the th, the whole force had reached baldwin, a railroad station twenty miles west of jacksonville. there the army encamped, except col. henry's force, which continued its advance towards tallahassee, driving a small force of gen. finnegan's command before him. this was at the time all the rebel force in east florida. on the th gen. seymour, induced by the successful advance of col. henry, lead his troops from baldwin with ten days' rations in their haversacks, and started for the suwanee river, about a hundred and thirty miles from baldwin station, leaving the d south carolina and the th massachusetts phalanx regiments to follow. after a fatiguing march the column, numbering about six thousand, reached barbour's station, on the florida central railroad, twenty miles from baldwin. here the command halted and bivouaced, the night of the th, in the woods bordering upon a wooded ravine running off towards the river from the railroad track. "it is now nineteen years ago, and i write from memory of a night long to be remembered. around many a grand army camp-fire in the last fifteen years this bivouac has been made the topic of an evening's talk. it was attended with no particular hardship. the weather was such as is met with in these latitudes, not cold, not hot, and though a thick vapory cloud hid the full round moon from early eventide until the last regiment filed into the woods, yet there was a halo of light that brightened the white, sandy earth and gave to the moss-laden limbs of the huge pines which stood sentry-like on the roadside the appearance of a new england grove on a frosty night, with a shelled road leading through it. "it was well in the night when the two phalanx regiments filed out of the road into the woods, bringing up the rear of the army, and took shelter under the trees from the falling dew. amid the appalling stillness that reigned throughout the encampment, except the tramp of feet and an occasional whickering of a battery horse, no sound broke the deep silence. commands were given in an undertone and whispered along the long lines of weary troops that lay among the trees and the underbrush of the pine forest. each soldier lay with his musket beside him, ready to spring to his feet and in line for battle, for none knew the moment the enemy, like a tiger, would pounce upon them. it was a night of intense anxiety, shrouded in mystery as to what to-morrow would bring. the white and black soldier in one common bed lay in battle panoply, dreaming their common dreams of home and loved ones. "here lay the heroic th picturing to themselves the memorable nights of july and , their bivouac on the beach and their capture of fort wagner and the terrible fate of their comrades. they were all veteran troops save the th pennsylvania, which upon many hard-fought fields had covered themselves with gallant honor in defense of their country's cause, from malvern hill to morris island. "it was in the gray of the next morning that gen. seymour's order aroused the command. the men partook of a hastily prepared cup of coffee and meat and hard-tack from their haversacks. at sunrise the troops took up the line of march, following the railroad for lake city. col. henry, with the th massachusetts mounted infantry and major stevens' independent battalion of massachusetts cavalry, led the column. about half-past one o'clock they reached a point where the country road crossed the railroad, about two miles east of olustee, and six miles west of sanderson, a station through which the troops passed about half-past eleven o'clock. as the head of the column reached the crossing the rebel pickets fired and fell back upon a line of skirmishers, pursued by col. henry's command. the enemy's main force was supposed to be some miles distant from this place, consequently general seymour had not taken the precaution to protect his flanks, though marching through an enemy's country. consequently he found his troops flanked on either side. "col. henry drove the skirmishers back upon their main forces, which were strongly posted between two swamps. the position was admirably chosen; their right rested upon a low, slight earthwork, protected by rifle-pits, their center was defended by an impassable swamp, and on their left was a cavalry force drawn up on a small elevation behind the shelter of a grove of pines. their camp was intersected by the railroad, on which was placed a battery capable of operating against the center and left of the advancing column, while a rifle gun, mounted on a railroad flat, pointed down the road in front. "gen. seymour, in order to attack this strongly fortified position, had necessarily to place his troops between the two swamps, one in his front, the other in the rear. the federal cavalry, following up the skirmishers, had attacked the rebel right and were driven back, but were met by the th new hampshire, th connecticut, a regiment of the black phalanx ( th pennsylvania), and elder's battery of four and hamilton's of six pieces. this force was hurled against the rebel right with such impetuosity that the batteries were within one hundred yards of the rebel line of battle before they knew it. however, they took position, and supported by the phalanx regiment, opened a vigorous fire upon the rebel earthworks. the phalanx regiment advanced within twenty or thirty yards of the enemy's rifle-pits, and poured a volley of minie balls into the very faces of those who did not fly on their approach. "the th connecticut and the th new hampshire, the latter with their seven-shooters, spencer repeaters, col. hawley, commanding, had taken a stand further to the right of the battery, and were hotly engaging the rebels. the phalanx regiment ( th), after dealing out two rounds from its advanced position, finding the enemy's force in the center preparing to charge upon them, fell back under cover of hamilton's battery, which was firing vigorously and effectively into the rebel column. the th connecticut and new hampshire about this time ran short of ammunition, and col. hawley, finding the rebels outnumbered his force three to one, was about ordering col. abbott to fall back and out of the concentrated fire of the enemy pouring upon his men, when he observed the rebels coming in for a down upon his column. "here they come like tigers; the federal column wavers a little; it staggers and breaks, falling back in considerable disorder! col. hawley now ordered col. fribley to take his phalanx regiment, the th, to the right of the battery and check the advancing rebel force. no time was to be lost, the enemy's sharpshooters had already silenced two of hamilton's guns, dead and dying men and horses lay in a heap about them, while at the remaining four guns a few brave artillerists were loading and fixing their pieces, retarding the enemy in his onward movement. "deficient in artillery, they had not been able to check the federal cavalry in its dash, but the concentrated fire from right to center demoralized, and sent them galloping over the field wildly. col. fribley gave the order by the right flank, double quick! and the next moment the th phalanx swept away to the extreme right in support of the th new hampshire and the th connecticut. the low, direct aim of the enemy in the rifle-pits, his indian sharpshooters up in the trees, had ere now so thinned the ranks of col. hawley's command that his line was gone, and the th phalanx met the remnant of his brigade as it was going to the rear in complete disorder. the rebels ceased firing and halted as the phalanx took position between them and their fleeing comrades. they halted not perforce, but apparently for deliberation, when with one fell swoop in the next moment they swept the field in their front. "the phalanx did not, however, quit the field in a panic-stricken manner but fell hastily back to the battery, only to find two of the guns silent and their brave workers and horses nearly all of them dead upon the field. with a courage undaunted, surpassed by no veteran troops on any battle-field, the phalanx attempted to save the silent guns. in this effort col. fribley was killed, in the torrent of rebel bullets which fell upon the regiment. it held the two guns, despite two desperate charges made by the enemy to capture them, but the stubbornness of the phalanx was no match for the ponderous weight of their enemy's column, their sharpshooters and artillery mowing down ranks of their comrades at every volley. a grander spectacle was never witnessed than that which this regiment gave of gallant courage. they left their guns only when their line officers and three hundred and fifty of their valiant soldiers were dead upon the field, the work of an hour and a half. the battery lost forty of its horses and four of its brave men. the phalanx saved the colors of the battery with its own. col. barton's brigade, the th, th and th new york, during the fight on the right had held the enemy in the front and center at bay, covering elder's battery, and nobly did they do their duty, bravely maintaining the reputation they had won before charleston, but like the other troops, the contest was too unequal. the rebels outnumbered them five to one, and they likewise gave way, leaving about a fourth of their number upon the field, dead and wounded. "col. montgomery's brigade, comprising two phalanx regiments, th massachusetts and st north carolina, which had been held in reserve about a mile down the road, now came up at double-quick. they were under heavy marching orders, with ten days' rations in their knapsacks, besides their cartridge boxes they carried ten rounds in their overcoat pockets. the road was sandy, and the men often found their feet beneath the sand, but with their wonted alacrity they speed on up the road, the th leading in almost a locked running step, followed closely by the st north carolina. as they reached the road intersected by the railroad they halted in the rear of what remained of hamilton's battery, loading a parting shot. the band of the th took position on the side of the road, and while the regiments were unstringing knapsacks as coolly as if about to bivouac, the music of the band burst out on the sulphurous air, amid the roar of artillery, the rattle of musketry and the shouts of commands, mingling its soul-stirring strains with the deafening yells of the charging columns, right, left, and from the rebel center. thus on the very edge of the battle, nay, in the battle, the phalanx band poured out in heroic measures 'the star spangled banner.' its thrilling notes, soaring above the battles' gales, aroused to new life and renewed energy the panting, routed troops, flying in broken and disordered ranks from the field. many of them halted, the new york troops particularly, and gathered at the battery again, pouring a deadly volley into the enemy's works and ranks. the th had but a moment to prepare for the task. general seymour rode up and appealed to the phalanx to check the enemy and save the army from complete and total annihilation. col. montgomery gave col. hallowell the order 'forward,' pointing to the left, and away went the th phalanx regiment through the woods, down into the swamp, wading up to their knees--in places where the water reached their hips; yet on they went till they reached terra firma. soon the regiment stood in line of battle, ready to meet the enemy's advancing cavalry, emerging from the extreme left. "'hold your fire!' the order ran down the line. indeed, it was trying. the cavalry had halted but the enemy, in their rifle-pits in the center of their line, poured volley after volley into the ranks of the phalanx, which it stood like a wall of granite, holding at bay the rebel cavalry hanging on the edge of a pine grove. the st phalanx regiment entered the field in front, charged the rebels in the centre of the line, driving them into their rifle-pits, and then for half an hour the carnage became frightful. they had followed the rebels into the very jaws of death, and now col. reid found his regiment in the enemy's enfilading fire, and they swept his line. men fell like snowflakes. driven by this terrific fire, they fell back. the th had taken ground to the right, lending whatever of assistance they could to their retiring comrades, who were about on a line with them, for although retreating, it was in the most cool and deliberate manner, and the two regiments began a firing at will against which the rebels, though outnumbering them, could not face. thus they held them till long after sunset, and firing ceased. "the slaughter was terrible; the phalanx lost about men, the white troops about . it was braddock's defeat after the lapse of a century." the rout was complete; the army was not only defeated but beaten and demoralized. the enemy had succeeded in drawing it into a trap for the purpose of annihilating it. seymour had advanced, contrary to the orders given him by general gillmore, from baldwin's station, where he was instructed to intrench and await orders. whether or not he sought to retrieve the misfortunes that had attended him in south carolina, in assaulting the enemy's works, is a question which need not be discussed here. it is only necessary to show the miserable mismanagement of the advance into the enemy's country. the troops were marched into an ambuscade, where they were slaughtered by the enemy at will. even after finding his troops ambuscaded, and within two hundred yards of the confederate fortifications, general seymour did not attempt to fall back and form a line of battle, though he had sufficient artillery, but rushed brigade after brigade up to the enemy's guns, only to be mowed down by the withering storm of shot. each brigade in turn went in as spirited as any troops ever entered a fight, but stampeded out of it maimed, mangled and routed. at sunset the road, foot-paths and woods leading back to saunders' station, was full of brave soldiers hastening from the massacre of their comrades, in their endeavor to escape capture. at about nine o'clock that night, what remained of the left column, colonel montgomery's brigade, consisting of the th and th phalanx regiments, and a battery, arrived at the station, and reported the confederates in hot pursuit. [illustration: charge of the phalanx.] instantly the shattered, scattered troops fled to the roads leading to barber's, ten miles away, with no one to command. each man took his own route for barber's, leaving behind whatever would encumber him,--arms, ammunition, knapsacks and cartridge boxes; many of the latter containing forty rounds of cartridges. it was long past midnight when barber's was reached, and full day before the frightened mob arrived at the station. at sunrise on the morning of the st, the scene presented at barber's was sickening and sad. the wounded lay everywhere, upon the ground, huddled around the embers of fagot fires, groaning and uttering cries of distress. the surgeons were busy relieving, as best they could, the more dangerously wounded. the foot-sore and hungry soldiers sought out their bleeding and injured comrades and placed them upon railroad flats, standing upon the tracks, and when these were loaded, ropes and strong vines were procured and fastened to the flats. putting themselves in the place of a locomotive,--several of which stood upon the track at jacksonville,--the mangled and mutilated forms of about three hundred soldiers were dragged forward mile after mile. just in the rear, the confederates kept up a fire of musketry, as though to hasten on the stampede. it was well into the night when the train reached baldwin's, where it was thought the routed force would occupy the extensive work encircling the station, but they did not stop; their race was continued to jacksonville. at baldwin's an agent of the christian commission gave the wounded each two crackers, without water. this over with, the train started for jacksonville, ten miles further. the camp of colonel beecher's command, nd phalanx regiment, was reached, and here coffee was furnished. at daylight the train reached jacksonville, where the wounded were carried to the churches and cared for. the battle and the retreat had destroyed every vestige of distinction based upon color. the troops during the battle had fought together, as during the stampede they had endured its horrors together. the news of the battle and defeat reached beaufort the night of the rd of february. it was so surprising that it was doubted, but when a boat load of wounded men arrived, all doubts were dispelled. colonel t. w. higginson, who was at beaufort at the time with his regiment, ( st s. c), thus notes the reception of the news in his diary, which we quote with a few comments from his admirable book, "army life in a black regiment": "'february, th. "'not a bit of it! this morning the general has ridden up radiant, has seen general gillmore, who has decided not to order us to florida at all, nor withdraw any of this garrison. moreover, he says that all which is intended in florida is done--that there will be no advance to tallahassee, and general seymour will establish a camp of instruction in jacksonville. well, if that is all, it is a lucky escape.' "we little dreamed that on that very day the march toward olustee was beginning. the battle took place next day, and i add one more extract to show how the news reached beaufort. "'february , . "'there was a sound of revelry by night at a ball in beaufort last night, in a new large building beautifully decorated. all the collected flags of the garrison hung round and over us, as if the stars and stripes were devised for an ornament alone. the array of uniforms was such, that a civilian became a distinguished object, much more a lady. all would have gone according to the proverbial marriage bell, i suppose, had there not been a slight palpable shadow over all of us from hearing vague stories of a lost battle in florida, and from the thought that perhaps the very ambulances in which we rode to the ball were ours only until the wounded or the dead might tenant them. "'general gillmore only came, i supposed, to put a good face upon the matter. he went away soon, and general saxton went; then came a rumor that the cosmopolitan had actually arrived with wounded, but still the dance went on. there was nothing unfeeling about it--one gets used to things,--when suddenly, in the midst of the 'lancers,' there came a perfect hush, the music ceasing, a few surgeons went hastily to and fro, as if conscience stricken (i should think they might have been),--and then there 'waved a mighty shadow in,' as in uhland's 'black knight,' and as we all stood wondering we were aware of general saxton who strode hastily down the hall, his pale face very resolute, and looking almost sick with anxiety. he had just been on board the steamer; there were two hundred and fifty wounded men just arrived, and the ball must end. not that there was anything for us to do, but the revel was mis-timed, and must be ended; it was wicked to be dancing with such a scene of suffering near by. [illustration: phalanx river pickets defending themselves. federal picket boat near fernandina, fla., attacked by confederate sharpshooters stationed in the trees on the banks.] "'of course the ball was instantly broken up, though with some murmurings and some longings of appetite, on the part of some, toward the wasted supper. "'later, i went on board the boat. among the long lines of wounded, black and white intermingled, there was the wonderful quiet which usually prevails on such occasions. not a sob nor a groan, except from those undergoing removal. it is not self-control, but chiefly the shock to the system produced by severe wounds, especially gunshot wounds, and which usually keeps the patient stiller at first than at any later time. "'a company from my regiment waited on the wharf, in their accustomed dusky silence, and i longed to ask them what they thought of our florida disappointment now? in view of what they saw, did they still wish we had been there? i confess that in presence of all that human suffering, i could not wish it. but i would not have suggested any such thought to them. "'i found our kind-hearted ladies, mrs. chamberlin and mrs. dewhurst, on board the steamer, but there was nothing for them to do, and we walked back to camp in the radiant moonlight; mrs. chamberlin more than ever strengthened in her blushing woman's philosophy, 'i don't care who wins the laurels, provided we don't!' "'february th. "'but for a few trivial cases of varioloid, we should certainly have been in that disastrous fight. we were confidently expected for several days at jacksonville, and the commanding general told hallowell that we, being the oldest colored regiment, would have the right of the line. this was certainly to miss danger and glory very closely.'" at daybreak on the th of march, , the th regiment, having left camp stanton, maryland, on the th and proceeded to portsmouth, va., embarked on board the steamer "webster" for the department of the south. arriving at hilton head, the regiment went into camp for a few days, then it embarked for jacksonville, fla., at which place it remained for some time, taking part in several movements into the surrounding country and participating in a number of quite lively skirmishes. on the th of june a considerable portion of the regiment was ordered to hilton head, where it arrived on july st; it went from there to james island, where with other troops a short engagement with the confederates was had. afterwards the regiment returned to jacksonville, fla., remaining in that vicinity engaged in raiding the adjacent territory until the th of august, when the regiment was ordered to virginia, to report to the army of the potomoc, where it arrived on aug. th. the th massachusetts regiment was also ordered to the department of the south, it left boston july st, , on the steamer "cahawba," and arrived at newbern on the th. after a few days of rest, to recover from the effects of the voyage, the regiment was put into active service, and performed a large amount of marching and of the arduous duties required of a soldier. many skirmishes and actions of more or less importance were participated in. february th, , the regiment took a steamer for jacksonville, fla., and spent considerable time in that section and at various points on the st. johns river. in june the regiment was ordered to the vicinity of charleston, and took part in several of the engagements which occurred in that neighborhood, always sustaining and adding to the reputation they were acquiring for bravery and good soldierly conduct. the regiment passed its entire time of active service in the department to which it was first sent, and returned to boston, mass., where it was mustered out, amid great rejoicing, on the rd of september, . the battles in which the th regiment were engaged were some of the most sanguinary of the war. the last fight of the regiment, which, like the battle of new orleans, took place after peace was declared, is thus described by the drummer boy of company c, henry a. monroe, of new bedford, mass.: boykin's mill.[ ] one wailing bugle note,-- then at the break of day, with martial step and gay. the army takes its way from camden town. there lay along the path, defending native land; a daring, desperate band entrenched on either hand in ambuscade. a low and dark ravine beneath a rugged hill, where stood the boykin mill spanning the creek, whose rill flows dark an deep. only a narrow bank where one can scarcely tread: thick branches meet o'erhead; across the mill-pond's bed a bridge up-torn. one single sharp report! a hundred muskets peal,-- a wild triumphant yell, as back the army fell stunned, bleeding, faint. as when some mighty rock obstructs the torrent's course, after the moment's pause twill rush with greater force resistless on. a moment's pause and then, our leader from his post, viewing the stricken host. cried 'comrades, all is lost if we now fail!' forming in single file. they gaze with bated breath, around--before--beneath-- on every hand, stern death his visage showed. 'forward!' they quickly spring with leveled bayonet; each eye is firmly set upon that pathway wet with crimson gore. that 'balaklava' dash! right through the leaden hail. o'er dyke mid timbers frail, with hearts that never fail they boldly charge. facing the scathing fire without a halt or break; save when with moan or shriek, in the blood-mingled creek the wounded fall. what could resist that charge? above the battle's roar, there swells a deafening cheer telling to far and near, the mill is won! the slaughter was terrible, and among the killed was young lieutenant stevenson, a graduate of harvard. the affair was an unnecessary sacrifice of human life, for the war was over, peace had been declared, and president lincoln had been assassinated; but in the interior of the carolinas, the news did not reach until it was too late to prevent this final bloodshed of the war. perhaps it may be regarded as a fitting seal of the negro to his new covenant with freedom and his country. the very large number of negro troops which general gillmore had under his command in the department of the south, afforded him a better opportunity to test their fitness for and quality as soldiers, than any other commander had. in fact the artillery operations in charleston harbor, conducted throughout with remarkable engineering skill, perseverence and bravery, won for general gillmore and his troops the attention and admiration of the civilized world, and an exceptional place in the annals of military siege. such fame is sufficient to prompt an inquiry into the capacity of the men who performed the labor of planting the "swamp angel," which threw three hundred pound shot into the heart of charleston, more than four miles away, and also mounted the six -pound cannons which demolished the forts in the harbor two miles distant. the work of mounting these immense guns in swamp and mud could only be done by men who feared neither fatigue, suffering nor death. after the accomplishment of these worlds, wonders, and the subjugation of "arrogant" wagner, the following circular was addressed to the subordinate engineers for information regarding the negro troops, which drew forth explicit and interesting answers: "colored troops for work.--circular. "headquarters department of the south, "engineer's office, morris island, s. c., sept. th, . "as the important experiment which will test the fitness of the american negro for the duties of a soldier is now being tried, it is desirable that facts bearing on the question be carefully observed and recorded. "it is probable that in no military operations of the war have negro troops done so large a proportion, and so important and hazardous, fatigue duty, as in the siege operations on this island. "as you have directed the operations of working parties of both white and black troops here, i respectfully ask, for the object above stated, an impartial and carefully prepared answer to the following inquiries, together with such statements as you choose to make bearing on this question: "i. courage as indicated by their behavior under fire. "ii. skill and appreciation of their duties, referring to the quality of the work performed. "iii. industry and perseverence, with reference, to the quantity of the work performed. "iv. if a certain work were to be accomplished in the least possible time, _i. e._, when enthusiasm and direct personal interest is necessary to attain the end, would whites or blacks answer best? "v. what is the difference, considering the above points between colored troops recruited from the free states and those from the slave states? "very respectfully your obedient servant, "t. b. brooks, "_major, aide-de-camp and ass't engineer._" _six_ replies to these enquiries were received from engineer officers who had been engaged in the siege, the substance of which is embraced in the following summary, following which two replies are given in full, " . to the first question all answer that the black is more timorous than the white, but is in a corresponding degree more docile and obedient, hence more completely under the control of his commander, and much more influenced by his example. " . all agree that the black is less skillful than the white soldier, but still enough so for most kinds of siege work. " . the statements unanimously agree that the black will do a greater amount of work than the white soldier because he labors more constantly. " . the whites are decidedly superior in enthusiasm. the blacks cannot be easily hurried in their work, no matter what the emergency. " . all agree that the colored troops recruited from free states are superior to those recruited from slave states. "it may with propriety be repeated here, that the average percentage of sick among the negro troops during the siege was . , while that of the white infantry was . per cent. "the percentage of tours of duty performed by the blacks as compared with the white infantry, was as to . but the grand guard duty, which was considered much more wearing than fatigue, was all done by the whites. "the efficiency and health of a battalion depends so much upon its officers, that, in order to institute a fair comparison, when so small a number of troops are considered, this element should be eliminated. this has not, however, been attempted in this paper." [_reply in full no. ._] "morris island, s. c., sept. th, . "major:--in answer to your several queries as per circular of september , , requesting my opinion as to the relative merits of white and black troops, for work in the trenches, i have the honor to make the the following replies: "i. 'their courage as indicated by their behavior under fire.' i will say, in my opinion, their courage is rather of the passive than the active kind. they will stay, endure, resist, and follow, but they have not the restless, aggressive spirit. i do not believe they will desert their officers in trying moments, in so great numbers as the whites; they have not the will, audacity or fertility of excuse of the straggling white, and at the same time they have not the heroic, nervous energy, or vivid perception of the white, who stands firm or presses forward. "i do not remember a single instance, in my labors in the trenches, where the black man has skulked away from his duty, and i know that instances of that kind have occurred among the whites; still i think that the superior energy and intelligence of those remaining, considering that the whites were the lesser number by the greater desertion, would more than compensate. "ii. 'skill and appreciation of their duties referring to the quality of the work.' "they have a fair share of both; enough to make them very useful and efficient, but they have not apparently that superior intelligence and skill that may be found largely among the non-commissioned officers and privates of the white regiments. "iii. 'industry and perseverence with reference to the quantity of the work done.' "i think they will do more than the whites; they do not have so many complaints and excuses, but stick to their work patiently, doggedly, obediently, and accomplish a great deal, though i have never known them to work with any marked spirit or energy. i should liken the white man to the horse (often untractable and balky), the black man to the ox. "iv. 'if a certain work were to be accomplished in the least possible time, _i. e._, when enthusiasm and direct personal interest is necessary to attain the end, would whites or blacks answer best?' "i cannot make up my mind that it is impossible to arouse the enthusiasm of the blacks, for i have seen enough of them to know that they are very emotional creatures; still though they might have more dash than i have seen and think possible, it is unquestionable to my mind that were the enthusiasm and personal interest of both aroused, the white would far surpass the black. "it seems to me that there is a hard nervous organization at the bottom of the character of the white, and a soft susceptible one at the bottom of the character of the black. "v. 'what is the difference, considering the above points, between colored troops recruited from the free states and those from the slave states?' "i should say that the free state men were the best; they have more of the self-reliance, and approximate nearer to the qualities of the white man in respect to dash and energy, than those from the slave states. "_summary._--to me they compare favorably with the whites; they are easily handled, true and obedient; there is less viciousness among them; they are more patient; they have great constancy. the character of the white, as you know, runs to extremes; one has bull-dog courage, another is a pitiful cur; one is excessively vicious, another pure and noble. the phases of the character of the white touches the stars and descends to the lowest depths. the blacks character occupies the inner circle. their status is mediocrity, and this mediocrity and uniformity, for military fatigue duty, i think, answers best. "i am respectfully your obedient servant, "joseph walker. "_captain new york volunteer engineers._ "major t. b. brooks, "_aide-de-camp and ass't. eng. dept. of the south."_ [_reply in full no. ._] "morris island, sept. th, . "major t. b. brooks, _ass't. engineer dept. of the south._ "sir: i have the honor to state that i received from you a circular of inquiry respecting the comparative merits of white and black soldiers for fatigue duty, requesting my opinion as derived from observation and actual intercourse with them, on several specified points, which i subjoin with the respective answers. "i. 'courage as indicated by conduct under fire.' "i have found that the black troops manifest more timidity under fire than the white troops, but they are at the same time more obedient to orders, and more under control of their officers, in dangerous situations, than white soldiers. "ii. 'skill and appreciation of their duties with reference to the quality of the work performed.' "white soldiers are more intelligent and experienced and of course more skillful than the black ones, but they have not generally a corresponding appreciation of their duties. as a consequence i have found in most cases the work as well done by black as by white soldiers. "iii. 'industry and perseverence with reference to the amount of work performed.' "white soldiers work with more energy while they do work than the black ones, but do not work as constantly. black soldiers seldom intermit their labors except by orders or permission. the result, as far as my observations extends, is that a greater amount of work is usually accomplished with black than with white soldiers. "iv. 'if a certain work were to be accomplished in the least possible time, when enthusiasm and direct personal interest is necessary to the attainment of the end, would whites or blacks answer best?' "whites. because though requiring more effort to control, they possess a greater energy of character and susceptibility of enthusiasm than the black race, which can be called into action by an emergency or by a sufficient effort on the part of their officers. "v. 'what is the difference, considering the above points, between colored troops recruited from the free states and those from the slave states?' "i have observed a decided difference in favor of those recruited from the free states. "the problem involved in the foregoing investigation is more difficult of a solution than appears at first sight, owing to the fact that the degree of efficiency peculiar to any company of troops depends so much on the character of their officers, an element that must eliminate from the question in order to ascertain the quality of the material of which the troops are composed. "i have the honor to be your obedient servant, "h. farrand, "_ st lieut. new york volunteer engineers._" in his report to major-general gillmore, dated "morris island, sept. th, ," major brooks, his assistant engineer, says: "of the numerous infantry regiments which furnished fatigue details, the fourth new hampshire volunteers did the most and best work. next follow the blacks, the fifty-fourth massachusetts volunteers, and third united states colored troops." annexed to these reports is also a statement of the labor days of the troops. "working parties and health of troops. "the total number of days' work, of six hours each, expended in major brooks' operations was, by engineers, , , and by infantry , , total , ; of the , days' work by infantry, one-half was performed by colored troops. in addition to the above, , days' work was expended in preparing siege materials for major brooks' operations. the infantry soldiers' days' work is about one-fifth what a citizen laborer would do on civil works. of my work, over eight-twentieths was against wagner, about seven-twentieths on the defensive lines, and nearly five-twentieths on the batteries against sumter. "the approximate amount of labor actually expended on the more important works is as follows: one emplacement for a siege piece, days; one emplacement for a heavy breaching gun, days; one bomb-proof magazine, days; construction and repairs of each yard of approach having splinter-proof parapet, days; a lineal yard of narrow splinter-proof shelter, days; a lineal yard of wide splinter-proof shelter, days; to make and set one yard of inclined palisading, days. "at least three-fourths of the manual labor was simply shoveling sand; one-half of the remainder was carrying engineer material. the balance was employed in various kinds of work. "about three-fourths of this work was executed in the night-time, and at least nine-tenths of it under a fire of artillery or sharpshooters, or both. the sharpshooters seldom fired during the night. the artillery fire was most severe during the day. thirty-five projectiles fired by the enemy at our works per hour was called "heavy firing," although sometimes more than double that number were thrown. "in the order of their number the projectiles were from smooth-bore guns, mortars, and rifled guns. "the james island batteries were from two thousand to four thousand yards from our works; fort sumter and battery gregg were respectively about three thousand five hundred and two thousand one hundred; fort wagner was from thirteen hundred to one hundred yards. "the total number of casualties in the working parties and the guard of the advanced trenches, (not including the main guard of the trenches), during the siege, was about one hundred and fifty. when it is considered that on an average over two hundred men were constantly engaged in these duties, being under fire for fifty days, the number of casualties is astonishingly small. "the camp at which the fatigue parties were quartered and fed were, in order to be beyond the reach of the enemy's fires, two miles from the centre of the works; hence the distance of four miles had to be marched each tour of duty, which required nearly two hours, and added greatly to the labor of the siege. "this siege has been conducted through the hottest part of the season,--july, august and september,--yet the troops have suffered but little from excess in heat, on account of the large proportion of night work, and the almost continual sea-breeze, which was always cool and refreshing. "the amount of sickness was great, the large amount of duty being the probable cause. on the th of august the percentage was the smallest observed during the siege, being . . at this date the aggregate garrison of morris island was , , of which , were sick. on the th of august . per cent. of the whole garrison were on the sick list. this was the most unhealthy period of the siege. "the average strength of the command on morris island during the siege was, of all arms, , men, of which the average percentage sick was . . the number of black troops varied from , to . "average percentage of sick in artillery, . ; ditto, in engineers, . ; ditto, in black infantry, . ; ditto, in white infantry, (excluding one brigade), . . "this brigade consisted of the ninety-seventh pennsylvania, twenty-fourth massachusetts and tenth connecticut volunteers. it averaged thirty per cent sick. this was due to the fact that these three regiments had been stationed, before moving to morris island, on seabrook island, which proved very unhealthy. the engineers and black infantry were employed exclusively on fatigue duty. the white infantry served as guard of the trenches, as well as for work in the same. "details from the troops on folly island took part in the operations on morris island. "it was found by experience that men under these circumstances could not work more than one-fourth the time. a greater amount at once increased the sick list. eight hours in thirty-two, or eight hours on and twenty-four off, was found to be the best arrangement, as it made a daily change in the hours of duty for those regiments permanently detailed for work. "the organization found most advantageous in working a command permanently detailed for fatigue duty, was to divide its effective force into four equal detachments, on duty eight hours each, relieving each other at a. m., m. and p. m. the large number of extra troops employed in the trenches each night were usually changed daily. "the engineer officers in charge of the works were divided into corresponding groups, four in each, relieving each other at a. m., p. m., and midnight, four hours different from the time of relieving the troops. this difference enabled the engineer officers to carry the work through the period of relieving the fatigue details. "one engineer officer, having from two to four different kinds or jobs of work to superintend, was found to work advantageously in the night, with the help of non-commissioned officers of engineers, from one hundred to two hundred men. "the working parties of engineers and black infantry seldom carried their arms into the trenches, while the white infantry fatigue parties usually did." footnotes: [ ] note.--boykin's mill, a few miles from camden, s. c, was the scene of one of the bloodiest skirmishes that the th regt. ever participated in. we had literally fought every step of the way from georgetown to camden, and the enemy made a last desperate stand at this place. no better position could be found for a defense, as the only approach to it, was by a narrow embankment about yards long, where only one could walk at a time. the planks of the bridge over the mill-race were torn up, compelling the troops to cross on the timbers and cross-ties, under a galling fire which swept the bridge and embankment, rendering it a fearful 'way of death.' the heroes of wagner and olustee did not shrink from the trial, but actually charged in single file. the first to step upon the fatal path, went down like grass before the scythe, but over their prostrate bodies came their comrades, until the enemy, panic-stricken by such determined daring, abandoned their position and fled. chapter viii. the army of the cumberland. important services were rendered by the phalanx in the west. the operations in missouri, tennessee and kentucky, afforded an excellent opportunity to the commanders of the union forces to raise negro troops in such portions of the territory as they held; but in consequence of the bitterness against such action by the semi-unionists and copperheads in the department of the ohio and cumberland, it was not until the fall of that the organizing of such troops in these departments fairly began. the mississippi was well-nigh guarded by phalanx regiments enlisted along that river, numbering about fifty thousand men. they garrisoned the fortifications, and occupied the captured towns. later on, however, when the confederate general bragg began preparations for the recovery of the tennessee valley, organization of the phalanx commenced in earnest, and proceeded with a rapidity that astounded even those who were favorable to the policy. st. louis became a depot and benton barracks a recruiting station, from whence, in the fall of , went many a regiment of brave black men, whose chivalrous deeds will ever live in the annals of the nation. it was not long after this time that the noble army of the cumberland began to receive a portion of the black troops, whose shouts rang through the mountain fastnesses. the record made by the th regiment is the boast of the state of iowa, to which it was accredited: but of those which went to the assistance of general thomas' army none won greater distinction and honor than the gallant brigade commanded by colonel t. j. morgan, afterwards raised to brigadier-general. the gallant th infantry was one of its regiments, the field officers of which were colonel, thomas j. morgan, who had been promoted through various grades, from a st lieutenancy in the th indiana volunteer infantry; lieutenant-colonel, h. c. corbin, who had risen from a st lieutenancy of the th o. v. i., and major n. j. vail, who had served as an enlisted man in the th illinois volunteers. all the officers passed a rigid examination before the board of examiners appointed by the war department for that purpose. [illustration: changed conditions. the confederate generals edward johnson and g. h. stewart, as prisoners, under guard of phalanx soldiers, may th, .] general morgan, by request furnishes the following highly interesting and historical statement of his services with the phalanx brigade: "the american civil war of - marks an epoch not only in the history of the united states, but in that of democracy, and of civilization. its issue has vitally affected the course of human progress. to the student of history it ranks along with the conquests of alexander; the incursions of the barbarians; the crusades; the discovery of america and the american revolution. it settled the question of our national unity with all the consequences attaching thereto. it exhibited in a very striking manner the power of a free people to preserve their form of government against its most dangerous foe, civil war. it not only enfranchised four millions of american slaves of african descent, but made slavery forever impossible in the great republic, and gave a new impulse to the cause of human freedom. its influence upon american slaves was immediate and startlingly revolutionary, lifting them from the condition of despised chattels, bought and sold like sheep in the market, with no rights which the white man was bound to respect,--to the exalted plane of american citizenship; made them free men, the peers in every civil and political right, of their late masters. within about a decade after the close of the war, negroes, lately slaves, were legislators, state officers, members of congress, and for a brief time one presided over the senate of the united states, where only a few years before, toombs had boasted that he would yet call the roll of his slaves in the shade of bunker hill. "to-day slavery finds no advocate, and the colored race in america is making steady progress in all the elements of civilization. the conduct of the american slave during, and since the war, has wrought an extraordinary change in public sentiment, regarding the capabilities of the race. "the manly qualities of the negro soldiers, evinced in camp, on the march and in battle, won for them golden opinions, made their freedom a necessity and their citizenship a certainty. "those of us who assisted in organizing, disciplining and leading negro troops in battle, may, perhaps, be pardoned for feeling a good degree of pride in our share of the thrilling events of the great war. "when sumter was fired upon, april, , i was ; a member of the senior class in franklin college, indiana. i enlisted in the th indiana volunteer infantry and served as a private soldier for three months in west virginia, under gen. mcclellan,--'the young napoleon,' as he was even then known. i participated in the battle of carricks ford, where gen. garnett was killed and his army defeated. in august, , i re-enlisted as a first lieutenant in the th indiana, (col. benjamin harrison) and saw service in kentucky and tennessee. "in january , abraham lincoln issued the proclamation of emancipation, and incorporated in it the policy of arming the negro for special service in the union army. thus the question was fairly up, and i entered into its discussion with the deepest interest, as i saw that upon its settlement hung great issues. "on the one hand the opponents of the policy maintained that to make soldiers of the negroes would be to put them on the same level with white soldiers, and so be an insult to every man who wore the blue. it was contended, too, that the negro was not fit for a soldier because he belonged to a degraded, inferior race, wanting in soldierly qualities; that his long bondage had crushed out whatever of manliness he might naturally possess; that he was too grossly ignorant to perform, intelligently, the duties of the soldier; that his provocation had been so great as a slave, that when once armed, and conscious of his power as a soldier, he would abuse it by acts of revenge and wanton cruelty. "it was urged, on the other hand, that in its fearful struggle for existence, the republic needed the help of the able-bodied negroes; that with their natural instincts of self-preservation, desire for liberty, habit of obedience, power of imitation, love of pomp and parade, acquaintance with the southern country and adaptation to its climate, they had elements which peculiarly fitted them for soldiers. it was further urged that the negro had more at stake than the white man, and that he should have a chance to strike a blow for himself. it was particularly insisted upon that he needed just the opportunity which army service afforded to develop and exhibit whatever of manliness he possessed. as the war progressed, and each great battle-field was piled with heaps of the killed and wounded of our best citizens, men looked at each other seriously, and asked if a black man would not stop a bullet as well as a white man? miles o'reilly at length voiced a popular sentiment when he said, "'the right to be killed i'll divide with the nayger, and give him the largest half.' "with the strong conviction that the negro was a man worthy of freedom, and possessed of all the essential qualities of a good soldier, i early advocated the organization of colored regiments,--not for fatigue or garrison duty, but for field service. "in october, , having applied for a position as an officer in the colored service, i was ordered before the board of examiners at nashville, tennessee, where i spent five rather anxious hours. when i entered the army i knew absolutely nothing of the details of army life; had never even drilled with a fire company. during the first three months i gathered little except a somewhat rough miscellaneous experience. as a lieutenant and staff officer i learned something, but as i had never had at any time systematic instruction from any one, i appeared before the board with little else than vigorous health, a college education, a little experience as a soldier, a good reputation as an officer, a fair amount of common sense and a good supply of zeal. the board averaged me, and recommended me for a major. "a few days after the examination, i received an order to report to major george l. stearns, who had charge of the organization of colored troops in that department. he assigned me to duty temporarily in a camp in nashville. major stearns was a merchant in boston, who had been for years an ardent abolitionist, and who, among other good deeds, had befriended john brown. he was a large-hearted, broad-minded genial gentleman. when the policy of organizing colored troops was adopted, he offered his services to the government, received an appointment as assistant adjutant general, and was ordered to nashville to organize colored regiments. he acted directly under the secretary of war, and independently of the department commander. to his zeal, good judgment and efficient labor, was due, very largely, the success of the work in the west. "november st, , by order of major stearns, i went to gallatin, tennessee, to organize the th united states colored infantry. general e. a. paine was then in command of the post at gallatin, having under him a small detachment of white troops. there were at that time several hundred negro men in camp, in charge of, i think, a lieutenant. they were a motley crowd,--old, young, middle aged. some wore the united states uniform, but most of them had on the clothes in which they had left the plantations, or had worn during periods of hard service as laborers in the army. gallatin at that time was threatened with an attack by the guerilla bands then prowling over that part of the state. general paine had issued a hundred old muskets and rifles to the negroes in camp. they had not passed a medical examination, had no company organization and had had no drill. almost immediately upon my arrival, as an attack was imminent, i was ordered to distribute another hundred muskets, and to 'prepare every available man for fight.' i did the best i could under the circumstances, but am free to say that i regard it as a fortunate circumstance that we had no fighting to do at that time. but the men raw, and, untutored as they were, did guard and picket duty, went foraging, guarded wagon trains, scouted after guerillas, and so learned to soldier--by soldiering. "as soon and as fast as practicable, i set about organizing the regiment. i was a complete novice in that kind of work, and all the young officers who reported to me for duty, had been promoted from the ranks and were without experience, except as soldiers. the colored men knew nothing of the duties of a soldier, except a little they had picked up as camp-followers. "fortunately there was one man, mr. a. h. dunlap, who had had some clerical experience with col. birney, in baltimore, in organizing the rd u.s. colored infantry. he was an intelligent, methodical gentleman, and rendered me invaluable service. i had no quartermaster; no surgeon; no adjutant. we had no tents, and the men were sheltered in an old filthy tobacco warehouse, where they fiddled, danced, sang, swore or prayed, according to their mood. "how to meet the daily demands made upon us for military duty, and at the same time to evoke order out of this chaos, was no easy problem. the first thing to be done was to examine the men. a room was prepared, and i and my clerk took our stations at a table. one by one the recruits came before us _a la eden, sans_ the fig leaves, and were subjected to a careful medical examination, those who were in any way physically disqualified being rejected. many bore the wounds and bruises of the slave-driver's lash, and many were unfit for duty by reason of some form of disease to which human flesh is heir. in the course of a few weeks, however, we had a thousand able-bodied, stalwart men. "i was quite as solicitous about their mental condition as about their physical status, so i plied them with questions as to their history, their experience with the army, their motives for becoming soldiers, their ideas of army life, their hopes for the future, &c., &c. i found that a considerable number of them had been teamsters, cooks, officers' servants, &c., and had thus seen a good deal of hard service in both armies, in camp, on the march and in battle, and so knew pretty well what to expect. in this respect they had the advantage of most raw recruits from the north, who were wholly 'unused to wars' alarms.' some of them had very noble ideas of manliness. i remember picturing to one bright-eyed fellow some of the hardships of camp life and campaigning, and receiving from him the cheerful reply, 'i know all about that.' i then said, 'you may be killed in battle.' he instantly answered, 'many a better man than me has been killed in this war.' when i told another one who wanted to 'fight for freedom,' that he might lose his life, he replied, 'but my people will be free.' "the result of this careful examination convinced me that these men, though black in skin, had men's hearts, and only needed right handling to develope into magnificent soldiers. among them were the same varieties of physique, temperament, mental and moral endowments and experiences, as would be found among the same number of white men. some of them were finely formed and powerful; some were almost white; a large number had in their veins white blood of the f. f. v. quality; some were men of intelligence, and many of them deeply religious. "acting upon my clerk's suggestion, i assigned them to companies according to their height, putting men of nearly the same height together. when the regiment was full, the four center companies were all composed of tall men, the flanking companies of men of medium height, while the little men were sandwiched between. the effect was excellent in every way, and made the regiment quite unique. it was not uncommon to have strangers who saw it parade for the first time, declare that the men were all of one size. "in six weeks three companies were filled, uniformed, armed, and had been taught many soldierly ways. they had been drilled in the facings, in the manual of arms, and in some company movements. "november th, gen. g. h. thomas commanding the department of the cumberland, ordered six companies to bridgeport, alabama, under command of major h. c. corbin. i was left at gallatin to complete the organization of the other four companies. when the six companies were full, i was mustered in as lieutenant-colonel. the complete organization of the regiment occupied about two months, being finished by jan. st, . the field, staff and company officers were all white men. all the non-commissioned officers,--hospital steward, quartermaster, sergeant, sergeant-major, orderlies, sergeants and corporals were colored. they proved very efficient, and had the war continued two years longer, many of them would have been competent as commissioned officers. "when general paine left gallatin, i was senior officer and had command of the post and garrison, which included a few white soldiers besides my own troops. colored soldiers acted as pickets, and no citizen was allowed to pass our lines either into the village or out, without a proper permit. those presenting themselves without a pass were sent to headquarters under guard. thus many proud southern slave-holders found themselves marched through the street, guarded by those who three months before had been slaves. the negroes often laughed over these changed relations as they sat around their camp fires, or chatted together while off duty, but it was very rare that any southerner had reason to complain of any unkind or uncivil treatment from a colored soldier. "about the first of january occurred a few days of extreme cold weather, which tried the men sorely. one morning after one of the most severe nights, the officers coming in from picket, marched the men to headquarters, and called attention to their condition: their feet were frosted and their hands frozen. in some instances the skin on their fingers had broken from the effects of the cold, and it was sad to see their sufferings. some of them never recovered from the effects of that night, yet they bore it patiently and uncomplainingly. "an incident occurred while i was still an officer in a white regiment, that illustrates the curious transition through which the negroes were passing. i had charge of a company detailed to guard a wagon train out foraging. early one morning, just as we were about to resume our march, a kentucky lieutenant rode up to me, saluted, and said he had some runaway negroes whom he had arrested to send back to their masters, but as he was ordered away, he would turn them over to me. at that time a reward could be claimed for returning fugitive slaves. i took charge of them, and assuming a stern look and manner, enquired, 'where are you going?' 'going to the yankee army.' 'what for?' 'we wants to be free, sir.' 'all right, you are free, go where you wish.' the satisfaction that came to me from their heartfelt 'thank'ee, thank'ee sir,' gave me some faint insight into the sublime joy that the great emancipator must have felt when he penned the immortal proclamation that set free four millions of human beings. "these men afterward enlisted in my regiment, and did good service. one day, as we were on the march, they--through their lieutenant--reminded me of the circumstance, which they seemed to remember with lively gratitude. "the six companies at bridgeport were kept very busily at work, and had but little opportunity for drill. notwithstanding these difficulties, however, considerable progress was made in both drill and discipline. i made earnest efforts to get the regiment united and relieved from so much labor, in order that they might be prepared for efficient field service as soldiers. "in january i had a personal interview with general thomas, and secured an order uniting the regiment at chattanooga. we entered camp there under the shadow of lookout mountain, and in full view of mission ridge, in february, . during the same month adjutant general lorenzo thomas, from washington, then on a tour of inspection, visited my regiment, and authorized me to substitute the eagle for the silver leaf. "chattanooga was at that time the headquarters of the army of the cumberland. gen thomas and staff, and a considerable part of the army were there. our camp was laid out with great regularity; our quarters were substantial, comfortable and well kept. the regiment numbered a thousand men, with a full compliment of field, staff, line and non-commissioned officers. we had a good drum corps, and a band provided with a set of expensive silver instruments. we were also fully equipped; the men were armed with rifled muskets, and well clothed. they were well drilled in the manual of arms, and took great pride in appearing on parade with arms burnished, belts polished, shoes blacked, clothes brushed, in full regulation uniform, including white gloves. on every pleasant day our parades were witnessed by officers, soldiers and citizens from the north, and it was not uncommon to have two thousand spectators. some came to make sport, some from curiosity, some because it was the fashion, and others from a genuine desire to see for themselves what sort of looking soldiers negroes would make. "at the time that the work of organizing colored troops began in the west, there was a great deal of bitter prejudice against the movement, and white troops threatened to desert, if the plan should be really carried out. those who entered the service were stigmatized as 'nigger officers,' and negro soldiers were hooted at and mal-treated by white ones. "apropos of the prejudice against so called nigger officers, i may mention the following incident: while an officer in the th indiana, i had met, and formed a passing acquaintance with lieut.-colonel ----, of the ---- ohio regiment. on new years day, , i chanced to meet him at a social gathering at general ward's headquarters in nashville. i spoke to him as usual, at the same time offering my hand, which apparently he did not see. receiving only a cool bow from him, i at once turned away. as i did so he remarked to those standing near him that he 'did not recognize these nigger officers.' in some way, i do not know how, a report of the occurrence came to the ears of lorenzo thomas, the adjutant-general of the army, then in nashville, who investigated the case, and promptly dismissed colonel ---- from the united states service. "very few west point officers had any faith in the success of the enterprise, and most northern people perhaps, regarded it as at best a dubious experiment. a college classmate of mine, a young man of intelligence and earnestly loyal, although a kentuckian, and a slave-holder, plead with me to abandon my plan of entering this service, saying, 'i shudder to think of the remorse you may suffer, from deeds done by barbarians under your command.' "general george h. thomas, though a southerner, and a west point graduate, was a singularly fair-minded, candid man. he asked me one day soon after my regiment was organized, if i thought my men would fight. i replied that they would. he said he thought 'they might behind breastworks.' i said they would fight in the open field. he thought not. 'give me a chance general,' i replied, 'and i will prove it.' "our evening parades converted thousands to a belief in colored troops. it was almost a daily experience to hear the remark from visitors, 'men who can handle their arms as these do, will fight.' general thomas paid the regiment the compliment of saying that he 'never saw a regiment go through the manual as well as this one.' we remained in 'camp whipple' from february, , till august, , a period of eighteen months, and during a large part of that time the regiment was an object lesson to the army, and helped to revolutionize public opinion on the subject of colored soldiers. "my lieutenant-colonel and i rode over one evening to call on general joe hooker, commanding the th army corps. he occupied a small log hut in the wauhatchie valley, near lookout mountain and not far from the tennessee river. he received us with great courtesy, and when he learned that we were officers in a colored regiment, congratulated us on our good fortune, saying that he 'believed they would make the best troops in the world.' he predicted that after the rebellion was subdued, it would be necessary for the united states to send an army into mexico. this army would be composed largely of colored men, and those of us now holding high command, would have a chance to win great renown. he lamented that he had made a great mistake in not accepting a military command, and going to nicaragua with general walker. 'why,' said he, 'young gentlemen, i might have founded an empire.' "while at chattanooga, i organized two other regiments, the nd and the th united states colored infantry. in addition to the ordinary instruction in the duties required of the soldier, we established in every company a regular school, teaching men to read and write, and taking great pains to cultivate in them self-respect and all manly qualities. our success in this respect was ample compensation for our labor. the men who went on picket or guard duty, took their books as quite as indispensable as their coffee pots. "it must not be supposed that we had only plain sailing. soon after reaching chattanooga, heavy details began to be made upon us for men to work upon the fortifications then in process of construction around the town. this almost incessant labor, interfered sadly with our drill, and at one time all drill was suspended, by orders from headquarters. there seemed little prospect of our being ordered to the field, and as time wore on and arrangements began in earnest for the new campaign against atlanta, we grew impatient for work, and anxious for opportunity for drill and preparations for field service. "i used every means to bring about a change, for i believed that the ultimate status of the negro was to be determined by his conduct on the battle-field. no one doubted that he would work, while many did doubt that he had courage to stand up and fight like a man. if he could take his place side by side with the white soldier; endure the same hardships on the campaign, face the same enemy, storm the same works, resist the same assaults, evince the same soldierly qualities, he would compel that respect which the world has always accorded to heroism, and win for himself the same laurels which brave soldiers have always won. "personally, i shrink from danger, and most decidedly prefer a safe corner at my own fireside, to an exposed place in the face of an enemy on the battle-field, but so strongly was i impressed with the importance of giving colored troops a fair field and full opportunity to show of what mettle they were made, that i lost no chance of insisting upon our right to be ordered into the field. at one time i was threatened with dismissal from the service for my persistency, but that did not deter me, for though i had no yearning for martyrdom, i was determined if possible to put my regiment into battle, at whatever cost to myself. as i look back upon the matter after twenty-one years, i see no reason to regret my action, unless it be that i was not even more persistent in claiming for these men the rights of soldiers. "i was grievously disappointed when the first of may, , came, and the army was to start south, leaving us behind to hold the forts we had helped to build. "i asked general thomas to allow _me_, at least, to go along. he readily consented, and directed me to report to general o. o. howard, commanding the th army corps, as volunteer aide. i did so, and remained with him thirty days, participating in the battles of buzzard's roost, resaca, adairsville and dallas. at the end of that time, having gained invaluable experience, and feeling that my place was with my regiment, i returned to chattanooga, determined to again make every possible effort to get it into active service. "a few days after i had taken my place on general howard's staff, an incident occurred showing how narrowly one may escape death. general stanley and a staff officer and general howard and myself were making a little reconnoissance at buzzards roost. we stopped to observe the movements of the enemy, stanley standing on the right, howard next on his left, and i next. the fourth officer, captain flint, stood immediately in the rear of general howard. a sharpshooter paid us a compliment in the shape of a rifle ball, which struck the ground in front of general howard, ricocheted, passed through the skirt of his coat, through captain flint's cap, and buried itself in a tree behind. "at adairsville a group of about a dozen mounted officers were in an open field, when the enemy exploded a shell just in front and over us, wounding two officers and five horses. a piece of the shell passed through the right fore leg of my horse, a kind, docile, fearless animal, that i was greatly attached to. i lost a friend and faithful servant. "on asking leave to return to my command, i was delighted to receive from general howard the following note: "'headquarters th army corps, "'on ackworth and dallas road, miles from dallas, ga., may st . "'colonel:--this is to express my thanks for your services upon my staff during the past month, since starting upon this campaign. you have given me always full satisfaction, and more, by your assiduous devotion to duty. "'you have been active and untiring on the march, and fearless in battle. believe me, "your friend, o. o. howard. "'_major-general commanding th army corps._ "'to col. t.j. morgan, _commanding th u. s. c. i._" "general james b. steadman, who won such imperishable renown at chickamauga, was then in command of the district of etowah, with headquarters at chattanooga. i laid my case before him; he listened with interest to my plea, and assured me that if there was any fighting to be done in his district, we should have a hand in it. "dalton, ga.--august th, , we had our first fight, at dalton, georgia. general wheeler, with a considerable force of confederate cavalry, attacked dalton, which was occupied by a small detachment of union troops belonging to the nd missouri, under command of colonel laibold. general steadman went to laibold's aid, and forming line of battle, attacked and routed the southern force. my regiment formed on the left of the st indiana infantry, under command of col. a. d. streight. the fight was short, and not at all severe. the regiment was all exposed to fire. one private was killed, one lost a leg, and one was wounded in the right hand. company b, on the skirmish line killed five of the enemy, and wounded others. to us it was a great battle, and a glorious victory. the regiment had been recognized as soldiers; it had taken its place side by side with a white regiment; it had been under fire. the men had behaved gallantly. a colored soldier had died for liberty. others had shed their blood in the great cause. two or three incidents will indicate the significance of the day. just before going into the fight, lieutenant keinborts said to his men: 'boys, some of you may be killed, but remember you are fighting for liberty.' henry prince replied, 'i am ready to die for liberty.' in fifteen minutes he lay dead,--a rifle ball through his heart,--a willing martyr. "during the engagement general steadman asked his aide, captain davis, to look especially after the th colored. captain davis rode up just as i was quietly rectifying my line, which in a charge had been disarranged. putting spurs to his horse, he dashed back to the general and reassured him by reporting that 'the regiment was holding dress parade over there under fire.' after the fight, as we marched into town through a pouring rain, a white regiment standing at rest, swung their hats and gave three rousing cheers for the th colored. col. streight's command was so pleased with the gallantry of our men that many of its members on being asked, 'what regiment?' frequently replied, ' st colored.' "during the month of august we had some very hard marching, in a vain effort to have another brush with wheeler's cavalry. "the corn in east tennessee was in good plight for roasting, and our men showed great facility in cooking, and marvelous capacity in devouring it. ten large ears were not too much for many of them. on resuming our march one day, after the noon halt, one of the soldiers said he was unable to walk, and asked permission to ride in an ambulance. his comrades declared that, having already eaten twelve ears of corn, and finding himself unable to finish the thirteenth, he concluded that he must be sick, and unfit for duty. "pulaski, tenn.--september th, , i reported to major-general rousseau, commanding a force of cavalry at pulaski, tenn. as we approached the town by rail from nashville, we heard artillery, then musketry, and as we left the cars we saw the smoke of guns. forest, with a large body of cavalry, had been steadily driving rousseau before him all day, and was destroying the railroad. finding the general, i said: 'i am ordered to report to you, sir.' 'what have you?' 'two regiments of colored troops.' rousseau was a kentuckian, and had not much faith in negro soldiers. by his direction i threw out a strong line of skirmishers, and posted the regiments on a ridge, in good supporting distance. rousseau's men retired behind my line, and forest's men pressed forward until they met our fire, and recognizing the sound of the minie ball, stopped to reflect. "the massacre of colored troops at fort pillow was well known to us, and had been fully discussed by our men. it was rumored, and thoroughly credited by them, that general forest had offered a thousand dollars for the head of any commander of a 'nigger regiment.' here, then, was just such an opportunity as those spoiling for a fight might desire. negro troops stood face to face with forest's veteran cavalry. the fire was growing hotter, and balls were uncomfortably thick. at length, the enemy in strong force, with banners flying, bore down toward us in full sight, apparently bent on mischief. pointing to the advancing column, i said, as i passed along the line, 'boys, it looks very much like fight; keep cool, do your duty.' they seemed full of glee, and replied with great enthusiasm: 'colonel, dey can't whip us, dey nebber get de ole th out of heah, nebber.' 'nebber, drives us away widout a mighty lot of dead men,' &c., &c. "when forest learned that rousseau was re-enforced by infantry, he did not stop to ask the color of the skin, but after testing our line, and finding it unyielding, turned to the east, and struck over toward murfreesboro. "an incident occurred here, illustrating the humor of the colored soldier. a spent ball struck one of the men on the side of the head, passed under the scalp, and making nearly a circuit of the skull, came out on the other side. his comrades merrily declared that when the ball struck him, it sang out 'too thick' and passed on. "as i was walking with my adjutant down toward the picket line, a ball struck the ground immediately in front of us, about four feet away, but it was so far spent as to be harmless. we picked it up and carried it along. "our casualties consisted of a few men slightly wounded. we had not had a battle, but it was for us a victory, for our troops had stood face to face with a triumphant force of southern cavalry, and stopped their progress. they saw that they had done what rousseau's veterans could not do. having traveled miles, we returned to chattanooga, feeling that we had gained valuable experience, and we eagerly awaited the next opportunity for battle, which was not long delayed. "decatur, ala.--our next active service was at decatur, alabama. hood, with his veteran army that had fought sherman so gallantly from chattanooga to atlanta, finding that his great antagonest had started southward and seaward, struck out boldly himself for nashville. oct. th i reported to general r. s. granger, commanding at decatur. his little force was closely besieged by hood's army, whose right rested on the tennessee river below the town, and whose left extended far beyond our lines, on the other side of the town. two companies of my regiment were stationed on the opposite side of the river from hood's right, and kept up an annoying musketry fire. lieutenant gillett, of company g, was mortally wounded by a cannon ball, and some of the enlisted men were hurt. one private soldier in company b, who had taken position in a tree as sharpshooter, had his right arm broken by a ball. captain romeyn said to him, 'you would better come down from there, go to the rear, and find the surgeon.' 'oh no, captain!' he replied, 'i can fire with my left arm,' and so he did. "another soldier of company b, was walking along the road, when hearing an approaching cannon ball, he dropped flat upon the ground, and was almost instantly well nigh covered with the dirt plowed up by it, as it struck the ground near by. captain romeyn, who witnessed the incident, and who was greatly amused by the fellow's trepidation, asked him if he was frightened? his reply was, 'fore god, captain, i thought i was a dead man, sure!' "friday, oct. th, , at twelve o'clock, at the head of men, in obedience to orders from general granger, i charged and took a battery, with a loss of sixty officers and men killed and wounded. after capturing the battery, and spiking the guns, which we were unable to remove, we retired to our former place in the line of defense. the conduct of the men on this occasion was most admirable, and drew forth high praise from generals granger and thomas. "hood, having decided to push on to nashville without assaulting decatur, withdrew. as soon as i missed his troops from my front, i notified the general commanding, and was ordered to pursue, with the view of finding where he was. about ten o'clock the next morning, my skirmishers came up with his rear guard, which opened upon us a brisk infantry fire. lieutenant woodworth, standing at my side, fell dead, pierced through the face. general granger ordered me to retire inside of the works, and the regiment, although exposed to a sharp fire, came off in splendid order. as we marched inside the works, the white soldiers, who had watched the manoeuvre, gave us three rousing cheers. i have heard the pope's famous choir at st. peters, and the great organ at freibourg, but the music was not so sweet as the hearty plaudits of our brave comrades. "as indicating the change in public sentiment relative to colored soldiers, it may be mentioned that the lieutenant-colonel commanding the th indiana volunteer infantry, requested me as a personal favor to ask for the assignment of his regiment to my command, giving as a reason that his men would rather fight along side of the th colored than with any white regiment. he was ordered to report to me. "after hood had gone, and after our journey of miles, we returned to chattanooga, but not to remain. "nashville, tenn.--november , , in command of the th, th and th regiments u. s. c. i., i embarked on a railroad train at chattanooga for nashville. on december st, with the th and most of the th, i reached my destination, and was assigned to a place on the extreme left of general thomas' army then concentrating for the defence of nashville against hood's threatened attack. "the train that contained the th colored regiment, and two companies of the th, under command of colonel johnson, was delayed near murfreesboro until dec. nd, when it started for nashville. but when crossing a bridge not far from the city, its progress was suddenly checked by a cross-fire of cannon belonging to forest's command. i had become very anxious over the delay in the arrival of these troops, and when i heard the roar of cannon thought it must be aimed at them. i never shall forget the intensity of my suffering, as hour after hour passed by bringing me no tidings. were they all captured? had they been massacred? who could answer? no one. what was to be done? nothing. i could only wait and suffer. "the next day colonel johnson reached nashville, reporting that when stopped, he and his men were forced, under heavy fire, to abandon the train, clamber down from the bridge, and run to a blockhouse near by, which had been erected for the defence of the bridge, and was still in possession of the union soldiers. after maintaining a stubborn fight until far into the night, he withdrew his troops, and making a detour to the east came into our lines, having lost in killed, wounded and missing, two officers and eighty men of the th, and twenty-five men of the th. "just as captain c. w. baker, the senior officer of the th, was leaving the car, a piece of shell carried off the top of his cap, thus adding immensely to its value--as a souvenir. some of the soldiers who escaped lost everything except the clothes they had on, including knapsacks, blankets and arms. in some cases they lay in the water hiding for hours, until they could escape their pursuers. "soon after taking our position in line at nashville, we were closely besieged by hood's army; and thus we lay facing each other for two weeks. hood had suffered so terribly by his defeat under schofield, at franklin, that he was in no mood to assault us in our works, and thomas needed more time to concentrate and reorganize his army, before he could safely take the offensive. that fortnight interval was memorable indeed. hood's army was desperate. it had been thwarted by sherman, and thus far baffled by thomas, and hood felt that he must strike a bold blow to compensate for the dreadful loss of prestige occasioned by sherman's march to the sea. his men were scantily clothed and poorly fed; if he could gain nashville, our great depot of supplies, he could furnish his troops with abundance of food, clothing and war material; encourage the confederacy, terrify the people of the north, regain a vast territory taken from the south at such great cost to us, recruit his army from kentucky, and perhaps invade the north. "thomas well knew the gravity of the situation, and was unwilling to hazard all by a premature battle. i think that neither he nor any of his army ever doubted the issue of the battle when it should come, whichever force should take the initiative. "the authorities at washington grew restive, and the people at the north nervous. thomas was ordered to fight, logan was dispatched to relieve him if he did not, and grant himself started west to take command. thomas was too good a soldier to be forced to offer battle, until he was sure of victory. he knew that time was his best ally, every day adding to his strength and weakening his enemy. in the meantime the weather became intensely cold, and a heavy sleet covered the ground, rendering it almost impossible for either army to move at all. for a few days our sufferings were quite severe. we had only shelter tents for the men, with very little fuel, and many of those who had lost their blankets keenly felt their need. "on december th, before the storm, by order of general steadman, i made a little reconnoissance, capturing, with slight loss, lieutenant gardner and six men, from the th mississippi regiment. december th we made another, in which colonel johnson and three or four men were wounded. on one of these occasions, while my men were advancing in face of a sharp fire, a rabbit started up in front of them. with shouts of laughter, several of them gave chase, showing that even battle could not obliterate the negro's love of sport. "but the great day drew near. the weather grew warmer; the ice gave way. thomas was ready, and calling together his chiefs, laid before them his plan of battle. "about nine o'clock at night december th, , i was summoned to general steadman's headquarters. he told me what the plan of battle was, and said he wished me to open the fight by making a vigorous assault upon hood's right flank. this, he explained, was to be a feint, intended to betray hood into the belief that it was the real attack, and to lead him to support his right by weakening his left, where thomas intended assaulting him in very deed. the general gave me the th united states colored infantry, under colonel h. c. corbin; the th u. s. c. i., under the gallant colonel w. r. shafter; a detachment of the th u. s. c. i., under major l. d. joy; the th u. s. c. i., under colonel l. johnson; a provisional brigade of white troops under colonel c. h. grosvenor, and a section of artillery, under captain osburn, of the th indiana battery. "the largest force i had ever handled was two regiments, and as i rather wanted to open the battle in proper style, i asked general steadman what suggestion he had to make. he replied: 'colonel, to-morrow morning at daylight i want you to open the battle.' 'all right, general, do you not think it would be a good plan for me to--', and i outlined a little plan of attack. with a twinkle in his kindly eye, he replied: 'to-morrow morning, colonel, just as soon as you can see how to put your troops in motion, i wish you to begin the fight.' 'all right, general, good night.' with these explicit instructions, i left his headquarters, returned to camp, and gave the requisite orders for the soldiers to have an early breakfast, and be ready for serious work at daybreak. then taking adjutant clelland i reconnoitered the enemy's position, tracing the line of his camp fires, and decided on my plan of assault. "the morning dawned with a dense fog, which held us in check for some time after we were ready to march. during our stay in nashville, i was the guest of major w. b. lewis, through whose yard ran our line. he had been a warm personal friend of andrew jackson, occupying a place in the treasury department during his administration. he gave me the room formerly occupied by the hero of new orleans, and entertained me with many anecdotes of him. i remember in particular one which i especially appreciated, because of the scarcity of fuel in our own camp. at one time general jackson ordered certain troops to rendezvous for a few days at nashville. major lewis, acting as quartermaster, laid in a supply of several hundred cords of wood, which he supposed would be ample to last during their entire stay in the city. the troops arrived on a 'raw and gusty day,' and being accustomed to comfortable fires at home, they burned up every stick the first night, to the quartermaster's great consternation. "to return: on the morning of december th, major lewis said he would have a servant bring me my breakfast, which was not ready, however, when i started. the boy, with an eye to safety, followed me afar off, so far that he only reached me, i think, about two o'clock in the afternoon. but i really believe the delay, improved the flavor of the breakfast. "as soon as the fog lifted, the battle began in good earnest. hood mistook my assault for an attack in force upon his right flank, and weakening his left in order to meet it, gave the coveted opportunity to thomas, who improved it by assailing hood's left flank, doubling it up, and capturing a large number of prisoners. "thus the first day's fight wore away. it had been for us a severe but glorious day. over three hundred of my command had fallen, but everywhere our army was successful. victory perched upon our banners. hood had stubbornly resisted, but had been gallantly driven back with severe loss. the left had done its duty. general steadman congratulated us, saying his only fear had been that we might fight too hard. we had done all he desired, and more. colored soldiers had again fought side by side with white troops; they had mingled together in the charge; they had supported each other; they had assisted each other from the field when wounded, and they lay side by side in death. the survivors rejoiced together over a hard fought field, won by a common valor. all who witnessed their conduct, gave them equal praise. the day that we had longed to see had come and gone, and the sun went down upon a record of coolness, bravery, manliness, never to be unmade. a new chapter in the history of liberty had been written. it had been shown that, marching under a flag of freedom, animated by a love of liberty, even the slave becomes a man and a hero. "at one time during the day, while the battle was in progress, i sat in an exposed place on a piece of ground sloping down toward the enemy, and being the only horseman on that part of the field, soon became a target for the balls that whistled and sang their threatening songs as they hurried by. at length a shot aimed at me struck my horse in the face, just above the nostril, and passing up under the skin emerged near the eye, doing the horse only temporary harm, and letting me off scot-free, much to my satisfaction, as may be supposed. captain baker, lying on the ground near by, heard the thud of the ball as it struck the horse, and seeing me suddenly dismount, cried out, 'the colonel is shot,' and sprang to my side, glad enough to find that the poor horse's face had been a shield to save my life. i was sorry that the animal could not appreciate the gratitude i felt to it for my deliverance. "during that night hood withdrew his army some two miles, and took up a new line along the crest of some low hills, which he strongly fortified with some improvised breast works and abatis. soon after our early breakfast, we moved forward over the intervening space. my position was still on the extreme left of our line, and i was especially charged to look well to our flank, to avoid surprise. "the nd colored brigade, under colonel thompson, of the th u. s. c. i., was on my right, and participated in the first days' charge upon overton's hill, which was repulsed. i stood where the whole movement was in full view. it was a grand and terrible sight to see those men climb that hill over rocks and fallen trees, in the face of a murderous fire of cannon and musketry, only to be driven back. white and black mingled together in the charge, and on the retreat. "when the nd colored brigade retired behind my lines to re-form, one of the regimental color-bearers stopped in the open space between the two armies, where, although exposed to a dangerous fire, he planted his flag firmly in the ground, and began deliberately and coolly to return the enemy's fire, and, greatly to our amusement, kept up for some little time his independent warfare. "when the second and final assault was made, the right of my line took part. it was with breathless interest i watched that noble army climb the hill with a steady resolve which nothing but death itself could check. when at length the assaulting column sprang upon the earthworks, and the enemy seeing that further resistance was madness, gave way and began a precipitous retreat, our hearts swelled as only the hearts of soldiers can, and scarcely stopping to cheer or to await orders, we pushed forward and joined in the pursuit, until the darkness and the rain forced a halt. "the battle of nashville did not compare in numbers engaged, in severity of fighting, or in the losses sustained, with some other western battles. but in the issues at stake, the magnificent generalship of thomas, the completeness of our triumph, and the immediate and far-reaching consequences, it was unique, and deservedly ranks along with gettysburg, as one of the decisive battles of the war. "when general thomas rode over the battle-field and saw the bodies of colored men side by side with the foremost, on the very works of the enemy, he turned to his staff, saying: 'gentlemen, the question is settled; negroes will fight.' he did me the honor to recommend me for promotion, and told me that he intended to give me the best brigade that he could form. this he afterward did. "after the great victory, we joined in the chase after the fleeing foe. hood's army was whipped, demoralized, and pretty badly scattered. a good many stragglers were picked up. a story circulated to this effect: some of our boys on making a sharp turn in the road, came upon a forlorn southern soldier, who had lost his arms, thrown away his accoutrements, and was sitting on a log by the roadside, waiting to give himself up. he was saluted with, 'well, johnny, how goes it?' 'well, yank, i'll tell ye; i confess i'm horribly whipped, and badly demoralized, but blamed if i'm _scattered_!' "after we had passed along through franklin, we had orders to turn about and return to that city. i was riding at the head of the column, followed by my own regiment. the men were swinging along 'arms at will,' when they spied general thomas and staff approaching. without orders they brought their arms to 'right shoulder shift,' took the step, and striking up their favorite tune of 'john brown,' whistled it with admirable effect while passing the general, greatly to his amusement. "we had a very memorable march from franklin to murfreesboro, over miserable dirt roads. about december th or th, we were on the march at an early hour, but the rain was there before us, and stuck by us closer than a brother. we were drenched through and through, and few had a dry thread. we waded streams of water nearly waist deep; we pulled through mud that seemed to have no bottom, and where many a soldier left his shoes seeking for it. the open woods pasture where we went into camp that night, was surrounded with a high fence made of cedar rails. that fence was left standing, and was not touched--until--well, i do believe that the owner's bitterness at his loss was fully balanced by the comfort and good cheer which those magnificent rail fires afforded us that december night. they did seem providentially provided for us. "during the night the weather turned cold, and when we resumed our march the ground was frozen and the roads were simply dreadful, especially for those of our men who had lost their shoes the day before and were now compelled to walk barefoot, tracking their way with blood. such experiences take away something of the romance sometimes suggested to the inexperienced by the phase, 'soldiering in the sunny south,' but then a touch of it is worth having for the light it throws over such historical scenes as those at valley forge. "we continued in the pursuit of hood, as far as huntsville, ala., when he disappeared to return no more, and we were allowed to go back to chattanooga, glad of an opportunity to rest. distance travelled, miles. "we had no more fighting. there were many interesting experiences, which, however, i will not take time to relate. in august, , being in command of the post at knoxville, tenn., grateful to have escaped without imprisonment, wounds, or even a day of severe illness, i resigned my commission, after forty months of service, to resume my studies. "i cannot close this paper without expressing the conviction that history has not yet done justice to the share borne by colored soldiers in the war for the union. their conduct during that eventful period, has been a silent, but most potent factor in influencing public sentiment, shaping legislation, and fixing the status of colored people in america. if the records of their achievements could be put into such shape that they could be accessible to the thousands of colored youth in the south, they would kindle in their young minds an enthusiastic devotion to manhood and liberty." chapter ix. the phalanx at marion, tenn. in the winter of , while sherman was marching his army toward the sea, raiding parties and expeditions were sent out from the several departments to intercept rebel communications, destroy telegraph lines, railroads and stores; in nearly all of which phalanx troops actively participated, and shared the perils and honors of the achievements. from vicksburg, miss., brevet brigadier-general e. d. osband, with the third phalanx regiment, on the th of november captured and destroyed the mississippi central railroad bridge over the big black river, near canton, also thirty miles of the railroad, with two locomotives and a large amount of stores. in the meantime, general breckenridge, with a large confederate force, attacked the federals under general gillem, near morristown, tenn., captured the artillery, with several hundred men, and drove the remainder of gillem's troops into knoxville. breckenridge soon retired, however, pursued by general ammen's forces. on the th of december, general stoneman having concentrated the commands of generals burbridge and gillem, near bean station, tenn., started in pursuit of breckenridge intending to drive him into virginia and to destroy the railroad and salt works at saltville, west virginia. general burbridge's command was principally composed of kentucky troops, three brigades, numbering about five thousand men, all mounted. the th phalanx cavalry was attached to the rd brigade, which colonel jas. f. wade, of the th, commanded. gillem's defeat rather inspired the men in the new column, and they dashed forward with a determination to annihilate the enemy. four days after leaving bean station, the confederates were overtaken at marion, general vaughn being in command, and were routed, the federals capturing all their guns, trains and a number of prisoners. vaughn fell back to wytheville, pursued by the federals, who captured and destroyed the town, with its stores and supplies and the extensive lead mines. [illustration: serving refreshments to union troops.] having accomplished their mission, the federals about faced for marion, where they met with a large force of confederates under breckenridge, including the garrison of saltville. now came the decisive struggle for the salt works between the two forces. the federals had been enjoying their signal victory, which they now attempted to enhance by pressing the enemy, who had crossed a bridge and there taken up a position. during the night an advance regiment succeeded in crossing the bridge, after re-laying the planks which the confederates had torn up, but they were driven back, and there remained till the next morning. the th phalanx was assigned its usual position, and was held in reserve. the battle opened in the morning, and continued with varying success during the day. late in the afternoon general stoneman found his troops badly beaten, and unable to extricate themselves from the confederate coil; they were not the "old guard," and the question with them was not "victory or death," but surrender or death. nor was this long a question. general stoneman ordered up the th phalanx, dividing them into three columns, placing himself at the head of one, and giving one each to colonel wade, (their valiant colonel), and his chief of staff, general brisbin. the regiment dashed into the fight for the rescue of the pro-slavery kentuckians and haughty tennesseeians, who were now nearly annihilated. the historian of this campaign, general brisbin, who but a day or two previous to this battle had attempted to shoot one of the brave black boys of the th for retaliating for the murder of one of his comrades by shooting a confederate prisoner, thus writes, twenty-two years afterwards, about the battle and the conduct of the th: "early in the day general stoneman had sent general gillem off to the right with orders to get in breckenridge's rear and if possible cut him off from the salt works. it was believed the kentucky troops could handle breckenridge until gillem could strike in the rear, but the action in front about noon became terrific and gillem was recalled to aid burbridge. our right flank had been driven back and our extreme left was almost at right angles with the original position held early in the morning. to add to our misfortunes, a party of confederate cavalry had got in our rear and captured some of our pack train. the packers had at one time become demoralized and fell back almost into the hands of the confederates operating in our rear. general burbridge saw the movement, and drawing his revolver placed himself in front of the leading packs and ordered them back, but the crazy men kept on until the general wounded the man who was leading them off, and with the aid of some officers who used their sabres freely, the packs were forced back into the timber close to our lines and compelled to stay there. thus over five hundred packs and animals were saved to the army by the prompt action of the general and his aids. "at : o'clock the situation was critical in the extreme. colonel boyle had been killed in leading a charge and his regiment repulsed. the twelfth ohio cavalry had promptly come to boyle's support and checked the confederates, who were coming into our centre. the hospital in our rear, where our sick were, had been charged, and for a short time was in the hands of the enemy. burbridge and stoneman had their headquarters on a little knoll near the centre of our line, where they could see the fighting. the confederate right, in swinging around, had covered this hill and it was no longer tenable. a lieutenant, in reporting to general burbridge on this knoll, had been shot by a confederate rifleman through the head and fell dead at the general's feet. orderlies, horses and men were being shot down, and i begged general burbridge to retire. he asked me if there were no more troops we could bring up and put into action. i told him all we had left was the sixth united states colored cavalry and the horse-holders. he said: "'well, go and bring up the negroes and tell everybody to tie the horses as well as they can. we might as well lose them as to be whipped, when we will lose them anyway.' "i made haste to bring up the sixth colored and all the horse-holders i could get. the sixth colored was a fine regiment, but few had faith in the fighting qualities of the negroes. general burbridge divided them into three columns, and taking one himself gave the other two to general wade and myself. wade had the right, burbridge the left and i was in the centre. wade got off first and sailed in in gallant style. burbridge piled his overcoat on the ground, and drawing his sword led his column forward. the men were all on foot and most of the officers. but few were mounted. it was unpleasant riding under fire where so many were on foot. wade's horse was soon shot, but he kept on with his men, leading on foot. looking to the left i saw burbridge surrounded by a black crowd of men, his form towering above them and his sword pointing to the enemy. wade was first to strike the confederate line. they fired and fired, but the darkies kept straight on, closing for a hand-to-hand fight. then the cry was raised along the confederate lines that the negroes were killing the wounded. wade went through the confederate line like an iron wedge, and it broke and fled. burbridge hit hard, but the insistence was less stubborn than in wade's front. of my own part in the action i prefer not to write. suffice it to say that never did soldiers do better on any battle-field than the black men i led that day. "when their guns were empty they clubbed them, and i saw one negro fighting with a gun barrel, swinging it about his head like a club, and going straight for the enemy. he did not hit anybody for nobody waited to be hit, but some of the confederates jumped fully fifteen feet down the opposite side of that hill to get out of the way of the negroes, and i would have jumped too, probably, if i had been on their side, for i never yet saw anything in battle so terrible as an infuriated negro. "gillem returned just as night was putting an end to the fighting and in the approaching darkness we mistook his column for a new column of the enemy coming in on our right and rear. burbridge hurried back with his victorious negroes and was about to advance with the twelfth ohio cavalry and eleventh michigan, when the glad news came that the supposed confederates were gillem's column returning to our support. "during the night breckenridge retreated in the direction of the salt works, but colonel buckley, returning from the direction of the lead mines with his brigade, and having got in breckenridge's rear at seven mile ford, charged his advance, capturing ten prisoners. breckenridge, no doubt thinking he had been outflanked and was about to be enclosed between two columns, abandoned all idea of going to the salt works and put back in confusion to marion, where he took the north carolina road and fled over the mountains. colonel bentley, with his twelfth ohio, was sent up with breckenridge's rear. the confederates felled trees across the road to retard bentley's advance, but he cleared them out and he and his gallant regiment hammered breckenridge's rear all the way into north carolina." the road to the salt works was thus opened and their destruction accomplished by the bravery and matchless valor of the gallant sixth. many of the regiment forfeited their lives in rescuing the force from defeat, and securing a victory; those who survived the terrible struggle no longer had opprobrious epithets hurled at them, but modestly received the just encomiums that were showered upon them by the white troops, who, amid the huzzas of victory, greeted them with loud shouts of "comrades!" general brisbin, continuing, says: "there were many instances of personal bravery, but i shall only mention one. a negro soldier had got a stump quite close to the confederate line, and despite all efforts to dislodge him, there he stuck, picking off their men. the confederates charged the stump, but the federal line observing it concentrated their fire on the advancing men and drove them back. then there were long and loud cheers for the brave darkey, who stuck to his stump and fired away with a regularity that was wonderful. his stump was riddled with bullets, but he stuck to it, although he was at times nearer the confederate lines than our own." [illustration: scouts] chapter x. the black flag. fort pillow--exchange of prisoners, etc. it was not long after each army received its quota of phalanx soldiers, before the white troops began regarding them much as napoleon's troops did the imperial guard, their main support. when a regiment of the phalanx went into a fight, every white soldier knew what was meant, for the black troops took no ordinary part in a battle. where the conflict was hottest; where danger was most imminent, there the phalanx went; and when victory poised, as it often did, between the contending sides, the weight of the phalanx was frequently thrown into the balancing scales; if some strong work or dangerous battery had to be taken, whether with the bayonet alone or hand grenade or sabre, the phalanx was likely to be in the charging column, or formed a part of the storming brigade. the confederates were no cowards; braver men never bit cartridge or fired a gun, and when they were to meet "their slaves," as they believed, in revolt, why, of course, honor forbade them to ask or give quarter. this fact was known to all, for, as yet, though hundreds had been captured, none had been found on parole, or among the exchanged prisoners. general grant's attention was called to this immediately after the fight at milliken's bend, where the officers of the phalanx, as well as soldiers, had been captured and hung. grant wrote gen. taylor, commanding the confederate forces in louisiana, as follows: "i feel no inclination to retaliate for offences of irresponsible persons, but, if it is the policy of any general intrusted with the command of troops, to show no quarter, or to punish with death, prisoners taken in battle, _i will accept the issue_. it may be you propose a different line of policy to black troops, and officers commanding them, to that practiced toward white troops. if so, i can assure you that these colored troops are regularly mustered into the service of the united states. the government, and all officers under the government, are bound to give the same protection to these troops that they do to any other troops." general taylor replied that he would punish all such acts, "disgraceful alike to humanity and the reputation of soldiers," but declared that officers of the "confederate army" were required to turn over to the civil authorities, to be dealt with according to the laws of the state wherein such were captured, all negroes taken in arms. as early as december, , incensed by general butler's administration at new orleans in the arming of negroes, jefferson davis, president of the confederate government, issued the following proclamation: "first.--that all commissioned officers in the command of said benjamin f. butler be declared not entitled to be considered as soldiers engaged in honorable warfare, but as robbers and criminals, deserving death; and that they, and each of them, be, whenever captured, reserved for execution. "second.--that the private soldiers and non-commissioned officers in the army of said benj. f. butler, be considered as only instruments used for the commission of crimes, perpetrated by his orders, and not as free agents; that they, therefore, be treated when captured as prisoners of war, with kindness and humanity, and be sent home on the usual parole; that they will in no manner aid or serve the united states in any capacity during the continuance of war, unless duly exchanged. "third.--that all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities, of the respective states to which they belong, and to be dealt with according to the laws of said states. "fourth.--that the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the united states when found serving in company with said slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the different states of this confederacy. "signed and sealed at richmond, dec. , . "jefferson davis." this proclamation was the hoisting of the black flag against the phalanx, by which mr. davis expected to bring about a war of extermination against the negro soldiers.[ ] in his third annual message to the confederate congress, mr. davis said: "we may well leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficient creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellow men of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race--peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere--are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insiduous recommendation to abstain from violence unless in necessary defence. our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measures recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by profound contempt for the impotent rage which it discloses. so far as regards the action of this government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, i confine myself to informing you that i shall--unless in your wisdom you deem some other course expedient--deliver to the several state authorities all commissioned officers of the united states that may hereafter be captured by our forces in any of the states embraced in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those states providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting servile insurrection. the enlisted soldiers i shall continue to treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes, and shall direct their discharge and return to their homes on the proper and usual parole." the confederate congress soon took up the subject, and after a protracted consideration passed the following: "_resolved_, by the congress of the confederate states of america, in response to the message of the president, transmitted to congress at the commencement of the present session. that, in the opinion of congress, the commissioned officers of the enemy _ought_ not to be delivered to the authorities of the respective states, as suggested in the said message, but all captives taken by the confederate forces, ought to be dealt with and disposed of by the confederate government. "sec. .--that in the judgment of congress, the proclamations of the president of the united states, dated respectively september nd, , and january st, , and other measures of the government of the united states, and of its authorities, commanders and forces, designed or intended to emancipate slaves in the confederate states, or to abduct such slaves, or to incite them to insurrection, or to employ negroes in war against the confederate states, or to overthrow the institution of african slavery and bring on a servile war in these states, would, if successful, produce atrocious consequences, and they are inconsistent with the spirit of those usages which, in modern warfare, prevail among the civilized nations; they may therefore be lawfully suppressed by retaliation. "sec. .--that in every case wherein, during the war, any violation of the laws and usages of war among civilized nations shall be, or has been done and perpetrated by those acting under the authority of the united states, on the persons or property of citizens of the confederate states, or of those under the protection or in the land or naval service of the confederate states, or of any state of the confederacy, the president of the confederate states is hereby authorized to cause full and ample retaliation to be made for every such violation, in such manner and to such extent as he may think proper. "sec. .--that every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who during the present war shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the confederate states, or who shall arm, train, organize or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the confederate states, or who shall voluntarily use negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack or conflict, in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death, or to be otherwise punished at the discretion of the court. "sec. .--every person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such in the service of the enemy, who shall during the present war, excite, attempt to excite, or cause to be excited a servile insurrection, or who shall incite, or cause to be incited a slave to rebel, shall, if captured, be put to death, or otherwise punished at the discretion of the court. "sec. .--every person charged with an offence punishable under the preceeding resolutions shall, during the present war, be tried before the military court, attached to the army or corps by the troops of which he shall have been captured, or by such other military court as the president may direct, and in such manner and under such regulations as the president shall prescribe; and after conviction, the president may commute the punishment in such manner and on such terms as he may deem proper. "sec. .--all negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in war, or be taken in arms against the confederate states, or shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the confederate states, shall, where captured in the confederate states, be delivered to authorities of the state or states in which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to such present or future laws of such state or states." in march, , this same confederate congress enacted the following order to regulate the impressment of negroes for army purposes: "sec. .--where slaves are impressed by the confederate government, to labor on fortifications, or other public works, the impressment shall be made by said government according to the rules and regulations provided in the laws of the states wherein they are impressed; and, in the absence of such law, in accordance with such rules and regulations not inconsistent with the provisions of this act, as the secretary of war shall from time to time prescribe; _provided_, that no impressment of slaves shall be made, when they can be hired or procured by the owner or agent. "sec. .--that, previous to the st day of december next, no slave laboring on a farm or plantation, exclusively devoted to the production of grain and provisions, shall be taken for the public use, without the consent of the owner, except in case of urgent necessity." thus it is apparent that while the confederate government was holding aloft the black flag, even against the northern phalanx regiments composed of men who were never slaves, it was at the same time engaged in enrolling and conscripting slaves to work on fortifications and in trenches, in support of their rebellion against the united states, and at a period when negro troops were not accepted in the army of the united states. soon after the admission of negroes into the union army, it was reported to secretary stanton that three negro soldiers, captured with the gunboat "isaac smith," on stone river, were placed in close confinement, whereupon he ordered three confederate prisoners belonging to south carolina to be placed in close confinement, and informed the confederate government of the action. the richmond _examiner_ becoming cognizant of this said: "it is not merely the pretension of a regular government affecting to deal with 'rebels,' but it is a deadly stab which they are aiming at our institutions themselves; because they know that, if we were insane enough to yield this point, to treat black men as the equals of white, and insurgent slaves as equivalent to our brave white soldiers, the very foundation of slavery would be fatally wounded." several black soldiers were captured in an engagement before charleston, and when it came to an exchange of prisoners, though an immediate exchange of all captured in the engagement had been agreed upon, the confederates would not exchange the negro troops. to this the president's attention was called, whereupon he issued the following order: "executive mansion, washington, july th, . "it is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever color, class, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. the law of nations and the usages and customs of war, as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war, as public enemies. to sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offense against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism, and a crime against the civilization of the age. the government of the united states will give the same protection to all its soldiers; and if the enemy shall enslave or sell any one because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession. it is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the united states killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed, and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on public works, and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war. "abraham lincoln, "by order of the secretary of war. "e. d. townsend, ass't. adjt.-general." however, this order did not prevent the carrying out of the intentions of the confederate president and congress. the saddest and blackest chapter of the history of the war of the rebellion, is that which relates to the treatment of union prisoners in the rebel prison pens, at macon, ga., belle island, castle thunder, pemberton, libbey, at and near richmond and danville, va., cahawba, ala., salisbury, n. c., tyler, texas, florida, columbia, s. c., millen and andersonville, ga. it is not the purpose to attempt a general description of these modern charnel houses, or to enter into a detailed statement of the treatment of the union soldiers who were unfortunate enough to escape death upon the battle-field and then fall captive to the confederates. when we consider the fact that the white men who were engaged in the war upon both sides, belonged to one nation, and were americans, many of whom had been educated at the same schools, and many--very many--of them members of the same religious denominations, and church; not a few springing from the same stock and loins, the atrocities committed by the confederates against the union soldiers, while in their custody as prisoners of war, makes their deeds more shocking and inhuman than if the contestants had been of a different nationality. [illustration: terrible fight with bloodhounds. the st south carolina regiment was attacked by the confederates with bloodhounds, at pocaralago bridge, oct. rd, . the hounds rushed fiercely upon the troops, who quickly shot or bayoneted them and exultingly held aloft the beasts that had been so long a terror to the negro race.] the english soldiers who lashed the sepoys to the mouths of their cannon, and then fired the pieces, thus cruelly murdering the captured rebels, offered the plea, in mitigation of their crime, and as an excuse for violating the rules of war, that their subjects were not of a civilized nation, and did not themselves adhere to the laws governing civilized nations at war with each other. but no such plea can be entered in the case of the confederates, who starved, shot and murdered , of their brethren in prison pens, white prisoners of war. if such treatment was meted to those of their own color and race, as is related by an investigating committee of senators, what must have been the treatment of those of another race,--whom they had held in slavery, and whom they regarded the same as sheep and horses, to be bought and sold at will,--when captured in battle, fighting against them for the union and their own freedom? the report of the congressional committee furnishes ample proof of the barbarities: th congress, } {rep. com. _ st session._ } {_no. ._ "in the senate of the united states. "_report of the joint committee on the conduct and expenditures of the war._ "on the th inst., your committee received a communication of that date from the secretary of war, enclosing the report of colonel hoffman, commissary general of prisoners, dated may , calling the attention of the committee to the condition of returned union prisoners, with the request that the committee would immediately proceed to annapolis and examine with their own eyes the condition of those who have been returned from rebel captivity. the committee resolved that they would comply with the request of the secretary of war on the first opportunity. the th of may was devoted by the committee to concluding their labors upon the investigation of the fort pillow massacre. on the th of may, however, the committee proceeded to annapolis and baltimore, and examined the condition of our returned soldiers, and took the testimony of several of them, together with the testimony of surgeons and other persons in attendance upon the hospitals. that testimony, with the communication of the secretary of war, and the report of colonel hoffman, is herewith transmitted. "the evidence proves, beyond all manner of doubt, a determination on the part of the rebel authorities, deliberately and persistently practiced for a long time past, to subject those of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate as to fall in their hands to a system of treatment which has resulted in reducing many of those who have survived and been permitted to return to us in a condition, both physically and mentally, which no language we can use can adequately describe. though nearly all the patients now in the naval academy hospital at annapolis, and in the west hospital, in baltimore, have been under the kindest and most intelligent treatment for about three weeks past, and many of them for a greater length of time, still they present literally the appearance of living skeletons, many of them being nothing but skin and bone; some of them are maimed for life, having been frozen while exposed to the inclemency of the winter season on belle isle, being compelled to lie on the bare ground, without tents or blankets, some of them without overcoats or even coats, with but little fire to mitigate the severity of the winds and storms to which they were exposed. "the testimony shows that the general practice of their captors was to rob them, as soon as they were taken prisoners, of all their money, valuables, blankets, and good clothing, for which they received nothing in exchange except, perhaps, some old worn-out rebel clothing hardly better than none at all. upon their arrival at richmond they have been confined, without blankets or other covering, in buildings without fire, or upon belle isle with, in many cases, no shelter, and in others with nothing but old discarded army tents, so injured by rents and holes as to present but little barrier to the wind and storms; on several occasions, the witnesses say, they have arisen in the morning from their resting-places upon the bare earth, and found several of their comrades frozen to death during the night, and that many others would have met the same fate had they not walked rapidly back and forth, during the hours which should have been devoted to sleep, for the purpose of retaining sufficient warmth to preserve life. "in respect to the food furnished to our men by the rebel authorities, the testimony proves that the ration of each man was totally insufficient in quantity to preserve the health of a child, even had it been of proper quality, which it was not. it consisted usually, at the most, of two small pieces of corn-bread, made in many instances, as the witnesses state, of corn and cobs ground together, and badly prepared and cooked, of, at times, about two ounces of meat, usually of poor quality, and unfit to be eaten, and occasionally a few black worm-eaten beans, or something of that kind. many of your men were compelled to sell to their guards, and others, for what price they could get, such clothing and blankets as they were permitted to receive of that forwarded for their use by our government, in order to obtain additional food sufficient to sustain life; thus, by endeavoring to avoid one privation reducing themselves to the same destitute condition in respect to clothing and covering that they were in before they received any from our government. when they became sick and diseased in consequence of this exposure and privation, and were admitted into the hospitals, their treatment was little if any, improved as to food, though they, doubtless, suffered less from exposure to cold than before. their food still remained insufficient in quantity and altogether unfit in quality. their diseases and wounds did not receive the treatment which the commonest dictates of humanity would have prompted. one witness, whom your committee examined, who had lost all the toes of one foot from being frozen while on belle isle, states that for days at a time his wounds were not dressed, and they had not been dressed for four days when he was taken from the hospital and carried on the flag-of-truce boat for fortress monroe. "in reference to the condition to which our men were reduced by cold and hunger, your committee would call attention to the following extracts from the testimony. one witness testifies: "'i had no blankets until our government sent us some. "'question.--how did you sleep before you received those blankets? "'answer.--we used to get together just as close as we could, and sleep spoon-fashion, so that when one turned over we all had to turn over.' "another witness testifies: "'question.--were you hungry all the time? "'answer.--hungry! i could eat anything that came before us; some of the boys would get boxes from the north with meat of different kinds in them; and, after they had picked the meat off, they would throw the bones away into the spit-boxes, and we would pick the bones out of the spit-boxes and gnaw them over again.' "in addition to this insufficient supply of food, clothing and shelter, our soldiers, while prisoners, have been subjected to the most cruel treatment from those placed over them. they have been abused and shamefully treated on almost every opportunity. many have been mercilessly shot and killed when they failed to comply with all the demands of their jailors, sometimes for violating rules of which they had not been informed. crowded in great numbers in buildings, they have been fired at and killed by the sentinels outside when they appeared at the windows for the purpose of obtaining a little fresh air. one man, whose comrade in the service, in battle and in captivity, had been so fortunate as to be among those released from further torments, was shot dead as he was waving with his hand a last adieu to his friend; and other instances of equally unprovoked murder are disclosed by the testimony. "the condition of our returned soldiers as regards personal cleanliness, has been filthy almost beyond description. their clothes have been so dirty and so covered with vermin, that those who received them have been compelled to destroy their clothing and re-clothe them with new and clean raiment. their bodies and heads have been so infested with vermin that, in some instances, repeated washings have failed to remove them; and those who have received them in charge have been compelled to cut all the hair from their heads, and make applications to destroy the vermin. some have been received with no clothing but shirts and drawers and a piece of blanket or other outside covering, entirely destitute of coats, hats, shoes or stockings; and the bodies of those better supplied with clothing have been equally dirty and filthy with the others, many who have been sick and in the hospital having had no opportunity to wash their bodies for weeks and months before they were released from captivity. "your committee are unable to convey any adequate idea of the sad and deplorable condition of the men they saw in the hospitals they visited; and the testimony they have taken cannot convey to the reader the impressions which your committee there received. the persons we saw, as we were assured by those in charge of them, have greatly improved since they have been received in the hospitals. yet they are now dying daily, one of them being in the very throes of death as your committee stood by his bed-side and witnessed the sad spectacle there presented. all those whom your committee examined stated that they have been thus reduced and emaciated entirely in consequence of the merciless treatment they received while prisoners from their enemies; and the physicians in charge of them, the men best fitted by their profession and experience to express an opinion upon the subject, all say that they have no doubt that the statements of their patients are entirely correct. "it will be observed from the testimony, that all the witnesses who testify upon that point state that the treatment they received while confined at columbia, south carolina, dalton, georgia, and other places, was far more humane than that they received at richmond, where the authorities of the so-called confederacy were congregated, and where the power existed, had the inclination not been wanting, to reform those abuses and secure to the prisoners they held some treatment that would bear a public comparison to that accorded by our authorities to the prisoners in our custody. your committee, therefore, are constrained to say that they can hardly avoid the conclusion, expressed by so many of our released soldiers, that the inhuman practices herein referred to are the result of a determination on the part of the rebel authorities to reduce our soldiers in their power, by privation of food and clothing, and by exposure, to such a condition that those who may survive shall never recover so as to be able to render any effective service in the field. and your committee accordingly ask that this report, with the accompanying testimony be printed with the report and testimony [which was accordingly done] in relation to the massacre of fort pillow, the one being, in their opinion, no less than the other, the result of a predetermined policy. as regards the assertions of some of the rebel newspapers, that our prisoners have received at their hands the same treatment that their own soldiers in the field have received, they are evidently but the most glaring and unblushing falsehoods. no one can for a moment be deceived by such statements, who will reflect that our soldiers, who, when taken prisoners, have been stout, healthy men, in the prime and vigor of life, yet have died by hundreds under the treatment they have received, although required to perform no duties of the camp or the march; while the rebel soldiers are able to make long and rapid marches, and to offer a stubborn resistance in the field. "your committee, finding it impossible to describe in words the deplorable condition of these returned prisoners, have caused photographs to be taken of a number of them, and a fair sample to be lithographed and appended to their report, that their exact condition may be known by all who examine it. some of them have since died. "there is one feature connected with this investigation, to which your committee can refer with pride and satisfaction; and that is the uncomplaining fortitude, the undiminished patriotism exhibited by our brave men under all their privations, even in the hour of death. "your committee will close their report by quoting the tribute paid these men by the chaplin of the hospital at annapolis, who has ministered to so many of them in their last moments; who has smoothed their passage to the grave by his kindness and attention, and who has performed the last sad offices over their lifeless remains. he says: "'there is another thing i would wish to state. all the men, without any exception among the thousands that have come to this hospital, have never in a single instance expressed a regret (notwithstanding the privations and sufferings they have endured) that they entered their country's service. they have been the most loyal, devoted and earnest men. even on the last days of their lives they have said that all they hoped for was just to live and enter the ranks again and meet their foes. it is a most glorious record in reference to the devotion of our men to their country. i do not think their patriotism has ever been equalled in the history of the world.' "all of which is respectfully submitted. "b. f. wade, _chairman._" also the following: "office of commissary-general of prisoners, washington, d. c., may , . "sir:--i have the honor to report that, pursuant to your instructions of the nd instant, i proceeded, yesterday morning, to annapolis, with a view to see that the paroled prisoners about to arrive there from richmond were properly received and cared for. "the flag-of-truce boat 'new york,' under the charge of major mulford, with thirty-two officers, three hundred and sixty-three enlisted men, and one citizen on board, reached the wharf at the naval school hospital about ten o'clock. on going on board, i found the officers generally in good health, and much cheered by their happy release from the rebel prisons, and by the prospect of again being with their friends. "the enlisted men who had endured so many privations at belle isle and other places were, with few exceptions, in a very sad plight, mentally and physically, having for months been exposed to all the changes of the weather, with no other protection than a very insufficient supply of worthless tents, and with an allowance of food scarcely sufficient to prevent starvation, even if of wholesome quality; but as it was made of coarsely-ground corn, including the husks, and probably at times the cobs, if it did not kill by starvation, it was sure to do it by the disease it created. some of these poor fellows were wasted to mere skeletons, and had scarcely life enough remaining to appreciate that they were now in the hands of their friends, and among them all there were few who had not become too much broken down and dispirited by their many privations to be able to realize the happy prospect of relief from their sufferings which was before them. with rare exception, every face was sad with care and hunger; there was no brightening of the countenance or lighting up of the eye, to indicate a thought of anything beyond a painful sense of prostration of mind and body. many faces showed that there was scarcely a ray of intelligence left. "every preparation had been made for their reception in anticipation of the arrival of the steamer, and immediately upon her being made fast to the wharf the paroled men were landed and taken immediately to the hospital, where, after receiving a warm bath, they were furnished with a suitable supply of new clothing, and received all those other attentions which their sad condition demanded. of the whole number, there are perhaps fifty to one hundred who, in a week or ten days, will be in a convalescent state, but the others will very slowly regain their lost health. "that our soldiers, when in the hands of the rebels, are starved to death, cannot be denied. every return of the flag-of-truce boat from city point brings us too many living and dying witnesses to admit of a doubt of this terrible fact. i am informed that the authorities at richmond admit the fact, but excuse it on the plea that they give the prisoners the same rations they give their own men. but can this be so? can an army keep the field, and be active and efficient, on the same fare that kills prisoners of war at a frightful percentage? i think not; no man can believe it; and while a practice so shocking to humanity is persisted in by the rebel authorities, i would very respectfully urge that retaliatory measures be at once instituted by subjecting the officers we now hold as prisoners of war to a similar treatment. "i took advantage of the opportunity which this visit to annapolis gave me to make a hasty inspection of camp parole, and i am happy to report that i found it in every branch in a most commendable condition. the men all seemed to be cheerful and in fine health, and the police inside and out was excellent. colonel root, the commanding officer, deserves much credit for the very satisfactory condition to which he has brought his command. "i have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "w. hoffman, "_colonel rd infantry, commissary general of prisoners._ "hon. e. m. stanton, _secretary of war, washington, d. c._" this report does not refer to the treatment of the soldiers of the _phalanx_ who were taken by the confederates in battle,[ ] after the surrender of fort pillow, lawrence and plymouth, and at several other places. it is inserted to enable the reader to form an opinion as to what the negro soldier's treatment must have been. the same committee also published as a part of their report, the testimony of a number,--mostly black, soldiers, who escaped death at fort pillow; a few of their statements are given: th congress,} {rep. com. st session. } {no. & . in the senate of the united states. _report of the joint committee on the conduct and expenditures of the war to whom was referred the resolution of congress instructing them to investigate the late massacre at fort pillow._ "_deposition of john nelson in relation to the capture of fort pillow._ "john nelson, being duly sworn, deposeth and saith: "'at the time of the attack on and capture of fort pillow, april , , i kept a hotel within the lines at fort pillow, and a short distance from the works. soon after the alarm was given that an attack on the fort was imminent, i entered the works and tendered my services to major booth, commanding. the attack began in the morning at about - / o'clock, and about o'clock p.m. a flag of truce approached. during the parley which ensued, and while the firing ceased on both sides, the rebels kept crowding up to the works on the side near cold creek, and also approached nearer on the south side, thereby gaining advantages pending the conference under the flag of truce. as soon as the flag of truce was withdrawn the attack began, and about five minutes after it began the rebels entered the fort. our troops were soon overpowered, and broke and fled. a large number of the soldiers, black and white, and also a few citizens, myself among the number, rushed down the bluff toward the river. i concealed myself as well as i could in a position where i could distinctly see all that passed below the bluff, for a considerable distance up and down the river. "'a large number, at least one hundred, were hemmed in near the river bank by bodies of the rebels coming from both north and south. most all of those thus hemmed in were without arms. i saw many soldiers, both white and black, throw up their arms in token of surrender, and call out that they had surrendered. the rebels would reply, 'g--d d--n you, why didn't you surrender before?' and shot them down like dogs. "'the rebels commenced an indiscriminate slaughter. many colored soldiers sprang into the river and tried to escape by swimming, but these were invariably shot dead. "'a short distance from me, and within view, a number of our wounded had been placed, and near where major booth's body lay; and a small red flag indicated that at that place our wounded were placed. the rebels however, as they passed these wounded men, fired right into them and struck them with the butts of their muskets. the cries for mercy and groans which arose from the poor fellows were heart-rending. "'thinking that if i should be discovered, i would be killed, i emerged from my hiding place, and, approaching the nearest rebel, i told him i was a citizen. he said, 'you are in bad company, g--d d--n you; out with your greenbacks, or i'll shoot you.' i gave him all the money i had, and under his convoy i went up into the fort again. "'when i re-entered the fort there was still some shooting going on. i heard a rebel officer tell a soldier not to kill any more of those negroes. he said that they would all be killed, any way, when they were tried. "'after i entered the fort, and after the united states flag had been taken down, the rebels held it up in their hands in the presence of their officers, and thus gave the rebels outside a chance to still continue their slaughter, and i did not notice that any rebel officer forbade the holding of it up. i also further state, to the best of my knowledge and information, that there were not less than three hundred and sixty negroes killed and two hundred whites. this i give to the best of my knowledge and belief. "john nelson. "subscribed and sworn to before me this nd day of may, a. d. . "j. d. lloyd, "_capt. th inf., mo. vols., and ass't. provost mar., dist. of memphis._" "henry christian, (colored), private, company b, th united states heavy artillery, sworn and examined. by mr. gooch: 'question. where were you raised? 'answer. in east tennessee. 'question. have you been a slave? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. where did you enlist? 'answer. at corinth, mississippi. 'question. were you in the fight at fort pillow? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. when were you wounded? 'answer. a little before we surrendered. 'question. what happened to you afterwards? 'answer. nothing; i got but one shot, and dug right out over the hill to the river, and never was bothered any more. 'did you see any men shot after the place was taken? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. where? 'answer. down to the river. 'question. how many? 'answer. a good many; i don't know how many. 'question. by whom were they shot? 'answer. by secesh soldiers; secesh officers shot some up on the hill. 'question. did you see those on the hill shot by the officers? 'answer. i saw two of them shot. 'question. what officers were they? 'answer. i don't know whether he was a lieutenant or captain. 'question. did the men who were shot after they had surrendered have arms in their hands? 'answer. no, sir; they threw down their arms. 'question. did you see any shot the next morning? 'answer. i saw two shot; one was shot by an officer--he was standing, holding the officer's horse, and when the officer came and got his horse he shot him dead. the officer was setting fire to the houses. 'question. do you say the man was holding the officer's horse, and when the officer came and took his horse he shot the man down? 'answer. yes, sir; i saw that with my own eyes; and then i made away into the river, right off. 'question. did you see any buried? 'answer. yes, sir; a great many, black and white. 'question. did you see any buried alive? 'answer. i did not see any buried alive. "jacob thompson, (colored), sworn and examined. by mr. gooch: 'question. were you a soldier at fort pillow? 'answer. no, sir, i was not a soldier; but i went up in the fort and fought with the rest. i was shot in the hand and the head. 'question. when were you shot? 'answer. after i surrendered. 'question. how many times were you shot? 'answer. i was shot but once; but i threw my hand up, and the shot went through my hand and my head. 'question. who shot you? 'answer. a private. 'question. what did he say? 'answer. he said, 'g--d d--n you, i will shoot you, old friend.' 'question. did you see anybody else shot? 'answer. yes, sir; they just called them out like dogs, and shot them down. i reckon they shot about fifty, white and black, right there. they nailed some black sergeants to the logs, and set the logs on fire. 'question. when did you see that? 'answer. when i went there in the morning i saw them; they were burning all together. 'question. did they kill them before they burned them? 'answer. no, sir, they nailed them to the logs; drove the nails right through their hands. 'question. how many did you see in that condition? 'answer. some four or five; i saw two white men burned. 'question. was there any one else there who saw that? answer. i reckon there was; i could not tell who. 'question. when was it that you saw them? 'answer. i saw them in the morning after the fight; some of them were burned almost in two. i could tell they were white men, because they were whiter than the colored men. 'question. did you notice how they were nailed? 'answer. i saw one nailed to the side of a house; he looked like he was nailed right through his wrist. i was trying then to get to the boat when i saw it. 'question. did you see them kill any white men? 'answer. they killed some eight or nine there. i reckon they killed more than twenty after it was all over; called them out from under the hill, and shot them down. they would call out a white man and shoot him down, and call out a colored man and shoot him down; do it just as fast as they could make their guns go off. 'question. did you see any rebel officers about there when this was going on? 'answer. yes, sir; old forrest was one. 'question. did you know forrest? 'answer. yes, sir; he was a little bit of a man. i had seen him before at jackson. 'question. are you sure he was there when this was going on? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. did you see any other officers that you knew? 'answer. i did not know any other but him. there were some two or three more officers came up there. 'question. did you see any buried there? 'answer. yes, sir; they buried right smart of them. they buried a great many secesh, and a great many of our folks. i think they buried more secesh than our folks. 'question. how did they bury them? 'answer. they buried the secesh over back of the fort, all except those on fort hill; them they buried up on top of the hill where the gunboats shelled them. 'question. did they bury any alive? 'answer. i heard the gunboat men say they dug two out who were alive. 'question. you did not see them? 'answer. no, sir. 'what company did you fight with? 'answer. i went right into the fort and fought there. 'question. were you a slave or a free man? 'answer. i was a slave. 'question. where were you raised? 'answer. in old virginia. 'question. who was your master? 'answer. colonel hardgrove. 'question. where did you live? 'answer. i lived three miles the other side of brown's mills. 'question. how long since you lived with him? 'answer. i went home once and staid with him a while, but he got to cutting up and i came away again. 'question. what did you do before you went into the fight? 'answer. i was cooking for co. k, of illinois cavalry; i cooked for that company nearly two years. 'question. what white officers did you know in our army? 'answer. i knew captain meltop and colonel ransom; and i cooked at the hotel at fort pillow, and mr. nelson kept it. i and johnny were cooking together. after they shot me through the hand and head, they beat up all this part of my head (the side of his head) with the breach of their guns. "ransome anderson, (colored), co. b, th united states heavy artillery, sworn and examined. by mr. gooch: 'question. where were you raised? 'answer. in mississippi. 'question. were you a slave? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. where did you enlist? 'answer. at corinth. 'question. were you in the fight at fort pillow? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. describe what you saw done there. 'answer. most all the men that were killed on our side were killed after the fight was over. they called them out and shot them down. then they put some in the houses and shut them up, and then burned the houses. 'question. did you see them burn? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. were any of them alive? 'answer. yes, sir; they were wounded, and could not walk. they put them in the houses, and then burned the houses down. 'question. do you know they were in there? 'answer. yes, sir; i went and looked in there. 'question. do you know they were in there when the house was burned? 'answer. yes, sir; i heard them hallooing there when the houses were burning. 'question. are you sure they were wounded men, and not dead, when they were put in there? 'answer. yes, sir; they told them they were going to have the doctor see them, and then put them in there and shut them up, and burned them. 'question. who set the house on fire? 'answer. i saw a rebel soldier take some grass and lay it by the door, and set it on fire. the door was pine plank, and it caught easy. 'question. was the door fastened up? 'answer. yes, sir; it was barred with one of those wide bolts. "james walls, sworn and examined. by mr. gooch: 'question. to what company did you belong? 'answer. company e, th tennessee cavalry. 'question. under what officers did you serve? 'answer. i was under major bradford and captain potter. 'question. were you in the fight at fort pillow? 'answer. yes, sir. 'question. state what you saw there of the fight, and what was done after the place was captured. 'answer. we fought them for some six or eight hours in the fort, and when they charged, our men scattered and ran under the hill; some turned back and surrendered, and were shot. after the flag of truce came in i went down to get some water. as i was coming back i turned sick, and laid down behind a log. the secesh charged, and after they came over i saw one go a good ways ahead of the others. one of our men made to him and threw down his arms. the bullets were flying so thick there i thought i could not live there, so i threw down my arms and surrendered. he did not shoot me then, but as i turned around he or some other one shot me in the back. 'question. did they say anything while they were shooting? 'answer. all i heard was, 'shoot him, shoot him!' 'yonder goes one!' 'kill him, kill him!' that is about all i heard. 'question. how many do you suppose you saw shot after they surrendered? 'answer. i did not see but two or three shot around me. one of the boys of our company, named taylor, ran up there, and i saw him shot and fall. then another was shot just before me, like--shot down after he threw down his arms. 'question. those were white men? 'answer. yes, sir. i saw them make lots of niggers stand up, and then they shot them down like hogs. the next morning i was lying around there waiting for the boat to come up. the secesh would be prying around there, and would come to a nigger and say, 'you ain't dead are you?' they would not say anything, and then the secesh would get down off their horses, prick them in their sides, and say, 'd--n you, you aint dead; get up.' then they would make them get up on their knees, when they would shoot them down like hogs. 'question. do you know of their burning any buildings? 'answer. i could hear them tell them to stick torches all around, and they fired all the buildings. 'question. do you know whether any of our men were in the buildings when they were burned? 'answer. some of our men said some were burned; i did not see it, or know it to be so myself. 'question. how did they bury them--white and black together? 'answer. i don't know about the burying; i did not see any buried. 'question. how many negroes do you suppose were killed after the surrender? 'answer. there were hardly any killed before the surrender. i reckon as many as were killed after the surrender, out of about that were there. question. did you see any rebel officers about while this shooting was going on? 'answer. i do not know as i saw any officers about when they were shooting the negroes. a captain came to me a few minutes after i was shot; he was close by me when i was shot. 'question. did he try to stop the shooting? 'answer. i did not hear a word of their trying to stop it. after they were shot down, he told them not to shoot them any more. i begged him not to let them shoot me again, and he said they would not. one man, after he was shot down, was shot again. after i was shot down, the man i surrendered to went around the tree i was against and shot a man, and then came around to me again and wanted my pocket-book. i handed it up to him, and he saw my watch-chain and made a grasp at it, and got the watch and about half the chain. he took an old barlow knife i had in my pocket. it was not worth five cents; was of no account at all, only to cut tobacco with.' "nathan g. fulks, sworn and examined. by mr. gooch: 'question. to what company and regiment do you belong? 'answer. to company d, th tennessee cavalry. 'question. where are you from? 'answer. about twenty miles from columbus, tennessee. 'question. how long have you been in the service? 'answer. five months, the st of may. 'question. were you at fort pillow at the time of the fight there? answer. yes, sir. 'question. will you state what happened to you there? 'answer. i was at the corner of the fort when they fetched in a flag for a surrender. some of them said the major stood a while, and then said he would not surrender. they continued to fight a while; and after a time the major started and told us to take care of ourselves, and i and twenty more men broke for the hollow. they ordered us to halt, and some of them said, 'god d--n 'em, kill 'em!' i said, 'i have surrendered.' i had thrown my gun away then. i took off my cartridge-box and gave it to one of them, and said, 'don't shoot me;' but they did shoot me, and hit just about where the shoe comes up on my leg. i begged them not to shoot me, and he said,' god d--n you, you fight with the niggers, and we will kill the last one of you!' then they shot me in the thick of the thigh, and i fell; and one set out to shoot me again, when another one said, 'don't shoot the white fellows any more. 'question. did you see any person shot besides yourself? 'answer. i didn't see them shot. i saw one of our fellows dead by me. 'question. did you see any buildings burned? 'answer. yes, sir. while i was in the major's headquarters they commenced burning the buildings, and i begged one of them to take me out and not let us burn there; and he said, 'i am hunting up a piece of yellow flag for you.' i think we would have whipped them if the flag of truce had not come in. we would have whipped them if we had not let them get the dead-wood on us. i was told that they made their movement while the flag of truce was in. i did not see it myself, because i had sat down, as i had been working so hard. 'question. how do you know they made their movement while the flag of truce was in? 'answer. the men that were above said so. the rebs are bound to take every advantage of us. i saw two more white men close to where i was lying. that makes three dead ones, and myself wounded." later on during the war the policy of massacring was somewhat abated, that is it was not done on the battle-field. the humanity of the confederates in virginia permitted them to take their black prisoners to the rear. about a hundred soldiers belonging to the th phalanx regiment, with several of their white officers, were captured at fort gilmer on the james river, va., and taken to richmond in september, . the following account is given of their treatment in the record of the regiment: "the following interesting sketches of prison-life, as experienced by two officers of the regiment, captured at fort gilmer, have been kindly furnished. _the details of the sufferings of the enlisted men captured with them we shall never know, for few of them ever returned to tell the sad story._ "'an escort was soon formed to conduct the prisoners to richmond, some seven or eight miles distant, and the kinder behavior of that part of the guard which had participated in the action was suggestive of the freemasonry that exists between brave fellows to whatever side belonging. on the road the prisoners were subjected by every passer-by, to petty insults, the point in every case, more or less obscene, being the color of their skin. the solitary exception, curiously enough, being a _nymph du pave_ in the suburbs of the town.[ ] "'about dusk the prisoners reached the notorious libby, where the officers took leave of their enlisted comrades--from most of them forever. the officers were then searched and put collectively in a dark hole, whose purpose undoubtedly was similar to that of the 'ear of dionysius.' in the morning, after being again searched, they were placed among the rest of the confined officers, among whom was capt. cook, of the ninth, taken a few weeks previously at strawberry plains. some time before, the confederates had made a great haul on the weldon railroad, and the prison was getting uncomfortably full of prisoners and--vermin. after a few days sojourn in libby, the authorities prescribed a change of air, and the prisoners were packed into box and stock cars and rolled to salisbury, n. c. the comforts of this two day's ride are remembered as strikingly similar to those of mr. hog from the west to the eastern market before the invention of the s. f. p. c. t. a. "'at salisbury the prisoners were stored in the third story of an abandoned tobacco factory, occupied on the lower floors by political prisoners, deserters, thieves and spies, who during the night made an attempt on the property of the new-comers, but were repulsed after a pitched battle. in the morning the post-commandant ordered the prisoners to some unused negro quarters in another part of the grounds, separated from the latter by a line of sentries. during the week train-loads of prisoners--enlisted men--arrived and were corralled in the open grounds. the subsequent sufferings of these men are known to the country, a parallel to those of andersonville, as the eternal infamy of wirtz is shared by his _confrere_ at salisbury--mcgee. "'the weakness, and still more, the appalling ferocity of the guards, stimulated the desire to escape; but when this had become a plan it was discovered, and the commissioned prisoners were at once hurried off to danville, va., and there assigned the two upper floors of an abandoned tobacco warehouse, which formed one side of an open square. here an organization into messes was effected, from ten to eighteen in each--to facilitate the issue of rations. the latter consisted of corn-bread and boiled beef, but gradually the issues of meat became like angels' visits, and then for several months ceased altogether. it was the art of feeding as practised by the hibernian on his horse--only their exchange deprived the prisoners of testing the one straw per day. "among the democracy of hungry bellies there were a few aristocrats, with a division general of the fifth corps as grand mogul, whose masonic or family connections in the south procured them special privileges. on the upper floor these envied few erected a cooking stove, around which they might be found at all hours of the day, preparing savory dishes, while encircled by a triple and quadruple row of jealous noses, eagerly inhailing the escaping vapors, so conducive to day-dreams of future banquets. the social equilibrium was, however, bi-diurnally restored by a common pursuit--a general warfare under the black flag against a common enemy, as insignificant individually as he was collectively formidable--an insect, in short, whose domesticity on the human body is, according to some naturalists, one of the differences between our species and the rest of creation. this operation, technically, 'skirmishing,' happened twice a day, according as the sun illumined the east or west sides of the apartments, along which the line was deployed in its beams. "eating, sleeping, smelling and skirmishing formed the routine of prison-life, broken once in a while by a walk, under escort, to the dan river, some eighty yards distant, for a water supply. generally, some ten or twelve prisoners with buckets were allowed to go at once, and this circumstance, together with the fact that the guard for all the prisons in town were mounted in the open square in front, excited the first idea of escape. according to high diplomatic authority, empty stomachs are conducive to ingenuity, so the idea soon became a plan and a conspiracy. while the new guard had stacked arms in the open square preparatory to mounting, some ten or twelve officers, under the lead of col. ralston, the powerful head of some new york regiment, were to ask for exit under pretense of getting water, and then to overpower the opposing sentries, while the balance of the prisoners, previously drawn up in line at the head of the short staircase leading direct to the exit door, were to rush down into the square, seize the stacked arms and march through the confederacy to the union lines--perhaps! "'among the ten or twelve pseudo-water-carriers--the forlorn hope--were col. ralston, capt. cook, of the ninth, and one or two of the seventh--capt. weiss and lieut. spinney. on the guard opening the door for egress, col. ralston and one of the seventh threw themselves on the first man, a powerful six-footer, and floored him. at the same moment, however, another guard with great presence of mind, slammed the door and turned the key, and that before five officers could descend the short staircase. the attempt was now a failure. one of the guards on the outside of the building took deliberate aim through the open window at col. ralston, who was still engaged with the struggling fellow, and shot him through the bowels. col. ralston died a lingering and painful death after two or three days. less true bravery than his has been highly sung in verse. "'this attempt could not but sharpen the discipline of the prison, but soon the natural humanity of the commandant, col. smith, now believed to be chief engineer of the baltimore bridge company, asserted itself, and things went on as before. two incidents may, however, be mentioned in this connection, whose asperities time has removed, leaving nothing but their salient grotesque features. "'immediately after the occurrence, an unlimited supply of dry-salted codfish was introduced. this being the first animal food for weeks, was greedily devoured in large quantities, mostly raw--producing a raging thirst. the water supply was now curtailed to a few bucketsful, but even these few drops of the precious fluid were mostly wasted in the _melee_ for their possession. the majority of the contestants retired disappointed to muse on the comforts of the sahara desert, and as the stories about tapping camels recurred to them, suggestive glances were cast at the more fortunate rivals. after a few days, conspicuous for the sparing enjoyment of salt cod, the water supply was ordered unlimited. an immediate 'corner' in the newfoundland staple took place, the stock being actively absorbed by _bona fide_ investors, who found that it bore watering with impunity. * * * * "'at the beginning of february, , thirty boxes of provisions, etc., from friends in the north arrived for the prisoners. the list of owners was anxiously scanned and the lucky possessor would not have exchanged for the capital prize in the havana lottery. the poor fellows of the seventh were among the fortunate, and from that day none knew hunger more. "'with the advent of the boxes came the dawn of a brighter day. cartels of exchange were talked about, and by the middle of february the captives found themselves on the rail for richmond. the old libby appeared much less gloomy than on first acquaintance, the rays of hope throwing a halo about everywhere. many asked and obtained the liberty of the town to lay in a supply of those fine brands of tobacco for which richmond is famous. in a few days the preliminaries to exchange were completed, and on the d of february--washington's birthday--the captives also stepped into a new life under the old flag." "captain sherman, of co. c., gives the following account: "'further resistence being useless, and having expressed our willingness to surrender, we were invited into the fort. as i stepped down from the parapet i was immediately accosted by one of the so-called f. f. v.'s, whose smiling countenance and extended hand led me to think i was recognized as an acquaintance. my mind was soon disabused of that idea, however, for the next instant he had pulled my watch from its pocket, with the remark, 'what have you there?' quick as thought, and before he could realize the fact, i had seized and recovered the watch, while he held only a fragment of the chain, and placing it in an inside pocket, buttoned my coat and replied, 'that is my watch and you cannot have it.' "'just then i discovered lieut. ferguson was receiving a good deal of attention--a crowd having gathered about him--and the next moment saw his fine new hat had been appropriated by one of the rebel soldiers, and he stood hatless. seeing one of the rebel officers with a masonic badge on his coat, lieut. f. made himself known as a brother mason, and appealed to him for redress. the officer quickly responded and caused the hat to be returned to its owner, only to be again stolen, and the thief made to give it up as before. "'in a little while we (seven officers and eighty-five enlisted men) were formed in four ranks, and surrounded by a guard, continued the march 'on to richmond,' but under very different circumstances from what we had flattered ourselves would be the case, when only two or three hours before our brigade-commander had remarked, as he rode by the regiment, that we would certainly be in richmond that night. we met a great many civilians, old and young, on their way to the front, as a general alarm had been sounded in the city, and all who could carry arms had been ordered to report for duty in the intrenchments. after a few miles march we halted for a rest, but were not allowed to sit down, as i presume the guards thought we could as well stand as they. here a squad of the richmond grays, the _elite_ of the city, came up and accosted us with all manner of vile epithets. one of the most drunken and boisterous approached within five or six feet of me, and with the muzzle of his rifle within two feet of my face swore he would shoot me. fearless of consequences, and feeling that immediate death even could not be worse than slow torture by starvation, to which i knew that so many of our soldiers had been subjected, and remembering that the confederate congress had declared officers of colored troops outlaws, i replied, as my eyes met his, 'shoot if you dare.' instead of carrying out his threat he withdrew his aim and staggered on. here lieut. ferguson lost his hat, which had been already twice stolen and recovered. one of the rebs came up behind him and taking the hat from his head replaced it with his own and ran off. the lieutenant consoled himself with the reflection that at last he had a hat no one would steal. "'at about p. m. we arrived at libby prison _and were separated from the enlisted men, who, we afterward learned, suffered untold hardships, to which many of them succumbed. some were claimed as slaves by men who had never known them; others denied fuel and shelter through the winter, and sometimes water with which to quench their thirst; the sick and dying neglected or mal-treated and even murdered by incompetent and fiendish surgeons; without rations for days together; shot at without the slightest reason or only to gratify the caprice of the guards,--all of which harrowing details were fully corroborated by the few emaciated wrecks that survived_. "'we were marched inside the prison, searched, and what money we had taken from us. i was allowed to retain pocket-book, knife and watch. our names were recorded and we were told to follow the sergeant. now, i thought, the question will be decided whether we are to go up stairs where we knew the officers were quartered, or be confined in the cells below. as we neared the corner of the large room and i saw the sergeant directing his steps to the stairs leading down, i thought it had been better had we fallen on the battle-field. he led the way down to a cell, and as we passed in barred and locked the door and left us in darkness. here, without rations, the bare stone floor for a bed, the dampness trickling down the walls on either side, seven of us were confined in a close room about seven feet by nine. it was a long night, but finally morning dawned and as a ray of light shone through the little barred window above our heads we thanked god we were not in total darkness. about a. m. rations, consisting of bread and meat, were handed in, and being divided into seven parts, were drawn for by lot. about noon we were taken from the cell and put in with the other officers. here we met capt. cook, of the ninth regiment, who had been captured about a month previous while reconnoitering the enemy's line. "'we were now in a large room, perhaps forty by ninety feet, with large windows, entirely destitute of glass. no blankets nor anything to sit or lie upon except the floor, and at night when we lay down the floor was literally covered. "'about the middle of the second night we were all hurriedly marched out and packed in filthy box-cars--like sardines, for there was not room for all to sit down--for an unknown destination. after a slow and tedious ride we arrived at salisbury, n. c. when we arrived there were but few prisoners, and for two or three days we received fair rations of bread, bean soup and a little meat. this did not last long, for as the number of prisoners increased our rations were diminished. there were four old log houses within the stockade and into these the officers were moved the next day, while a thousand or more prisoners, brought on from petersburg, were turned into the pen without shelter of any kind. from these we were separated by a line of sentinels, who had orders to shoot any who approached within six paces of their beat on either side. this was called the 'dead-line,' which also extended around the enclosure about six paces from the stockade. "'the second sunday after our arrival, just as we were assembling to hear preaching, an officer who had thoughtlessly stepped to a tree on the dead-line was shot and killed by the sentry, who was on an elevated platform outside the fence, and only about two rods distant. for this fiendish act the murderer was granted a sixty days furlough. "'prisoners were being brought in almost daily, and at this time there were probably six thousand within the enclosure. a pretence of shelter was furnished by the issue of a few sibley tents, but not more than a third of the prisoners were sheltered. many of them built mud hovels or burrowed in the ground; some crawled under the hospital building. very few had blankets and all were thinly clad, and the rations were barely sufficient to sustain life. what wonder that men lost their strength, spirits, and sometimes reason. the story of exposure, sickness and death is the same and rivals that of andersonville. "'the guard was strengthened, a portion of the fence taken down and a piece of artillery stationed at the corners to sweep down the crowd, should an outbreak occur. this we had thought of for some time, and a plan of action was decided upon. at a given signal all within the enclosure were to make a break for that part of the fence nearest them, and then scatter, each one for himself. of course, some would probably be killed, but it was hoped most would escape before the guards could load and fire a second time. this plot, which was to have been carried out at midnight, was discovered the previous afternoon. the inside guard, separating the enlisted-men from the officers, had become more vigilant, and the only means of communication was to attach a note to a stone and throw it across. this an officer attempted. the note fell short; the sentry picked it up, called the corporal of the guard, who took it to the officer of the guard, and in less than five minutes the whole arrangement was known. two hours afterward we were formed in line and learned that we were to change our quarters. we had then been in salisbury twenty days. before we left one of our mess found and brought away a bound copy of _harper's magazine_. it proved a boon to us, as it served for a pillow for one of us at night, and was being read by some one from dawn until night, until we had all read it through, when we traded it off for a volume of the _portland transcript_. "'we were packed in box cars and started north. the next morning we arrived at danville and were confined in a tobacco warehouse, built of brick and about eighty feet long, forty wide, and three stories high. when we first entered the prison the ration was fair in quantity. we had from twelve to sixteen ounces of corn-bread, and from two to four ounces of beef or a cup of pea-soup, but never beef and soup the same day. true, the soup would have an abundance of worms floating about in it, but these we would skim off, and trying to forget we had seen them, eat with a relish. hunger will drive one to eat almost anything, as we learned from bitter experience. about the st of november the soup and beef ration began to decrease, and from the middle of the month to the th of february, when i was paroled, not a ration of meat or soup was issued. nothing but corn-bread, made from unbolted meal, and water, and that growing less and less. sometimes i would divide my ration into three parts and resolve to make it last all day, but invariably it would be gone before noon. generally i would eat the whole ration at once, but that did not satisfy my hunger, and i had to go without a crumb for the next twenty-four hours. to illustrate how inadequate the ration was, i can say that i have seen officers picking potato-peelings from the large spittoons, where they were soaking in tobacco spittle, wash them off and eat them. "'we had an abundance of good, pure water, which was a great blessing. pails were furnished, and when five or six men were ready, the sentry would call the corporal of the guard, who would send a guard of from four to six with us to the river, about two hundred yards distant. twice a day an officer would come in and call the roll; that is form us into four ranks and count the files. if any had escaped, it was essential that the number should be kept good for some days, to enable them to get a good start, and for this purpose various means were used. some, times one of the rear rank, after being counted, would glide along unseen to the left of the line and be recounted. a hole was cut in the upper floor, and while the officer was going upstairs, some would climb through the hole and be counted with those on the third floor. this created some confusion, as the number would occasionally overrun. "'as the season advanced we suffered more and more from the cold, for being captured in september our clothing was not sufficient for december and january. very few had blankets, and the rebel authorities never issued either blankets or clothing of any kind. the windows of the lower rooms were without glass, and only the lower half of each boarded up; the wind would whistle through the large openings, and drawing up through the open floor, upon which we had to lie at night, would almost freeze us. i finally succeeded in trading my watch with one of the guard for an old bed-quilt and twenty dollars confederate money. the money came in very good time, for i then had the scurvy so badly that my tongue, lips and gums were so swollen that by evening i could scarcely speak. in the morning the swelling would not be quite so bad, and by soaking the corn-bread in water, could manage to swallow a little. the surgeon, who visited the prison every day, cauterized my mouth, but it continued to grow worse, until at last i could not eat the coarse bread. sometimes i would have a chance to sell it for from one to two dollars, which, with the twenty, saved me from starvation. i bought rice of the guard for two dollars the half-pint, and good-sized potatoes for a dollar each. these were cooked usually over a little fire in the yard with wood or chips picked up while going for water. sometimes, by waiting patiently for an hour or more, i could get near enough to the stove to put my cup on. the heating apparatus was a poor apology for a cylinder coal-stove, and the coal the poorest i ever saw, and gave so little heat that one could stand all day by it and shiver. [illustration: escaping prisoners fed by negroes in their master's barn.] "'the bed-quilt was quite narrow, but very much better than none. "'capt. weiss and i would spread our flannel coats on the floor, use our shoes for pillows, spread the quilt over us, and with barely space to turn over, would, if the night was not too cold, go to sleep; usually to dream of home and loved ones; of christmas festivities and banquets; of trains of army wagons so overloaded with pies and cakes that they were rolling into the road; of a general exchange; a thirty day's leave of absence, and a thousand things altogether unlike that which we were experiencing; and would wake only to find ourselves cold and hungry. "'our mess had the volume of _harper's magazine_, found at salisbury, and we each could have it an hour or more daily. a few games of checkers or cribbage, played sitting on the floor, tailor-fashion, were always in order. all who were accustomed to smoking would manage to secure a supply of tobacco at least sufficient for one smoke per day, and, if they could not obtain it in any other way, would sell half their scanty ration, and perhaps get enough to last a week. it was a good place to learn how to economize. i have known some to refuse a light from the pipe, for fear of losing a grain of the precious weed. evenings we would be in darkness, and as we could not move about without frequent collisions, would gather in little groups and talk of home, friends, and the good time coming, when we would have one good, square meal; arrange the bill of fare, comprising all the delicacies that heart could wish, or a morbid mind prompted by a starving stomach could conceive; lay plans for escape and discuss the route to be followed; sing a few hymns and the national airs, and wind up with 'we'll hang jeff davis on a sour apple tree.' "'there were with us two officers who, when we arrived at salisbury, had been in solitary confinement and whom the rebels were holding as hostages for two guerillas whom gen. burnside had condemned to be shot. when the removal of the officers to danville occurred, these two were released from close confinement and sent on with us, and it was thought they were no longer considered as hostages. they had planned an escape and well nigh succeeded. they had dug a hole through the brick wall, and passing into an adjoining unoccupied building, cut through the floor, dug under the stone foundation and were just coming through on the outside, when some one in passing stepped on the thin crust and fell in. whether he or the men digging were the most frightened it would be hard to tell. the next morning these two who had worked so hard to regain their liberty were taken out and probably placed in close confinement again. "'after this attempt to escape, the rebel authorities made an effort to rob us of everything, particularly pocket-knives, watches, or any thing that could aid us to escape. in this they were foiled. they made us all go to one end of the room and placing a guard through the middle, searched us one by one and passed us to the other side. if one had a knife, watch or money, he had only to toss it over to some one already searched, and when his turn came would have nothing to show. "'the guards would not allow us to stand by the windows, and on one occasion, without warning, fired through a second-story window and badly wounded an officer on the third floor. "'my shoes were nearly worn out when i was captured, and soon became so worn that i could only keep _sole_ and _body_ together by cutting strings from the edge of the uppers and lacing them together. these strings would wear but a little while, and frequent cuttings had made the shoes very low. "'toward the last of january, capt. cook received intelligence that a special exchange had been effected in his case and he was to start at once for the north. here was an opportunity to communicate with our comrades and friends, for up to this time we did not know whether any of our letters had been received. capt. cook had a pair of good stout brogans. these shoes he urged me to take in exchange for my dilapidated ones. at first, i felt reluctant to do so, but finally made the exchange and he left us with a light heart, but his anticipations were not realized, for instead of going directly north he was detained in libby prison until just before the rest of us arrived, and when we reached annapolis he was still there awaiting his leave, and had been obliged to wear my old shoes until two days previous. "'rumors of a general exchange began to circulate, and a few boxes of provisions and clothing, sent by northern friends, were delivered. among the rest, was a well-filled box from the officers of our regiment, and twelve hundred dollars confederate money (being the equivalent of sixty dollars greenbacks) which they had kindly contributed. could we have received the box and money in november, instead of just before our release, we could have subsisted quite comfortably all winter. as it was, we lived sumptuously as long as the contents of the box lasted, and when about a week later we started for richmond to be paroled, we had drawn considerably upon the twelve hundred dollars. "'february th, we left danville for richmond and were again quartered in libby. on the th, we signed the parole papers. "'the second morning after signing the rolls, one of the clerks came in and said that for want of transportation, only a hundred would be sent down the river that day, and the rest would follow soon; that those whose names were called would fall in on the lower floor, ready to start. as he proceeded to call the roll there was a death-like stillness, and each listened anxiously to hear his own name. of our mess only one name was called. as he stopped reading and folded his rolls and turned to leave, i thought, what if our army should commence active operations and put an end to the exchange, and resolved to go with the party that day, if possible. i had noticed that the clerk had not called the names in their order nor checked them, and knew he could not tell who had been called. i therefore hurried down to the lower floor and fell in with the rest, thinking all the time of the possibility of detection and the consequent solitary confinement, and although my conscience was easy so far as the papers i had signed were concerned--for i had only agreed not to take up arms until duly exchanged--i did not breath freely until i had disembarked from the boat and was under the stars and stripes. fortunately, the rest of the party came down on the boat the next day. "'one other incident and i am done: sergt. henry jordan, of company c, was wounded and captured with the rest of us, but on account of his wounds was unable to be sent south with the other enlisted-men. after his recovery he was kept as a servant about the office of major turner, the commandant of the prison, and when, on the d of april, , the rebels evacuated richmond and paroled the prisoners, he remained until our forces came in and took possession of the city. when, a few days later, maj. turner was captured by our troops and confined in the same cell we had occupied, sergt. jordan was detailed to carry him his rations, and although he was not of a vindictive or revengeful disposition, i will venture to say that the rations allowed turner were not much better than had been given the sergeant through the winter. had turner been guarded by such men as henry jordan, or even by the poorest soldiers of the regiment, he would not have escaped within three days of his capture, as was the case.'" very few of the black soldiers were exchanged, though the confederate government pretended to recognize them and treat them as they did the whites. general taylor's reply to general grant, was the general policy applied to them when convenient. in the latter days of the war, when--in june, , at guntown, miss.,--the confederate gen. forrest attacked and routed the union forces, under sturgis, through the stupidity of the latter, (alluded to more at length a few pages further on,) a number of black soldiers were captured, sturgis having had several phalanx regiments in his command. the confederates fought with desperation, and with their usual "no quarter," because, as forrest alleges, the phalanx regiments meant to retaliate for his previous massacre of the blacks at fort pillow. seeking to justify the inhuman treatment of his black prisoners, he wrote as follows to general washburn, commanding the district of west tennessee: "it has been reported to me that all of your colored troops stationed in memphis took, on their knees, in the presence of major general hurlburt and other officers of your army, an oath to avenge fort pillow, and that they would show my troops no quarter. again i have it from indisputable authority that the troops under brigadier general sturgis on their recent march from memphis, publicly, and in many places, proclaimed that no quarter would be shown my men. as they were moved into action on the th they were exhorted by their officers to remember fort pillow. the prisoners we have captured from that command, or a large majority of them, have voluntarily stated that they expected us to murder them, otherwise they would have surrendered in a body rather than have taken to the bushes after being run down and exhausted." the massacre at fort pillow had a very different effect upon the black soldiers than it was doubtless expected to have. instead of weakening their courage it stimulated them to a desire of retaliation; not in the strict sense of that term, but to fight with a determination to subdue and bring to possible punishment, the men guilty of such atrocious conduct. had general sturgis been competent of commanding, forrest would have found himself and his command no match for the phalanx at guntown and brice's cross roads. doubtless forrest was startled by the reply of general washburn, who justly recognized the true impulse of the phalanx. he replied to forrest, june , , as follows: "you say in your letter that it has been reported to you that all the negro troops stationed in memphis took an oath, on their knees, in the presence of major general hurlburt and other officers of our army, to avenge fort pillow and that they would show your troops no quarter. i believe it is true that the colored troops did take such an oath, but not in the presence of general hurlburt. from what i can learn this act of theirs was not influenced by any white officer, but was the result of their own sense of what was due to themselves and their fellows who had been mercilessly slaughtered." the chief of forrest's artillery writes in the philadelphia _times_, in september, : "col. arthur t. reeve, who commanded the fifty-fifth colored infantry in this fight, tells me that no oath was taken by his troops that ever he heard of, but the impression prevailed that the black flag was raised, and on his side was raised to all intents and purposes. he himself fully expected to be killed if captured. impressed with this notion a double effect was produced. it made the federals afraid to surrender and greatly exasperated our men, and in the break-up the affair became more like a hunt for wild game than a battle between civilized men." in his description of the battle at brice's cross roads, he says: "the entire confederate force was brought into action at once. we kept no reserves; every movement was quickly planned and executed with the greatest celerity. a potent factor which made the battle far bloodier than it would have been, was it being reported, and with some degree of truth, that the negroes had been sworn on their knees in line before leaving memphis to show 'no quarter to forrest's men,' and badges were worn upon which were inscribed, 'remember fort pillow.' general washburn, commanding the district of west tennessee, distinctly admits that the negro troops with sturgis had gone into this fight with the declared intention to give no quarter to forrest's men." the fate of the black soldiers taken in these fights is unknown, which is even worse than of those who are known to have been massacred. the details of the massacre at fort pillow have been reserved for this portion of the present chapter in order to state them more at length, and in connection with important movements which soon after took place against the same confederate force. the most atrocious of all inhuman acts perpetrated upon a brave soldiery, took place at fort pillow, kentucky, on the th of april, . no cause can be assigned for the shocking crime of wanton, indiscriminate murder of some three hundred soldiers, other than that they were "niggers," and "fighting with niggers." on the th, general forrest suddenly appeared before fort pillow with a large force, and demanded its surrender. the fort was garrisoned by men in command of major l. f. booth, consisting of the th tennessee cavalry, major bradford, and the th phalanx battery of heavy artillery, numbering men, and six guns. at sunrise on the th, general forrest's forces advanced and attacked the fort. the garrison maintained a steady brisk fire, and kept the enemy at bay from an outer line of intrenchments. about a. m. major booth was killed, and major bradford taking command, drew the troops back into the fort, situated on a high, steep and partially timbered bluff on the mississippi river, with a ravine on either hand. a federal gunboat, the "new era," assisted in the defence, but the height of the bluff prevented her giving material support to the garrison. in the afternoon both sides ceased firing, to cool and clean their guns. during this time, forrest, under a flag of truce, summoned the federals to surrender within a half hour. major bradford refused to comply with the demand. meantime the confederates taking advantage of the truce to secret themselves down in a ravine, from whence they could rush upon the fort at a given signal. no sooner was bradford's refusal to surrender received, than the confederates rushed simultaneously into the fort. in a moment almost the place was in their possession. the garrison, throwing away their arms fled down the steep banks, endeavoring to hide from the promised "no quarter," which forrest had embodied in his demand for surrender: "_if i have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter._" the confederates followed, "butchering black and white soldiers and non-combatants, men, women and children. disabled men were made to stand up and be shot; others were burned within the tents wherein they had been nailed to the floor." this carnival of murder continued until dark, and was even renewed the next morning. major bradford was not murdered until he had been carried as a prisoner several miles on the retreat. it is best that the evidence in this matter, as given in previous pages of this chapter, should be read. it is unimpeachable, though forrest, s. d. lee and chalmers have attempted to deny the infernal work. the last named, under whose command these barbarous acts were committed, offered on the floor of the united states congress, fifteen years afterward, an apologetic denial of what appears from the evidence of those who escaped,--taken by the congressional committee,--and also contradictory to the confederate general s. d. lee's report, in which he fails to convince himself even of the inaccuracy of the reports of brutality, as made by the few who escaped being murdered. lee says: [illustration: the massacre at fort pillow.--april th, .] "the garrison was summoned in the usual manner, and its commanding officer assumed the responsibility of refusing to surrender after having been informed by general forrest of his ability to take the fort, and of his fears of what the result would be in case the demand was not complied with. the assault was made under a heavy fire, and with considerable loss to the attacking party. your colors were never lowered, and your garrison never surrendered, but retreated under cover of a gunboat, with arms in their hands and constantly using them. this was true particularly of your colored troops, who had been firmly convinced by your teaching of the certainty of slaughter, in case of capture. even under these circumstances, many of your men, white and black, were taken prisoners." continuing, he says: "the case under consideration is almost an extreme one. you had a servile race armed against us. i assert that our officers with all the circumstances against them endeavored to prevent the effusion of blood." this is an admission that the massacre of the garrison actually occurred, and because phalanx troops were a part of the garrison. that the black soldiers had been taught that no quarter would be shown them if captured, or if they surrendered, is doubtless true. it is also too true that the teaching was the _truth_. one has but to read the summons for the surrender to be satisfied of the fact, and then recollect that the president of the confederate states, in declaring general butler an outlaw, also decreed that negroes captured with arms in their hands, their officers as well, should be turned over to the state authorities wherein they were captured, to be dealt with according to the laws of that state and the confederacy. the sentiment of the chief confederate commander regarding the employment of negroes in the union army, notwithstanding the confederate government was the first to arm and muster them into service, as shown in previous and later chapters, is manifested by the following dispatch, though at the time of writing it, that general had hundreds of blacks under his command at charleston building fortifications. "charleston, s. c., oct. th, . "hon. wm. p. miles, richmond, va. "has the bill for the execution of abolition prisoners, after january next, been passed? do it, and england will be stirred into action. it is high time to proclaim the black flag after that period: let the execution be with the garrote. g. t. beauregard." the confederate thirst for "nigger" blood seemed to have been no stronger in kentucky than in other departments, but it does appear, for some reason, that kentucky and northern mississippi were selected by the confederate generals, pillow and forrest, as appropriate sections in which to particularly vent their spite. the success of forrest at fort pillow rather strengthened general beauford's inhumanity. he commanded a portion of pillow's forces which appeared before columbus the day after the fort pillow massacre, and in the following summons demanded its surrender: "_to the commander of the united states forces, columbus, ky._: "fully capable of taking columbus and its garrison, i desire to avoid shedding blood. i therefore demand the unconditional surrender of the forces under your command. should you surrender, the negroes in arms will be returned to their masters. should i be compelled to take the place by force, _no quarter will be shown negro troops whatever_; white troops will be treated as prisoners of war. "i am, sir, yours, a. beauford, brig. gen." colonel lawrence, of the th new jersey, declined to surrender, and drove the enemy off, who next appeared in paducah, but retired without making an assault upon the garrison. these occurrences, with the mysterious surrender of union city to forrest, on the th of march, so incensed the commander of the department that a strong force was organized, and in command of general s. d. sturgis, started, on the th of april, in pursuit of forrest and his men, but did not succeed in overtaking him. a few weeks later, general sturgis, with a portion of his former force, combined with that of general smith's,--just returning from the red river (banks) _fiasco_,--again went in pursuit of general forrest. at guntown, on the th of june, sturgis' cavalry, under general grierson, came up with the enemy, charged upon them, and drove them back upon their infantry posted near brice's cross roads. general grierson, needing support, sent back for the infantry, which was several miles in his rear. the day was intensely hot, and the roads, from constant rains, in very bad condition. however, sturgis marched the troops up at double-quick to the position where general grierson was holding the confederates in check. the infantry had become so exhausted when they reached the scene of action, that they were unable to fight as they otherwise would have done. sturgis, either ignorant of what was going on or incapacitated for the work, heightened the disorder at the front by permitting his train of over two hundred wagons to be pushed up close to the troops, thus blocking their rear, and obstructing their manoeuvring; finally the wagons were parked a short distance from the lines and in sight of the foe. the troops exhausted by the rapid march, without proper formation or commanders, had been brought up to the support of the cavalry, who were hotly engaged with the enemy, whose desperation was increased at the sight of the phalanx regiments. general beauford had joined forrest, augmenting his force , . sturgis' force numbered about , , in cavalry, artillery and infantry. forrest was well provided with artillery, which was up early and took a position in an open field enfilading the federal line, which fought with a determination worthy of a better fate than that which befel it. a confederate writer says: "at early dawn on the th lyon took the advance, with morton's artillery close behind, rucker and johnson following. meanwhile, bell, as we have stated, at rienzi, eight miles further north, was ordered to move up at a trot. the roads, soaked with water from recent continuous heavy rains and so much cut up by the previous passage of cavalry and trains, greatly retarded the progress of the artillery, so that rucker and johnson soon passed us. on reaching old carrollville, five miles northeast of brice's cross roads, heavy firing could be heard just on ahead. forrest, as was his custom, had passed to the front of the entire column with his escort. "he had, however, ordered lieutenant r. j. black, a dashing young officer, temporarily attached to his staff, to take a detachment of men from the seventh tennessee cavalry and move forward and develop the enemy. black soon reported that he had met the advance of the federal cavalry one and a half miles from brice's cross roads and there was skirmishing with them. general forrest ordered lyon to press forward with his brigade. a courier hastening back to the artillery said: 'general forrest says, 'tell captain morton to fetch up the artillery at a gallop.' lyon in the meantime had reached the enemy's outposts, dismounted his brigade and thrown it into line and had warmly opposed a strong line of infantry or dismounted cavalry, which, after stubborn resistance, had been driven back to within half a mile of brice's cross roads." the columns of the federals could not do more than retreat, and if they had been able to do this in any order, and recover from their exhaustion, they would have been ready to drive the foe, but they were hotly pursued by the confederates, who were continually receiving re-enforcements. it was soon evident that the confederates intended to gain the rear and capture the whole of the union troops. the federals, therefore, began to retire leisurely. says the confederate account: "general forrest directed general buford to open vigorously when he heard bell on the left, and, taking with him his escort and bell's brigade, moved rapidly around southeastward to the guntown-ripley road. he formed wilson's and russel's regiments on the right of the road, extending to rucker's left, and placed newsom's regiment on the left of the road; duffs regiment, of rucker's brigade, was placed on the left of newsom; captain h. a. tyler, commanding company a, twelfth kentucky, was ordered by lyon and subsequently by forrest to take his company, with company c, seventh kentucky, and keep mounted on the extreme left of the line. the escort, under captain jackson, moved around the extreme left of the line, and on striking the baldwyn and pontotoc road about two miles south of the cross roads had a sharp skirmish and pressed the enemy's cavalry back to where tishamingo creek crosses that road; here it was joined by captain gartrell's georgia company and a kentucky company. by mutual agreement captain jackson, of the escort, was placed in command of the three companies and lieutenant george l. cowan in command of the escort. meanwhile general buford had ordered barteau's second tennessee cavalry to move across the country and gain the federal rear, and if possible destroy their trains and then strike them in flank." the gallant conduct of the federal cavalry inspired the other troops. they made a stand, and for awhile advanced, driving the confederate line before them on the right, doubling it up and gaining the rear. the same writer says: "it was at this critical moment an officer of bell's staff dashed up to general forrest, very much excited, and said: 'general forrest, the enemy flanked us and are now in our rear. what shall be done?' forrest, turning in his saddle, very coolly replied: 'we'll whip these in our front and then turn around, and wont we be in their rear? and then we'll whip them fellows!' pointing in the direction of the force said to be in his rear. jackson and tyler, charging on the extreme left, drove back two colored regiments of infantry upon their main line at the cross roads. in this charge the gallant captain tyler was severely wounded. "meanwhile the federals, with desperation, hurled a double line of battle, with the four guns at brice's house concentrated upon rucker and bell, which for a moment seemed to stagger and make them waver. in this terrible onslaught the accomplished adjutant, lieutenant w. s. pope, of the seventh tennessee, was killed, and a third of his regiment was killed and wounded. soon another charge was sounded. lieutenant tully brown was ordered, with his section of three-inch rifles, close on the front at the porter house, from which position he hurled a thousand pounds of cold iron into their stubborn lines. a section of twelve-pounder howitzers, under lieutenant b. f. haller, pressed still further to the front and within a stone's throw almost of the enemy's line. mayson's section of three-inch rifles were quickly placed in line with haller's. just then, general buford, riding up and seeing no support to the artillery, called general forrest's attention to the fact, when forrest remarked: 'support, h--l; let it support itself; all the d--n yankees in the country can't take it."' the lines were now closing upon each other, and the confederates began to feel the effect of the union fire. the dash of the phalanx, charging the enemy's flank, gave renewed courage to the troops, now pouring deadly volleys into the confederate's faces, and their guns had gained a position, from which they began to sweep the enemy's lines. says the same account: "now rose the regular incessant volleys of musketry and artillery. the lines in many places were not over thirty paces apart and pistols were freely used. the smoke of battle almost hid the combatants. the underbrush and dense black-jack thickets impeded the advance of the dismounted cavalry as the awful musketry fire blazed and gushed in the face of these gallant men. every tree and brush was barked or cut to the ground by this hail of deadly missiles. it was here the accomplished and gallant william h. porter, brother of major thomas k. and governor james d. porter, fell mortally wounded. this promising young officer had not attained his manhood. he was a cadet in the regular confederate states army and had been ordered to report to general bell, who assigned him to duty as a. d. c. captain j. l. bell, general bell's assistant inspector-general, had just been killed from his horse, and almost at the same moment young porter lost his own horse and just mounted captain bell's when he received the fatal shot. lieutenant isaac bell, aide-de-camp of bell's staff, was severely wounded. the loss in officers right here was very heavy; sixteen were killed and sixty-one wounded. captain ab hust, a mere boy, who commanded bell's escort, rendered most efficient service at this critical juncture, and major tom allison, the fighting quartermaster of bell's brigade, was constantly by the side of his fearless commander, and in this terrible loss in staff officers his presence was most opportune. "like a prairie on fire the battle raged and the volleying thunder can be likened in my mind to nothing else than the fire of cleburne's division at chickamauga, on that terrible saturday at dusk. at length the enemy's lines wavered, haller and mayson pressed their guns by hand to within a short distance of brice's house, firing as they advanced. bell, lyon and rucker now closed in on the cross roads and the federals gave way in disorder, abandoning three guns near brice's house. general sturgis, in his official report of the fight, says: 'we had four pieces of artillery at the cross roads. * * * finding our troops were being hotly pressed, i ordered one section to open on the enemy's reserves. the enemy's artillery soon replied, and with great accuracy, every shell bursting over and in the immediate vicinity of our guns.' a shell from one of the confederate guns struck the table in brice's porch, was used by general sturgis, stunning that officer." the terrible struggle which now ensued was not surpassed, according to an eye-witness, by the fighting of any troops. the phalanx were determined, if courage could do it, to whip the men who had so dastardly massacred the garrison of fort pillow. this fact was known to forrest, buford and their troops, who fought like men realizing that anything short of victory was death, and well may they have thus thought, for every charge the phalanx made meant annihilation. they, too, accepted the portentous fiat, victory or death. though more than twenty years have passed since this bloody fight, yet the chief of the confederate artillery portrays the situation in these words: "is was soon evident that another strong line had formed behind the fence by the skirt of woods just westward of phillips' branch. general forrest riding up, dismounted and approached our guns, which were now plying shell and solid shot. with his field glasses he took in the situation. the enemy's shot were coming thick and fast; leaden balls were seen to flatten as they would strike the axles and tires of our gun carriages; trees were barked and the air was ladened with the familiar but unpleasant sound of these death messengers. "realizing general forrest's exposure, we involuntarily ventured the suggestion that, 'you had better get lower down the hill, general.' instantly we apologized, as we expected the general to intimate that it was none of our business where he went. he, however, stepped down the hill out of danger and seating himself behind a tree, seemed for a few moments in deep study, but soon the head of our cavalry column arriving, he turned to me and said: 'captain, as soon as you hear me open on the right and flank of the enemy over yonder,' pointing to the enemy's position, 'charge with your artillery down that lane and cross the branch.' the genial and gallant captain rice coming up at this time and hearing the order, turned to me and said: 'by g--d! whoever heard of artillery charging?' captain brice's battery had been stationed at columbus, miss., and other points on local duty, and only a few months previous had been ordered and assigned to our command. he accepted his initiation into the ways and methods of horse artillery with much spirit and good grace. "meanwhile, watching forrest at the head of the cavalry moving through the woods and across the field in the direction of the enemy's right, i directed lieutenants tully, brown and h. h. briggs, whose sections had been held in the road below the hadden house for an emergency, to be ready to move into action at a moments notice. the enemy, observing our cavalry passing to their right, began to break and retire through the woods. forrest, seeing this, dashed upon them in column of fours. at the same moment lieutenant brown pressed his section down the road, even in advance of the skirmish line, and opened a terrific fire upon the enemy, now breaking up and in full retreat. lieutenant briggs also took an advanced position and got in a few well-directed shots. brown's section and a section of rice's battery were pushed forward across phillips' branch and up the hill under a sharp fire, the former taking position on the right of the road and the latter in the road just where the road turns before reaching dr. agnew's house. "our skirmishers had driven the enemy's skirmishers upon their main line, when we were about to make another artillery charge, but distinctly hearing the federal officers giving orders to their men to stand steady and yell, 'remember fort pillow.' 'charge! charge! charge!' ran along their lines, and on they came. our right was pressed back on the 'negro avengers of fort pillow.' they moved steadily upon our guns and for a moment their loss seemed imminent. our cannoneers, standing firm and taking in the situation, drove double-shotted cannister into this advancing line. the cavalry rallying on our guns sent death volleys into their ranks, which staggered the enemy and drove them back, but only to give place to a new line that now moved down upon us with wild shouts and got almost within hand-shaking distance of our guns. "lyon coming up opportunely at this moment formed his brigade on our right, and springing forward with loud cheers, hurled them back with so stormful an onset that their entire line gave way in utter rout and confusion. lieutenant brown's horse was shot under him. the gallant young soldier, henry king, of rice's battery, fell with his rammer staff in hand, mortally wounded. his grave now marks the spot where he fell. several members of the artillery were wounded and a great many battery horses were killed. the reason for this desperate stand was soon discovered. the road was filled with their wagons, ambulances and many caissons, the dying and wounded. cast-away arms, accoutrements, baggage, dead animals and other evidences of a routed army were conspicuous on every side. the sun had set, but the weary and over-spent confederates maintained the pursuit for some five or six miles beyond and until it became quite too dark to go further. a temporary halt was ordered, when a section from each battery was directed to be equipped with ammunition and the best horses from their respective batteries and be ready to continue the pursuit at daylight." the rout was all the enemy could desire, the federals fought with a valor creditable to any troops, but were badly worsted, through the incompetency of sturgis. they were driven back to ripley, in a most disastrously confused state, leaving behind their trains, artillery, dead and wounded. but for the gallantry of the phalanx, the enemy would have captured the entire force. the same writer describes the rout: "johnson, pressing his brigade forward upon the enemy's position at brice's quarter, with lyon supporting the artillery in the road below brice's house, the position was soon captured with many prisoners and three pieces of artillery. hallers and mayson's sections were moved up at a gallop and established on the hill at brice's quarter and opened a destructive fire with double-shotted cannister upon the enemy's fleeing columns and wagon trains. the bridge over tishamingo creek, still standing, was blocked up with wagons, some of whose teams had been killed. finding the bridge thus obstructed the enemy rushed wildly into the creek, and as they emerged from the water on the opposite bank in an open field, our artillery played upon them for half a mile, killing and disabling large numbers. forrests escort, under the dashing lieutenant cowan, having become detached in the meantime, had pressed around to the west side of the creek and south of the ripley road, and here made one of its characteristic charges across an open field near the gin house, upon the enemy's wagon train, capturing several wagons. "meanwhile barteau was not idle. he had moved his regiment, as we have stated, across to get in the enemy's rear, and in his own language says: 'i took my regiment across the country westward, to reach the ripley road, on which the enemy was moving, and being delayed somewhat in passing through a swampy bottom, i did not reach that road, at lyon's gin, three miles from brice's cross roads, until probably o'clock. i then learned that the last of the federal regiments, with all their train, had passed by rapid march, and as there was now a lull in the engagement (for i had been hearing sharp firing in front), i greatly feared that forrest was defeated and that the federals were pushing him back, so i moved rapidly down the road till i reached the open field near the bridge.' "this could not have been the ripley guntown road, as that road was filled with federal troops, wagons and artillery from dr. agnew's house to the cross roads, a distance of two miles. 'having placed some sharpshooters, whose sole attention was to be directed to the bridge,' he continues, 'i extended my line nearly half a mile, and began an attack by scattering shots at the same time. sounding my bugle from various points along the line, almost immediately a reconnoitering force of the enemy appeared at the bridge, and being fired upon returned. this was followed, perhaps, by a regiment, and then a whole brigade came down to the creek. my men, taking good aim, fired upon them coolly and steady. soon i saw wagons, artillery, etc., pushing for the bridge. these were shot at by my sharpshooters. i now began to contract my line and collect my regiment, for the federals came pouring in immense numbers across the creek. your artillery was doing good work. even the bullets from the small arms of the confederates reached my men. i operated upon the flank of the enemy until after dark.' "the wagons blockading the bridge were soon removed by being thrown into the stream and a section from each battery was worked across by hand, supported by the escort, and brought to bear upon a negro brigade with fearful loss; the other two sections were quickly to the front, ahead of any support for the moment, and drove the enemy from the ridge back of holland's house across dry creek. the cavalry in the meantime had halted, reorganized and soon joined in the pursuit. the road was narrow, with dense woods on each side, so that it was impossible to use more than four pieces at a time, but that number were kept close upon the heels of the retreating enemy and a murderous fire prevented them from forming to make a stand. "the ridge extending southward from the hadden house offered a strong natural position for defensive operations. upon this ridge the federals had established a line of battle, but a few well directed shots from the artillery stationed near the holland house and a charge by our cavalry across dry creek readily put them to flight. a section of each battery was ordered at a gallop to this ridge, which was reached in time to open with a few rounds of double-shotted cannister upon their demoralized ranks as they hastily retreated through the open fields on either side of phillips branch. our cannoneers were greatly blown and well nigh exhausted from excessive heat and continuous labor at their guns for full five hours. we noticed a number drink with apparant relish the black powder water from the sponge buckets." the enemy followed the fleeing column, capturing and wounding many at the town of ripley. next morning the federals made a stand. again the phalanx bore the brunt of the battle, and when finally the troops stampeded, held the confederates in check until the white troops were beyond capture. but this was all they could do, and this was indeed an heroic act. the confederate says: "long before daylight found us moving rapidly to overtake the flying foe. we had changed positions. the cavalry now being in advance, overtook the enemy at stubb's farm; a sharp skirmish ensued, when they broke, leaving the remainder of their wagon train. fourteen pieces of artillery and some twenty-five ambulances, with a number of wounded, were left in little hatchie bottom, further on. the discomfited federals were badly scattered throughout the country. forrest, therefore, threw out his regiment on either side of the roads to sweep the vicinity. a number were killed and many prisoners captured before reaching ripley, twenty-five miles from brice's cross roads. at this point two strong lines were formed across the road. after a spirited onset the federals broke, leaving one piece of artillery, two caissons, two ambulances. twenty-one killed and seventy wounded were also left on the field. colonel g. m. mccraig, of the one hundred and twentieth illinois infantry, was among the killed; also captain w. j. tate, seventh tennessee cavalry. this was accomplished just as the artillery reached the front. "lieutenant frank rodgers, of rucker's staff, the night previous, with a small, select detachment of men, assisted by captain gooch, with the remnant of his company, hung constantly upon the federal rear, with a daring never surpassed. their series of attacks greatly harrassed and annoyed the enemy, numbers of whom were killed and wounded. the artillery followed to salem, twenty-five miles distant from ripley." the phalanx regiments would not consent to be whipped, even with the black flag flying in their front, and deserted by their white comrades. a correspondent of the cleveland _leader_, in giving an account of this "miserable affair," writes: "about sunrise, june , the enemy advanced on the town of ripley, and threatened our right, intending to cut us off from the salem road. again the colored troops were the only ones that could be brought into line; the fifty-ninth being on the right, and the fifty-fifth on the left, holding the streets. at this time, the men had not more than ten rounds of ammunition, and the enemy were crowding closer and still closer, when the fifty-ninth were ordered to charge on them, which they did in good style, while singing, "'we'll rally round the flag, boys.' "this charge drove the enemy back, so that both regiments retreated to a pine grove about two hundred yards distant. "by this time, all the white troops, except one squadron of cavalry, that formed in the rear, were on the road to salem and, when this brigade came up, they, too, wheeled and left, and in less than ten minutes this now little band of colored troops found themselves flanked. they then divided themselves into three squads, and charged the enemy's lines; one squad taking the old corinth road, then a by-road, to the left. after a few miles, they came to a road leading to grand junction. after some skirmishing, they arrived, with the loss of one killed and one wounded. "another and the largest squad covered the retreat of the white troops, completely defending them by picking up the ammunition thrown away by them, and with it repelling the numerous assaults made by the rebel cavalry, until they reached collierville, a distance of sixty miles. when the command reached dan's mills, the enemy attempted to cut it off by a charge; but the colored boys in the rear formed, and repelled the attack, allowing the whole command to pass safely on, when they tore up the bridge. passing on to an open country, the officers halted, and re-organized the brigade into an effective force. they then moved forward until about four, p. m.; when some indian flank skirmishers discovered the enemy, who came up to the left, and in the rear, and halted. soon a portion advanced, when a company faced about and fired, emptying three saddles. from this time until dark, the skirmishing was constant. "a corporal in company c, fifty-ninth, was ordered to surrender. he let his would-be captor come close to him; when he struck him with the butt of his gun. "while the regiment was fighting in a ditch, and the order came to retreat, the color-bearer threw out the flag, designing to jump out and get it; but the rebels rushed for it, and in the struggle one of the boys knocked down with his gun the reb who had the flag, caught it, and ran. "a rebel, with an oath, ordered one of our men to surrender. he, thinking the reb's gun was loaded, dropped his gun; but, on seeing the reb commence loading, our colored soldier jumped for his gun, and with it struck his captor dead. "capt. h., being surrounded by about a dozen rebels, was seen by one of his men, who called several of his companions; they rushed forward and fired, killing several of the enemy, and rescued their captain. "a rebel came up to one, and said, 'come my good fellow, go with me and wait on me.' in an instant, the boy shot his would-be master dead. "once when the men charged on the enemy, they rushed forth with the cry, 'remember fort pillow.' the rebs called back, and said, 'lee's men killed no prisoners.' "one man in a charge threw his antagonist to the ground, and pinned him fast; and, as he attempted to withdraw his bayonet, it came off his gun, and, as he was very busy just then, he left him transfixed to mother earth. "one man killed a rebel by striking him with the butt of his gun, which he broke; but, being unwilling to stop his work, he loaded and fired three times before he could get a better gun; the first time not being cautious, the rebound of his gun badly cut his lip. "when the troops were in the ditch, three rebels came to one man, and ordered him to surrender. his gun being loaded, he shot one and bayoneted another; and, forgetting he could bayonet the third, he turned the butt of his gun, and knocked him down." general sturgis was severely criticised by the press immediately after the affair. historians since the war have followed up these criticisms. he has been accused of incompetency, rashness and drunkenness, none of which it is the purpose of this volume to endorse. possibly his reports furnish a sufficient explanation for the disaster, which it is hoped they do, inasmuch as he is not charged with either treason or cowardice. [_general sturgis' report, no. ._] "headquarters united states forces, colliersville, tenn., june , . "general:--i have the honor to report that we met the enemy in position and in heavy force about a. m. on the th instant at brice's cross-roads on the ripley and fulton road and about six miles northwest of guntown, miss. a severe battle ensued which lasted until about p. m., when i regret to say my lines were compelled to give way before the overwhelming numbers by which they were assailed at every point. to fall back at this point was more than ordinarily difficult as there was a narrow valley in our rear through which ran a small creek crossed by a single narrow bridge. the road was almost impassable by reason of the heavy rains which had fallen for the previous ten days and the consequence was that the road soon became jammed by the artillery and ordnance wagons. this gradually led to confusion and disorder. "in a few minutes, however, i succeeded in establishing two colored regiments in line of battle in a wood on this side of the little valley. these troops stood their ground well and checked the enemy for a time. the check, however, was only temporary and this line in turn gave way. my troops were seized with a panic and became absolutely uncontrollable. one and a half miles in rear by dint of great exertion and with pistol in hand, i again succeeded in checking up the flying column and placing it in line of battle. "this line checked the enemy for ten or fifteen minutes only, when it again gave way and my whole army became literally an uncontrollable mob. nothing now remained to do but allow the retreat to continue and endeavor to force it gradually into some kind of shape. the night was exceedingly dark, the roads almost impassable and the hope of saving my artillery and wagons altogether futile, so i ordered the artillery and wagons to be destroyed. the latter were burned and the former dismantled and spiked, that is all but six pieces which we succeeded in bringing off in safety. by a. m. next morning we reached ripley (nineteen miles). here we re-organized and got into very respectable shape. the retreat was continued, pressed rapidly by the enemy. our ammunition soon gave out, this the enemy soon discovered and pressed the harder. our only hope now lay in continuing the retreat which we did to this place, where we arrived about o'clock this morning. "my losses in material of war was severe, being guns and some wagons. the horses of the artillery and mules of the train we brought away. as my troops became very greatly scattered and are constantly coming in in small parties, i am unable to estimate my loss in killed and wounded. i fear, however, it will prove severe, probably ten or twelve hundred. while the battle lasted it was well contested and i think the enemy's loss in killed and wounded will not fall short of our own. "this, general, is a painful record, and yet it was the result of a series of unfortunate circumstances over which human ingenuity could have no control. "the unprecedented rains so delayed our march across a desert country that the enemy had ample time to accumulate an overwhelming force in our front, and kept us so long in an exhausted region as to so starve and weaken our animals that they were unable to extricate the wagons and artillery from the mud. "so far as i know every one did his duty well, and while they fought no troops ever fought better. the colored troops deserve great credit for the manner in which they stood to their work. "this is a hasty and rather incoherent outline of our operations, but i will forward a more minute account as soon as the official reports can be received from division commanders. "i have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "s. d. sturgis, "_brig.-gen. commanding._ "to maj.-gen. c. c. washburn, commanding district w. tenn." an extract from a letter from colonel arthur t. reeve, who commanded the th colored infantry in this fight, reads: "our (the federal) command having been moved up on double-quick--a distance of about five miles--immediately before their arrival on the field and the consequent fact that this arm of our force went into the engagement very seriously blown, in fact, very nearly exhausted by heat and fatigue, with their ranks very much drawn out, were whipped in detail and overwhelmed by the very brilliant and vigorous assaults of your forces. when the engagement first began i was at the rear of the federal column, in command of the train guard, and hence passed over the ground on the way to the battle-field after the balance of the army had passed, and am able to speak advisedly of the extreme exhaustion of the infantry, as i passed large numbers entirely prostrated by heat and fatigue, who did not reach the field of battle and must have fallen into your hands after the engagement." [_general sturgis' report, no. ._] "memphis, tenn., june , . "sir: i have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the expedition which marched from near la fayette, tenn., under my command on the nd instant. this expedition was organized and fitted out under the supervision of the major general commanding the district of west tennessee and i assumed command of it on the morning of the nd of june, near the town of la fayette, tenn., in pursuance of special orders, no. , dated headquarters, district of west tennessee, memphis, may , , and which were received by me on the st inst. the strength of the command in round numbers was about , men,' (which included the following phalanx regiments: th regt., st regt., th regt., battery i, nd artillery, (light,) pieces.) "my supply train, carrying rations for days, consisted of wagons, which with the regimental wagons made up a train of some wagons. my instructions were substantially as follows, viz: to proceed to corinth, mississippi by way of salem and ruckersville, capture any force that might be there, then proceed south, destroying the mobile and ohio railroad to tupelo and okolona and as far as possible towards macon and columbus with a portion of my force, thence to grenada and back to memphis. a discretion was allowed me as to the details of the movement where circumstances might arise which could not have been anticipated in my instructions. owing to some misunderstanding on the part of the quartermaster, as to the point on the memphis and charleston railroad at which some forage was to have been deposited from the cars, there was some little delay occasioned in getting the column in motion. "the following incidents of the march are taken from the journal kept from day to day by one of my staff, capt. w. c. rawolle, a. d. c. and a. a. a. g.: "'wednesday, june st.--expedition started from memphis and white's station toward la fayette. "'thursday, june nd.--the general and staff left memphis on the o'clock a. m. train and established headquarters at leaks' house, near la fayette, and assumed command. cavalry moved to the intersection of state line and early grove roads, six miles from la fayette. it rained at intervals all day and part of the night. "'friday, june rd.--ordered the cavalry to move to within three four miles of salem. infantry marched to lamar, miles from la fayette. owing to the heavy rains during the day and the bad condition of the roads and bridges, the train could only move to within four miles of lamar, and did not get into park until o'clock p. m., the colored brigade remaining with the train as a guard. "'saturday, june th.--informed general grierson that the infantry and train under the most favorable circumstances could only make a few miles beyond salem and to regulate his march accordingly. train arrived at lamar about noon, issued rations to the infantry and rested the animals. it rained heavily until o'clock p. m., making the roads almost impassable. moved headquarters to the widow spright's house, two miles west of salem, and colonel hoge's brigade of infantry to robinson's house, four miles from salem. "'sunday, june th.--infantry and train started at half past four o'clock a. m., and joined the cavalry, two miles east of salem. at o'clock a. m., issued rations to the cavalry and fed the forage collected by them. infantry remained in camp during the day; cavalry moved to the intersection of the lagrange and ripley and the salem and ruckersville roads. col. joseph karge, nd new jersey, with men, started at p. m., with instructions to move via ripley to rienzi, to destroy the railroad; to proceed north, destroy bridge over tuscumbia and to join general grierson at ruckersville. heavy showers during the afternoon. "'monday, june th.--infantry and train moved at o'clock a. m., on the ruckersville road. commenced raining at a. m., and continued at intervals all day. progress very slow, marched miles and made headquarters at widow childers, at intersection of the saulsbury and ripley and the ruckersville and salem roads. cavalry moved to ruckersville. the advance guard of the infantry encountered a small party of rebels about noon and chased them towards ripley on la grange and ripley roads. "'tuesday, june th.--upon information received from general grierson that there was no enemy near corinth, directed him to move toward ellistown, on direct road from ripley, and instruct colonel karge to join him by way of blackland or carrollsville. infantry moved to ripley and cavalry encamped on new albany road two miles south. encountered a small party of rebels near widow childers and drove them toward ripley. in ripley, met an advance of the enemy and drove them on new albany road. cavalry encountered about a regiment of rebel cavalry on that road and drove them south. several showers during the afternoon, and the roads very bad. "wednesday, june th.--received information at o'clock a. m. that colonel karge was on an island in the hatchie river and sent him men and two howitzers as re-inforcements. winslow's brigade of cavalry moved miles on the fulton road. infantry and train moved five miles on same road. colonel waring's brigade remained in ripley awaiting return of colonel karge, who joined him at o'clock p. m., having swam the hatchie river. rained hard during the night. "'thursday, june th.--sent back to memphis sick and wounded men and wagons. cavalry and infantry moved to stubbs', fourteen miles from ripley; issued five days' rations (at previous camp.) rained two hours in the evening. "'friday, june th.--encountered the enemy at brice's cross-roads, miles from ripley and six miles from guntown.' "at ripley it became a serious question in my mind as to whether or not i should proceed any farther. the rain still fell in torrents; the artillery and wagons were literally mired down, and the starved and exhausted animals could with difficulty drag them along. under these circumstances, i called together my division commanders and placed before them my views of our condition. at this interview, one brigade commander and two members of my staff were, incidentally, present also. i called their attention to the great delay we had undergone on account of the continuous rain and consequent bad condition of the roads; the exhausted condition of our animals; the great probability that the enemy would avail himself of the time thus afforded him to concentrate an overwhelming force against us in the vicinity of tupelo and the utter hopelessness of saving our train or artillery in case of defeat, on account of the narrowness and general bad condition of the roads and the impossibility of procuring supplies of forage for the animals; all agreed with me in the probable consequences of defeat. some thought our only safety lay in retracing our steps and abandoning the expedition. it was urged, however, (and with some propriety, too,) that inasmuch as i had abandoned a similar expedition only a few weeks before and given as my reasons for so doing, the "utter and entire destitution of the country," and that in the face of this we were again sent through the same country, it would be ruinous on all sides to return again without first meeting the enemy. moreover, from all the information general washburn had acquired, there _could be no considerable_ force in our front and all my own information led to the same conclusion. to be sure my information was exceedingly meagre and unsatisfactory and had i returned i would have been totally unable to present any facts to justify my cause, or to show why the expedition might not have been successfully carried forward. all i could have presented would have been my conjectures as to what the enemy would naturally do under the circumstances and these would have availed but little against the idea that the enemy was scattered and had no considerable force in our front. "under these circumstances, and with a sad forboding of the consequences, i determined to move forward; keeping my force as compact as possible and ready for action at all times; hoping that we might succeed, and feeling that if we did not, yet our losses might at most be insignificant in comparison with the great benefits which might accrue to general sherman by the depletion of johnson's army to so large an extent. "on the evening of the th, one day beyond ripley, i assembled the commanders of infantry brigades at the headquarters of colonel mcmillen, and cautioned them as to the necessity of enforcing rigid discipline in their camps; keeping their troops always in hand and ready to act on a moment's notice. that it was impossible to gain any accurate or reliable information of the enemy, and that it behooved us to move and act constantly as though in his presence. that we were now where we might encounter him at any moment, and that we must under no circumstances allow ourselves to be surprised. on the morning of the th, the cavalry marched at half-past o'clock and the infantry at seven, thus allowing the infantry to follow immediately in rear of the cavalry as it would take the cavalry a full hour and a half to clear their camp. the habitual order of march was as follows, viz: cavalry with its artillery in advance; infantry with its artillery; next, and lastly, the supply train, guarded by the rear brigade with one of its regiments at the head, one near the middle and one with a section of artillery in the rear. a company of pioneers preceded the infantry for the purpose of repairing the roads, building bridges, &c., &c. "on this morning, i had preceded the head of the infantry column and arrived at a point some five miles from camp, when i found an unusually bad place in the road and one that would require considerable time and labor to render practicable. while halted here to await the head of the column, i received a message from general grierson that he had encountered a portion of the enemy's cavalry. in a few minutes more i received another message from him, saying the enemy numbered some and were on the baldwyn road. that he was himself at brice's cross-roads and that his position was a good one and he would hold it. he was then directed to leave or men at the cross-roads, to precede the infantry on its arrival, on its march towards guntown, and with the remainder of his forces to drive the enemy toward baldwyn and there rejoin the main body by way of the line of the railroad, as i did not intend being drawn from my main purpose. colonel mcmillen arrived at this time and i rode forward toward the cross-roads. before proceeding far, however, i sent a staff officer back directing colonel mcmillen to move up his advance brigade as rapidly as possible without distressing his troops. when i reached the cross-roads, found nearly all the cavalry engaged and the battle growing warm, but no artillery had yet opened on either side. we had four pieces of artillery at the cross-roads, but they had not been placed in position, owing to the dense woods on all sides and the apparent impossibility of using them to advantage. finding, however, that our troops were being hotly pressed, i ordered one section to open on the enemy's reserves. the enemy's artillery soon replied, and with great accuracy, every shell bursting over and in the immediate vicinity of our guns. "frequent calls were now made for re-enforcements, but until the infantry should arrive, i had none to give. colonel winslow, th iowa cavalry, commanding a brigade and occupying a position on the guntown road a little in advance of the cross-roads, was especially clamorous to be relieved and permitted to carry his brigade to the rear. fearing that colonel winslow might abandon his position without authority, and knowing the importance of the cross-roads to us, i directed him in case he should be overpowered, to fall back slowly toward the cross-roads, thus contracting his line and strengthening his position. i was especially anxious on this point because through some misunderstanding, that i am yet unable to explain, the cavalry had been withdrawn without my knowledge from the left, and i was compelled to occupy the line, temporarily, with my escort, consisting of about of the th penn. cavalry. this handful of troops under the gallant lieut.-colonel hess, behaved very handsomely and held the line until the arrival of the infantry. about half-past p. m. the infantry began to arrive. col. hodge's brigade was the first to reach the field and was placed in position by colonel mcmillen, when the enemy was driven a little. general grierson now requested authority to withdraw the entire cavalry as it was exhausted and well nigh out of ammunition. this i authorized as soon as sufficient infantry was in position to permit it and he was directed to reorganize his command in the rear and hold it ready to operate on the flanks. in the mean time i had ordered a section of artillery to be placed in position on a knoll near the little bridge, some three or four hundred yards in the rear, for the purpose of opposing any attempt of the enemy to turn our left. i now went to this point to see that my orders had been executed and also to give directions for the management and protection of the wagon-train. i found the section properly posted and supported by the nd ohio infantry, with two companies thrown forward as skirmishers, and the whole under the superintendence of that excellent officer, colonel wilkins, of the th minn. while here, the head of the wagon train, which had been reported still a mile and a half in rear, arrived. it was immediately ordered into an open field near where the cavalry were reorganizing, there to be turned round and carried farther toward the rear. the pressure on the right of the line was now becoming very great and general grierson was directed to send a portion of his cavalry to that point. at this time i received a message from colonel hodge that he was satisfied that the movement on the right was a feint and that the real attack was being made on the left. another section of artillery was now placed in position a little to the rear of colonel wilkins, but bearing on the left of our main line, and a portion of the cavalry was thrown out as skirmishers. the cavalry which had been sent to the extreme right began now to give way, and at the same time the enemy began to appear in force in rear of the extreme left, while colonel mcmillen required re-enforcements in the centre. _i now endeavored to get hold of the colored brigade which formed the guard to the train. while traversing the short distance to where the head of that brigade should be found, the main line began to give way at various points; order soon gave way to confusion and confusion to panic. i sent an aid to col. mcmillen informing him that i was unable to render him any additional assistance, and that he must do all in his power with what he had to hold his position until i could form a line to protect his retreat. on reaching the head of the supply train, lieut.-colonel hess was directed to place in position in a wood the first regiment of colored troops i could find. this was done, and it is due to those troops to say here that they stood their ground well and rendered valuable aid to colonel mcmillen_, who was soon after compelled to withdraw from his original line and take up new positions in rear. it was now o'clock p. m. for seven hours, these gallant officers and men had held their ground against overwhelming numbers, but at last overpowered and exhausted they were compelled to abandon not only the field, but many of their gallant comrades who had fallen to the mercy of the enemy. everywhere the army now drifted toward the rear and was soon altogether beyond control. i requested general grierson to accompany me and to aid in checking the fleeing column and establishing a new line. by dint of entreaty and force and the aid of several officers, whom i called to my assistance, with pistols in their hands we at length succeeded in checking some or and establishing them in a line of which colonel wilkins, th minnesota, was placed in command. about this time it was reported to me that col. mcmillen was driving the enemy. i placed but little faith in this report, yet disseminated it freely for the good effect it might produce upon the troops. in a few minutes, however, the gallant colonel mcmillen, sad and disheartened, arrived himself, and reported his lines broken and in confusion. the new line under colonel wilkins also gave way soon after and it was now impossible to exercise any further control. the road became crowded and jammed with troops; the wagons and artillery sinking into the deep mud became inextricable and added to the general confusion which now prevailed. no power could now check or control the panic-stricken mass as it swept toward the rear, led off by colonel winslow at the head of his brigade of cavalry, and who never halted until he had reached stubbs', ten miles in rear. this was the greater pity as his brigade was nearly, if not entirely, intact, and might have offered considerable resistance to the advancing foe. about o'clock p. m., i reached stubbs' in person, where i found colonel winslow and his brigade. i then informed him that his was the only organized body of men i had been able to find, and directed him to add to his own every possible force he could rally, as they passed, and take charge of the rear, remaining in position until all should have passed. i also informed him that on account of the extreme darkness of the night and the wretched condition of the road, i had little hope of saving anything more than the troops, and directed him therefore to destroy all wagons and artillery which he might find blocking up the road and preventing the passage of the men. in this way about wagons and pieces of artillery were lost, many of the wagons being burned and the artillery spiked and otherwise mutilated; the mules and horses were brought away. by o'clock a. m., of the th, we had reorganized at ripley, and the army presented quite a respectable appearance, and would have been able to accomplish an orderly retreat from that point but for the unfortunate circumstances that the cartridge boxes were well nigh exhausted. at o'clock the column was again put in motion on the salem road, the cavalry in advance, followed by the infantry. the enemy pressed heavily on the rear, and there was now nothing left but to keep in motion so as to prevent the banking up of the rear, and to pass all cross-roads before the enemy could reach them, as the command was in no condition to offer determined resistance, whether attacked in the front or the rear. at o'clock a. m. on the th, the column reached colliersville, worn out and exhausted by the fatigues of fighting and marching for two days and two nights without rest and without eating. about noon of the same day a train arrived from memphis, bringing some , infantry, commanded by colonel wolf, and supplies for my suffering men, and i determined to remain here until next day for the purpose of resting and affording protection to many who had dropped by the wayside, through fatigue and other causes. learning, however, toward evening, that the commander at white's station had information of a large force of the enemy approaching that place from the southeast, and knowing that my men were in no condition to offer serious resistance to an enemy presenting himself across my line of march, i informed the general commanding the district, by telegraph, that i deemed it prudent to continue my march to white's station. accordingly, at p. m., the column marched again, and arrived at white's station at daylight next morning. this report having already become more circumstantial than was anticipated, i have purposely omitted the details of our march from ripley to white's station, as they would extend it to a tiresome length, but would respectfully refer you for these to the sub-reports herewith enclosed. casualties are as follows: "killed, , wounded, ; missing, ; total, . that our loss was great, is true; yet that it was not much greater is due in an eminent degree to the personal exertions of that model soldier, col. w. l. mcmillen, of the th ohio infantry, who commanded the infantry, and to the able commanders under him. "the strength of the enemy is variously estimated by my most intelligent officers at from , to , men. a very intelligent sergeant who was captured and remained five days in the hands of the enemy, reports the number of the enemy actually engaged, to have been , , and that two divisions of infantry were held in reserve. it may appear strange that so large a force of the enemy could be in our vicinity and we be ignorant of the fact, but the surprise will exist only in the minds of those who are not familiar with the difficulty, (i may even say impossibility) of acquiring reliable information in the heart of the enemy's country. our movements and numbers are always known to the enemy, because every woman and child is one of them, but we, as everybody knows who has had any experience in this war, can only learn the movements of the enemy and his numbers by actually fighting for the information; and in that case the knowledge often comes too late. "while i will not prolong this already extended report by recording individual acts of good conduct, and the names of many brave officers and men who deserve mention, but will respectfully refer you for these to the reports of division and brigade commanders, yet i cannot refrain from expressing my high appreciation of the valuable services rendered by that excellent and dashing officer, col. joseph karge, of the nd new jersey vols., in his reconnoissance to corinth and his subsequent management of the rear-guard, during a part of the retreat, fighting and defending the rear during one whole afternoon and throughout the entire night following. "to the officers of my staff,--lieut.-col. j. c. hess, th pa. cavalry, commanding escort, capt. w. c. rawolle, a. d. c. and a. a. a. g.; capt. w. c. belden, nd iowa cavalry, a. d. c.; lieut. e. caulkins th indiana cavalry, a. d. c.; lieut. samuel (name illegible) th penn. cavalry, a. d. c.; lieut. dement, a. a. q. m.; lieut. w. h. stratton, th ills. cavalry, a. a. c. s.,--whose names appear in no other report, i am especially grateful, for the promptness and zeal with which my orders were executed at all times and often under trying and hazardous circumstances. "i am, major, very respectfully your obedient servant, s. d. sturgis, maj. w. h. morgan, a. a. g., _brig.-gen. commanding._ hdqrs. dist. west tenn., memphis, tenn. "amid these scenes we noted the arrival of more men; those who had belonged to a _raid_ sent from memphis, tenn., under command of general sturgis, and were attacked and badly defeated by the rebel general forrest, at a place in mississippi. general sturgis is said to have been _intoxicated_ during the engagement, and that just as soon as he saw things were likely to go against him, he turned away with a portion of his cavalry, and _sought to save himself from capture_.--'_life and death in rebel prisons._'" notwithstanding the arrangements usually and speedily entered into by two belligerent powers for the exchange of prisoners of war, it proved a most difficult task for the federal government to consummate an arrangement with the confederates, and much suffering was caused among the prisoners in the hands of the latter while negotiations were in progress. the agreement entered into by the commissioners, after a long delay, did not anticipate there being any black soldiers to exchange; nor would the confederate authorities thereafter allow the terms of the cartel to apply to the blacks, because jefferson davis and the confederate congress regarded it as an outrage against humanity, and the rules of civilized warfare to arm the negroes against their masters. it was a year after the black soldiers had become a part of the union forces before even a _quasi_ acknowledgment of their rights as prisoners was noted in richmond. the grounds upon which the greatest difficulty lingered was the refusal of the federal government at first to accord belligerent rights to the confederates but this difficulty was finally overcome in july, , and the exchange of prisoners proceeded with until the confederate authorities refused to count the black soldiers captured in the interpretation of the cartel. but the time arrived when grant assumed command of the armies, when it was no longer an open question, for the confederate congress began devising plans for arming the slaves. however, the inhuman treatment did not cease with "irresponsible parties," whose conduct was doubtless approved by the rebel authorities, jefferson davis having declared general butler an outlaw, and committed him and his officers and black soldiers to the mercy of a chivalry which affected to regard them as mercenaries. with this spirit infused in the confederate army, what else than barbarity could be expected? [illustration: phalanx regiment receiving its flags. presentation of colors to the th united states colored infantry, col. bertram, in n. y., march th, .] footnotes: [ ] among the captured rebel flags now in the war department, washington, d. c., are several black flags. no. was captured near north mountain, md., aug. st, . another captured from general pillow's men at fort donelson, is also among the rebel archives in that department. several of them were destroyed by the troops capturing them, as at pascagoula, miss., and near grand gulf on the mississippi. [ ] general brisbin, in his account of the expedition which, in the winter of , left bean station, tenn., under command of general stoneman, for the purpose of destroying the confederate salt works in west virginia, says the confederates after capturing some of the soldiers of the sixth phalanx cavalry regiment, butchered them. his statement is as follows: "for the last two days a force of confederate cavalry, under witcher, had been following our command picking up stragglers and worn-out horses in our rear. part of our troops were composed of negroes and these the confederates killed as fast as they caught them, laying the dead bodies by the roadside with pieces of paper pinned to their clothing, on which were written such warnings as the following: 'this is the way we treat all nigger soldiers,' and, 'this is the fate of nigger soldiers who fight against the south.' we did not know what had been going on in our rear until we turned about to go back from wytheville, when we found the dead colored soldiers along the road as above described. general burbridge was very angry and wanted to shoot a confederate prisoner for every one of his colored soldiers he found murdered, and would undoubtedly have done so had he not been restrained. as it was, the whole corps was terribly excited by the atrocious murders committed by witcher's men, and if witcher had been caught he would have been shot." this gallant soldier,(?) twenty years after the close of the war, writes about the incidents and happenings during the march of the army to saltville, and says: "before we reached marion we encountered breckenridge's advance and charged it vigorously driving it back in confusion along the marion and saltville road for several miles. in one of these charges (for there were several of them and a sort of running fight for several miles) one of witcher's men was captured and brought in. he was reported to me and i asked him what his name was and to what command he belonged. he gave me his name and said 'witcher's command.' hardly were the words out of his mouth before a negro soldier standing near raised his carbine and aimed at the confederate soldier's breast. i called out and sprang forward, but was too late to catch the gun. the negro fired and the poor soldier fell badly wounded. instantly the negro was knocked down by our white soldiers, disarmed and tied. i drew my revolver to blow his brains out for his terrible crime, but the black man never flinched. all he said was, pointing to the confederate soldier, 'he killed my comrades; i have killed him.' the negro was taken away and put among the prisoners. the provost marshal had foolishly changed the white guard over the prisoners and placed them under some colored troops. an officer came galloping furiously to the front and said the negroes were shooting the prisoners. general burbridge told me to go back quickly and do whatever i pleased in his name to restore order. it was a lively ride, as the prisoners were more than four miles back, being forced along the road as rapidly as possible toward marion. all the prisoners, except a few wounded men, were on foot, and of course they could not keep up with the cavalry. i soon reached them and never shall i forget that sight while i live. men with sabres were driving the poor creatures along the road like beasts. i halted the motley crew and scolded the officer for his inhumanity. he said he had orders to keep the prisoners up with the column and he was simply trying to obey his orders. as i was general burbridge's chief of staff and all orders were supposed to emanate from my office, i thought i had better not continue the conversation. as it was, i said such orders were at an end and i would myself take charge of the prisoners." [ ] "when the successful attempt was made, by tunneling, to escape from libby prison in , many of the fugitives were honorably harbored by this unfortunate class till a more quiet opportunity occurred for leaving the city. this i have from one of the escaped officers." chapter xi. the phalanx in virginia. the laurels won by the phalanx in the southern states, notwithstanding the "no quarter" policy, was proof of its devotion to the cause of liberty and the old flag, which latter, until within a short period had been but a symbol of oppression to the black man; cailloux had reddened it with his life's blood, and carney, in a seething fire had planted it on the ramparts of wagner. the audacious bravery of the phalanx had wrung from generals banks and gillmore congratulatory orders, while the loyal people of the nation poured out unstinted praises. not a breach of discipline marred the negro soldier's record; not one cowardly act tarnished their fame. grant pronounced them gallant and reliable, and weitzel was willing to command them. in new york city, where negroes had been hung to lamp posts, and where a colored orphan asylum had been sacked and burned, crowds gathered in broadway and cheered phalanx regiments on their way to the front. general logan, author of the illinois black code, greeted them as comrades, and jefferson davis finally accorded to them the rights due captured soldiers as prisoners of war. congress at last took up the question of pay, and placed the black on an equal footing with the white soldiers. their valor, excelled by no troops in the field, had finally won full recognition from every quarter, and henceforth they were to share the full glory as well as the toils of their white comrades-in-arms. not until those just rights and attentions were attained, was the phalanx allowed, to any great extent, to show its efficiency and prowess in the manoeuvres in virginia and vicinity, where that magnificent "army of northern virginia," the hope and the pride of the confederacy, was operating against the federal government. but when general grant came to direct the movements of the eastern armies of the united states, there was a change. he had learned from his experience at vicksburg and other places in his western campaigns, that the negro soldiers were valuable; that they could be fully relied upon in critical times, and their patriotic zeal had made a deep impression upon him. therefore, as before stated, there were changes, and quite a good many phalanx regiments--numbering about , men--were taken from southern and western armies and transferred to the different armies in virginia. the th army corps sent one brigade. general gillmore brought a brigade from the tenth army corps. at least ten thousand of them were veterans, and had driven many confederates out of their breastworks. the world never saw such a spectacle as america presented in the winter and early spring of . the attempt to capture richmond and petersburg had failed. the army of the potomac lay like a weary lion under cover, watching its opponent. bruised, but spirited and defiant, it had driven, and in turn had been driven time and again, by its equally valient foe. it had advanced and retreated until the soldiers were foot-sore from marching and counter-marching, crossing and re-crossing the now historic streams of the old dominion. of all this, the loyal people were tired and demanded of the administration a change. the causes of the failures to take the confederate capitol were not so much the fault of the commanders of the brave army as that of the authorities at washington, whose indecision and interference had entailed almost a disgrace upon mcclellan, hooker, burnside and meade. but finally the people saw the greatest of the difficulties, and demanded its removal, which the administration signified its willingness to do. then began an activity at the north, east and west, such as was never before witnessed. the loyal heart was again aroused by the president's call for troops, and all realized the necessity of a more sagacious policy, and the importance of bringing the war to a close. the lion of the south must be bearded in his lair, and forced to surrender richmond, the confederate capitol, that had already cost the government millions of dollars, and the north thousands of lives. the cockade city,--petersburg,--like the gibralter of the mississippi, should haul down the confederate banner from her breastworks; in fact, lee must be vanquished. that was the demand of the loyal nation, and right well did they enter into preparations to consummate it; placing brave and skillful officers in command. [illustration: parade of the th regt. u. s. c. t. in new york.] the whole north became a recruiting station. sumner, wilson, stevens and sherman, in congress, and greeley, beecher, philips and curtis, with the press, had succeeded in placing the fight upon the highest plane of civilization, and linked _freedom_ to the cause of the union thus making the success of one the success of the other,--"liberty and union, one and inseparable." what patriotism should fail in accomplishing, bounties--national, state, county, city and township--were to induce and effect. the depleted ranks of the army were filled to its maximum, and with a hitherto victorious and gallant leader would be hurled against the fortifications of the confederacy with new energy and determination. early in january, general burnside was ordered again to take command of the ninth army corps, and to recruit its strength to fifty thousand effective men, which he immediately began to do. general butler, then in command of the department of virginia and north carolina, began the organization of the army of the james, collecting at norfolk, portsmouth and on the peninsula, the forces scattered throughout his department, and to recruit phalanx regiments. in march, general grant was called to washington, and received the appointment of lieutenant general, and placed in command of the armies of the republic. he immediately began their reorganization, as a preliminary to attacking lee's veteran army of northern virginia. as has before been stated, the negro had, up to this time, taken no very active part in the battles fought in virginia. the seed of prejudice sown by generals mcdowell and mcclellan at the beginning of hostilities, had ripened into productive fruit. the army of the potomac being early engaged in apprehending and returning runaway slaves to their presumed owners, had imbibed a bitter, unrelenting hatred for the poor, but ever loyal, negro. to this bitterness the emancipation proclamation gave a zest, through the pro-slavery press at the north, which taunted the soldiers with "_fighting to free the negroes_." this feeling had served to practically keep the negro, as a soldier, out of the army of the potomac. general burnside, upon assuming his command, asked for and obtained permission from the war department to raise and unite a division of negro troops to the th army corps. annapolis, md., was selected as the "depot and rendezvous," and very soon camp stanton had received its allowance of phalanx regiments for the corps. early in april, the camp was broken, and the line of march taken for washington. it was rumored throughout the city that the th corps would pass through there, and that about , phalanx men would be among the troops. the citizens were on the _qui vive_; members of congress and the president were eager to witness the passage of the corps. at nine o'clock on the morning of the th of april, the head of the column entered the city, and at eleven the troops were marching down new york avenue. halting a short distance from the corner of th street, the column closed up, and prepared to pay the president a marching salute, who, with general burnside and a few friends, was awaiting their coming. mr. lincoln and his party occupied a balcony over the entrance of willard's hotel. the scene was one of great beauty and animation. the day was superbly clear; the soft atmosphere of the early spring was made additionally pleasant by a cool breeze; rain had fallen the previous night, and there was no dust to cause discomfort to the soldiers or spectators. the troops marched and appeared well; their soiled and battered flags bearing inscriptions of battles of six states. the corps had achieved almost the first success of the war in north carolina; it had hastened to the potomac in time to aid in rescuing the capitol, when lee made his first northern invasion; it won glory at south mountain, and made the narrow bridge at antietam, forever historic; it had likewise reached kentucky in time to aid in driving the confederates from that state. now it appeared with recruited ranks, and new regiments of as good blood as ever was poured out in the cause of right; and with a new element--those whom they had helped set free from the thraldom of slavery--whom they were proud to claim as comrades. their banners were silent, effective witnesses of their valor and their sacrifices; bull's run, ball's bluff, roanoke, newburn, gaines' mills, mechanicsville, seven pines, savage station, glendale, malvern, fredericksburg, chancellorsville, antietam, south mountain, knoxville, vicksburg, port hudson and gettysburg, were emblazoned in letters of gold. the firm and soldierly bearing of the veterans, the eager and expectant countenances of the men and officers of the new regiments, the gay trappings of the cavalry, the thorough equipment and fine condition of the artillery, the clattering of hoofs, the clanking of sabres, the drum-beat, the bugle call, and the music of the bands were all subjects of interest. the president beheld the scene. pavement, sidewalks, windows and roofs were crowded with people. a division of veterans passed, saluting the president and their commander with cheers. and then, with full ranks--platoons extending from sidewalk to sidewalk--brigades which had never been in battle, for the first time shouldered arms for their country; they who even then were disfranchised and were not american citizens, yet they were going out to fight for the flag. their country was given them by the tall, pale, benevolent hearted man standing upon the balcony. for the first time, they beheld their benefactor. they were darker hued than their veteran comrades, but they cheered as lustily, "hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for massa linkun! three cheers for the president!" they swung their caps, clapped their hands and shouted their joy. long, loud and jubilant were the rejoicings of these redeemed sons of africa. regiment after regiment of stalwart men,--slaves once, but freemen now,--with steady step and even ranks, passed down the street, moving on to the old dominion. it was the first review of the negro troops by the president. mr. lincoln himself seemed greatly pleased, and acknowledged the plaudits and cheers of the phalanx soldiers with a dignified kindness and courtesy. it was a spectacle which made many eyes grow moist, and left a life-long impression. thus the corps that had never lost a flag or a gun, marched through the national capitol, crossed long bridge and went into camp near alexandria, where it remained until the th of may. the phalanx regiments composing the th division were the th, rd, th, th, th, th, st, th and rd, commanded by general e. ferrero. the army of the james, under general butler, which was to act in conjunction with the army of the potomac, under meade, was composed of the th and th corps. the th corps had two brigades of the phalanx, consisting of the th, th, th, th, th, st, th and th regiments, commanded by colonels james shaw, jr., and ulysses doubleday, and constituted the rd division of that corps commanded by brigadier-general wm. birney. the rd division of the th corps, commanded by brigadier-general charles g. paine, was composed of the st, nd, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th and nd cavalry, with colonels elias wright, alonzo g. draper, john w. ames and e. martindale as brigade commanders of the four brigades. a cavalry force numbering about two thousand, comprising the st and nd, was under command of colonel west,[ ] making not less than , of the phalanx troops, including the th division with the ninth corps, and augmenting butler's force to , , concentrated at yorktown and gloucester point. on the th of april, butler received his final orders, and on the night of the th of may embarked his troops on transports, descended the york river, passed fortress monroe and ascended the james river. convoyed by a fleet of armored war vessels and gunboats, his transports reached bermuda hundreds on the afternoon of the th. general wilde, with a brigade of the phalanx, occupied fort powhatan, on the south bank of the river, and wilson's wharf, about five miles below on the north side of the james, with the remainder of his division of , of the phalanx. general hinks landed at city point, at the mouth of the appomattox. the next morning the troops advanced to trent's, with their left resting on the appomattox, near walthall, and the right on the james, and intrenched. in the meantime, butler telegraphed grant: "off city point, va., may th. "lieut. gen. grant, commanding armies of the united states, washington, d. c.: "we have seized wilson's wharf landing; a brigade of wilde's colored troops are there; at fort powhatan landing two regiments of the same brigade have landed. at city point, hinks' division, with the remaining troops and battery, have landed. the remainder of both the th and th army corps are being landed at bermuda hundreds, above appomattox. no opposition experienced thus far, the movement was comparatively a complete surprise. both army corps left yorktown during last night. the monitors are all over the bar at harrison's landing and above city point. the operations of the fleet have been conducted to-day with energy and success. gens. smith and gillmore are pushing the landing of the men. gen. graham with the army gunboats, lead the advance during the night, capturing the signal station of the rebels. colonel west, with cavalry, made several demonstrations from williamsburg yesterday morning. gen. rantz left suffolk this morning with his cavalry, for the service indicated during the conference with the lieut.-general. the new york flag-of-truce boat was found lying at the wharf with four hundred prisoners, whom she had not time to deliver. she went up yesterday morning. we are landing troops during the night, a hazardous service in the face of the enemy. "benj. f. butler, "a. f. puffer, capt. and a. d. c. _maj.-gen. commanding._" about two miles in front of their line ran the richmond & petersburg railroad, near which the enemy was encountered. butler's movements being in concert with that of the army of the potomac and the th corps,--the latter as yet an independent organization. general meade, with the army of the potomac, numbering , effective men, crossed the rapidan _en route_ for the wilderness, each soldier carrying fifty rounds of ammunition and three days rations. the supply trains were loaded with ten days forage and subsistence. the advance was in two columns, general warren being on the right and general hancock on the left. sedgwick followed closely upon warren and crossed the rapidan at germania ford. the ninth corps received its orders on the th, whereupon general burnside immediately put the corps in motion toward the front. bivouacking at midnight, the line of march was again taken up at daylight, and at night the rapidan was crossed at germania ford. the corps marched on a road parallel to that of its old antagonist, general longstreet's army, which was hastening to assist lee, who had met the army of the potomac in the entanglements of the wilderness, where a stubborn and sanguinary fight raged for two days. general ferrero's division, composed of the phalanx regiments, reached germania ford on the morning of the th, with the cavalry, and reported to general sedgwick, of the th corps, who had the care of the trains. the enemy was projecting an attack upon the rear of the advancing columns. gen. ferrero was ordered to guard with his phalanx division, the bridges, roads and trains near and at the rapidan river. that night the confederates attacked sedgwick in force; wisely the immense supply trains had been committed to the care of the phalanx, and the enemy was driven back before daylight, while the trains were securely moved up closer to the advance. general grant, finding that the confederates were not disposed to continue the battle, began the movement toward spottsylvania court house on the night of the th. the th corps brought up the rear, with the phalanx division and cavalry covering the trains. butler and his phalanx troops, as we have seen, was within six miles of petersburg, and on the th, generals smith and gillmore reached the railroad near port walthall junction, and commenced destroying it; the confederates attacked them, but were repulsed. col. west, on the north side of the james river, forded the chickahominy with the phalanx cavalry, and arrived opposite city point, having destroyed the railroad for some distance on that side. leaving general hinks with his phalanx division to hold city point, on the th butler again moved forward to break up the railroad which the forces under smith and gillmore succeeded in doing, thus separating beaureguard's force from lee's. he announced the result of his operation's in the following message to washington: "may th, . "our operations may be summed up in a few words. with one thousand and seven hundred cavalry we have advanced up the peninsula, forced the chickahominy and have safely brought them to our present position. these were _colored cavalry_, and are now holding our advanced pickets toward richmond. general kautz, with three thousand cavalry from suffolk, on the same day with our movement up james river, forced the blackwater, burned the railroad bridge at stony creek, below petersburg, cutting in two beauregard's force at that point. we have landed here, intrenched ourselves, destroyed many miles of railroad, and got possession, which, with proper supplies, we can hold out against the whole of lee's army. i have ordered up the supplies. beauregard, with a large portion of his force, was left south, by the cutting of the railroad by kautz. that portion which reached petersburg under hill, i have whipped to-day, killing and wounding many, and taking many prisoners, after a well contested fight. general grant will not be troubled with any further re-inforcements to lee from beaureguard's force. "benj. f. butler, _major-general._" but for having been misinformed as to lee's retreating on richmond,--which led him to draw his forces back into his intrenchments,--butler would have undoubtedly marched triumphantly into petersburg. the mistake gave the enemy holding the approaches to that city time to be re-enforced, and petersburg soon became well fortified and garrisoned. beaureguard succeeded in a few days time in concentrating in front of butler , troops, thus checking the latter's advance toward richmond and petersburg, on the south side of the james, though skirmishing went on at various points. general grant intended to have butler advance and capture petersburg, while general meade, with the army of the potomac, advanced upon richmond from the north bank of the james river. gen. butler failed to accomplish more than his dispatches related, though his forces entered the city of petersburg, captured chester station, and destroyed the railroad connection between petersburg and richmond. failure to support his troops and to intrench lost him all he had gained, and he returned to his intrenchments at bermuda hundreds. the phalanx (hinks division) held city point and other stations on the river, occasionally skirmishing with the enemy, who, ever mindful of the fact that city point was the base of supplies for the army of the james, sought every opportunity to raid it, but they always found the phalanx ready and on the alert. after the battle of drewry's bluff, may th, butler thought to remain quiet in his intrenchments, but grant, on the nd, ordered him to send all his troops, save enough to hold city point, to join the army of the potomac; whereupon general w. f. smith, with , men, embarked for the white house, on the pamunky river, butler retaining the phalanx division and the cavalry. thus ended the operations of the army of the james, until grant crossed the river with the army of the potomac. [illustration: scene in the army of the potomac. negro baggage train drivers watering their mules.] on the th of may, grant determined upon a flank movement toward bowling green, with a view of making port royal, instead of fredericksburg, his depot for supplies. sending his reserve artillery to belle plain, he prepared to advance. it was in this manoeuvre that lee, for the last time, attacked the federal forces, outside of cover, in any important movement. the attempt to change the base of supply was indeed a hazardous move for grant; it necessitated the moving of his immense train, numbering four thousand wagons, used in carrying rations, ammunition and supplies for his army, and transportation of the badly wounded to the rear, where they could be cared for. up to this time the wilderness campaign had been a continuous fight and march. the anxiety which grant felt for his train, is perhaps best told by himself: "my movements are terribly embarrassed by our immense wagon train. it could not be avoided, however." it was the only means by which the army could obtain needful supplies, and was consequently indispensable. it was the near approach to the train that made the confederates often fight so desperately, for they knew if they could succeed in capturing a wagon they would probably get something to eat. soon after the advance began, it was reported to grant, that the confederate cavalry was in the rear, in search of the trains. on the th he ordered general ferrero to "keep a sharp lookout for this cavalry, and if you can attack it with your (phalanx) infantry and (white) cavalry, do so." on the th ferrero, with his phalanx division, ( th division, th corps) was on the road to fredericksburg, in rear of and to the right of general tyler's forces, in the confederates' front. the road formed grant's direct communication with his base, and here the confederates, under ewell attacked the federal troops. grant sent this dispatch to ferrero: "the enemy have crossed the ny on the right of our lines, in considerable force, and may possibly detach a force to move on fredericksburg. keep your cavalry pickets well out on the plank road, and all other roads leading west and south of you. if you find the enemy moving infantry and artillery to you, report it promptly. in that case take up strong positions and detain him all you can, turning all your trains back to fredericksburg, and whatever falling back you may be forced to do, do it in that direction." the confederates made a dash for the train and captured twenty-seven wagons, but before they had time to feast off of their booty the phalanx was upon them. the enemy fought with uncommon spirit; it was the first time "f. f. v's," the chivalry of the south,--composing the army of northern virginia,--had met the negro soldiers, and true to their instinctive hatred of their black brothers, they gave them the best they had; lead poured like rain for a while, and then came a lull. ferrero knew what it meant, and prepared for their coming. a moment more and the accustomed yell rang out above the roar of the artillery. the confederates charged down upon the phalanx, but to no purpose, save to make the black line more stable. they retaliated, and the confederates were driven as the gale drives chaff, the phalanx recapturing the wagons and saving grant's line of communication. general badeau, speaking of their action, in his military history of grant, says: "it was the first time at the east when colored troops had been engaged in any important battle, and the display of soldierly qualities won a frank acknowledgment from both troops and commanders, not all of whom had before been willing to look upon negroes as comrades. but after that time, white soldiers in the army of the potomac were not displeased to receive the support of black ones; they had found the support worth having." ferrero had the confidence of his men, who were ever ready to follow where grant ordered them to be led. but this was not the last important battle the phalanx took part in. butler, after sending the larger portion of his forces to join the army of the potomac, was not permitted to remain quiet in his intrenchments. the confederates felt divined to destroy, if not capture, his base, and therefore were continually striving to break through the lines. on the th of may, general fitzhugh lee made a dash with his cavalry upon wilson's wharf, butler's most northern outpost, held by two phalanx regiments of general wilde's brigade. lee's men had been led to believe that it was only necessary to yell at the "niggers" in order to make them leave the post, but in this affair they found a foe worthy of their steel. they fought for several hours, when finally the confederate troops beat a retreat. an eye witness of the fight says: "the chivalry of fitzhugh lee and his cavalry division was badly worsted in the contest last tuesday with negro troops, composing the garrison at wilson's landing; the chivalry made a gallant fight, however. the battle began at half-past twelve p. m., and ended at six o'clock, when the chivalry retired, disgusted and defeated. lee's men dismounted far in the rear, and fought as infantry; they drove in the pickets and skirmishers to the intrenchments, and made several valiant charges upon our works. to make an assault, it was necessary to come across an opening in front of our position, up to the very edge of a deep and impassable ravine. the rebels, with deafening yells, made furious onsets, but the negroes did not flinch, and the mad assailants, discomforted, returned to cover with shrunken ranks. the rebels' fighting was very wicked; it showed that lee's heart was bent on taking the negroes at any cost. assaults on the center having failed, the rebels tried first the left, and then the right flank, with no greater success. when the battle was over, our loss footed up, one man killed outright, twenty wounded, and two missing. nineteen rebels were prisoners in our hands. lee's losses must have been very heavy; the proof thereof was left on the ground. twenty-five rebel bodies lay in the woods unburied, and pools of blood unmistakably told of other victims taken away. the estimate, from all the evidence carefully considered, puts the enemy's casualties at two hundred. among the corpses lee left on the field, was that of major breckenridge, of the nd virginia cavalry. there is no hesitation here in acknowledging the soldierly qualities which the colored men engaged in the fight have exhibited. even the officers who have hitherto felt no confidence in them are compelled to express themselves mistaken. general wilde, commanding the post, says that the troops stood up to their work like veterans." newspaper correspondents were not apt to overstate the facts, nor to give too much favorable coloring to the phalanx in those days. very much of the sentiment in the army--east and west--was manufactured by them. the democratic partizan press at the north, especially in new york and ohio, still engaged in throwing paper bullets at the negro soldiers, who were shooting lead bullets at the country's foes. the gallantry and heroic courage of the phalanx in the departments of the gulf and south, and their bloody sacrifices, had not been sufficient to stop the violent clamor and assertions of those journals, that the "niggers won't fight!" many papers favorable to the emancipation; opposed putting negro troops in battle in virginia. but to all these bomb-proof opinions grant turned a deaf ear, and when and where necessity required it, he hurled his phalanx brigades against the enemy as readily as he did the white troops. the conduct of the former was, nevertheless, watched eagerly by the correspondents of the press who were with the army, and when they began to chronicle the achievements of the phalanx, the prejudice began to give way, and praises were substituted in the place of their well-worn denunciations. a correspondent of the new york _herald_ thus wrote in may: "the conduct of the colored troops, by the way, in the actions of the last few days, is described as superb. an ohio soldier said to me to-day, 'i never saw men fight with such desperate gallantry as those negroes did. they advanced as grim and stern as death, and when within reach of the enemy struck about them with a pitiless vigor, that was almost fearful.' another soldier said to me, 'these negroes never shrink, nor hold back, no matter what the order. through scorching heat and pelting storms, if the order comes, they march with prompt, ready feet.' such praise is great praise, and it is deserved. the negroes here who have been slaves, are loyal, to a man, and on our occupation of fredericksburg, pointed out the prominent secessionists, who were at once seized by our cavalry and put in safe quarters. in a talk with a group of faithful fellows, i discovered in them all a perfect understanding of the issues of the conflict, and a grand determination to prove themselves worthy of the place and privileges to which they are to be exalted." the ice was thus broken, and then each war correspondent found it his duty to write in deservedly glowing terms of the phalanx. the newspaper reports of the engagements stirred the blood of the englishman, and he eschewed his professed love for the freedom of mankind, and particularly that of the american negro. the london _times_, in the following article, lashed the north for arming the negroes to shoot the confederates, forgetting, perhaps, that england employed negroes against the colonist in , and at new orleans, in , had her black regiments to shoot down the fathers of the men whom it now sought to uphold, in rebellion against the government of the united states: "the negro union soldiers. "six months have now passed from the time mr. lincoln issued his proclamation abolishing slavery in the states of the southern confederacy. to many it may seem that this measure has failed of the intended effect and this is doubtless in some respects the case. it was intended to frighten the southern whites into submission, and it has only made them more fierce and resolute than ever. it was intended to raise a servile war, or produce such signs of it as should compel the confederates to lay down their arms through fear for their wives and families; and it has only caused desertion from some of the border plantations and some disorders along the coast. but in other respects the consequences of this measure are becoming important enough. the negro race has been too much attached to the whites, or too ignorant or too sluggish to show any signs of revolt in places remote from the presence of the federal armies: but on some points where the federals have been able to maintain themselves in force in the midst of a large negro population, the process of enrolling and arming black regiments has been carried on in a manner which must give a new character to the war. it is in the state of louisiana, and under the command of general banks, that this use of negro soldiers has been most extensive. the great city of new orleans having fallen into the possession of the federals more than a year ago, and the neighboring country being to a certain degree abandoned by the white population, a vast number of negroes have been thrown on the hands of the general in command to support and, if he can, make use of. the arming of these was begun by general butler, and it has been continued by his successor. though the number actually under arms is no doubt exaggerated by northern writers, yet enough have been brought into service to produce a powerful effect on the imaginations of the combatants, and, as we can now clearly see, to add almost grievously to the fury of the struggle. "of all wars, those between races which had been accustomed to stand to each other in the relation of master and slave have been so much the most horrible that by general consent the exciting of a servile insurrection has been considered as beyond the pale of legitimate warfare. this had been held even in the case of european serfdom, although there the rulers and the ruled are of the same blood, religion and language. but the conflict between the white men and the negro, _and particularly the american white man and the american negro, is likely to be more ruthless than any which the ancient world, fruitful in such histories, or the modern records of algeria can furnish_. there was reason to hope that the deeds of in india would not be paralleled in our time or in any after age. the asiatic savagery rose upon a dominant race scattered throughout the land, and wreaked its vengeance upon it by atrocities which it would be a relief to forget. but it has been reserved for the new world to present the spectacle of civil war, calling servile war to its aid, and of men of english race and language so envenomed against each other that one party places arms in the hands of the half savage negro, and the other acts as if resolved to give no quarter to the insurgent race or the white man who commands them or fights by their side. in the valley of the mississippi, where these negro soldiers are in actual service, it seems likely that a story as revolting as that of st. domingo is being prepared for the world. no one who reads the description of the fighting at port hudson, and the accounts given by the papers of scenes at other places, can help fearing that the worst part of this war has yet to come, and that a people who lately boasted that they took the lead in education and material civilization are now carrying on a contest without regard to any law of conventional warfare,--one side training negroes to fight against its own white flesh and blood, the other slaughtering them without mercy whenever they find them in the field. " * * * it is pitiable to find these unhappy africans, whose clumsy frames are no match for the sinewy and agile white american, thus led on to be destroyed by a merciless enemy. should the war proceed in this manner, it is possible that the massacre of africans may not be confined to actual conflict in the field. hitherto the whites have been sufficiently confident in the negroes to leave them unmolested, even when the enemy was near; but with two or three black regiments in each federal corps, and such events as the port hudson massacre occuring to infuriate the minds on either side, who can foresee what three months more of war may bring forth? "all that we can say with certainty is that the unhappy negro will be the chief sufferer in this unequal conflict. an even greater calamity, however, is the brutalization of two antagonistic peoples by the introduction into the war of these servile allies of the federals. already there are military murders and executions on both sides. the horrors which europe has foreseen for a year past are now upon us. reprisal will provoke reprisal, until all men's natures are hardened, and the land flows with blood." the article is truly instructive to the present generation; its malignity and misrepresentation of the administration's intentions in regard to the arming of negroes, serves to illustrate the deep-seated animosity which then existed in england toward the union of the states. nor will the american negro ever forget england's advice to the confederates, whose massacre of negro soldiers fighting for freedom she endorsed and applauded. the descendants of those black soldiers, who were engaged in the prolonged struggle for freedom, can rejoice in the fact that no single act of those patriots is in keeping with the englishman's prediction; no taint of brutality is even charged against them by those whom they took prisoners in battle. the confederates themselves testify to the humane treatment they unexpectedly received at the hands of their negro captors. mr. pollard, the historian, says: "no servile insurrections had taken place in the south." but it is gratifying to know that all englishmen did not agree with the writer of the _times_. a london letter in the new york evening _post_, said: "mr. spurgeon makes most effective and touching prayers, remembering, at least once on a sunday, the united states. 'grant, o god,' he said recently, 'that the right may conquer, and that if the fearful canker of slavery must be cut out by the sword, it be wholly eradicated from the body politic of which it is the curse.' he is seldom, however, as pointed as this; and, like other clergymen of england, prays for the return of peace. indeed, it must be acknowledged that if the english press and government have done what they could to continue this war, the dissenting clergy of england have nobly shown their good will and hearty sympathy with the americans, and their sincere desire for the settlement of our difficulties. 'if praying would do you americans any good,' said an irreverent acquaintance last sunday, 'you will be gratified to learn that a force of a thousand-clergymen-power is constantly at work for you over here.'" after the heroic and bloody effort at cold harbor to reach richmond, or to cross the james above the confederate capitol, and thus cut off the enemy's supplies,--after grant had flanked, until to flank again would be to leave richmond in his rear,--when lee had withdrawn to his fortifications, refusing to accept grant's challenge to come out and fight a decisive battle,--when all hope of accomplishing either of these objects had vanished, grant determined to return to his original plan of attack from the coast, and turned his face toward the james river. on the th of june the army of the potomac began to move, and by the th it was, with all its trains across, and on the south side of the james. petersburg grant regarded as the citadel of richmond, and to capture it was the first thing on his list to be accomplished. general butler was made acquainted with this, and as soon as general smith, who, with a portion of butler's forces had been temporarily dispatched to join the army of the potomac at cold harbor, returned to bermuda hundreds with his force, he was ordered forward to capture the cockade city. it was midnight on the th, when smith's troops arrived. butler ordered him immediately forward against petersburg, and he moved accordingly. his force was in three divisions of infantry, and one of cavalry, under general kautz, who was to threaten the line of works on the norfolk road. general hinks, with his division of the phalanx, was to take position across the jordon's point road on the right of kautz; brooks' division of white troops was to follow, hinks coming in at the center of the line, while general martindale with the other division was to move along the appomattox and strike the city point road. smith's movement was directed against the northeast side of petersburg, extending from the city point to the norfolk railroad. about daylight on the th, as the columns advanced on the city point road at bailey's farm, six miles from petersburg, a confederate battery opened fire. kautz reconnoitered and found a line of rifle trench, extending along the front, on rapidly rising ground, with a thicket covering. the work was held by a regiment of cavalry and a light battery. at once there was use for the phalanx; the works must be captured with the battery before the troops could proceed. the cavalry was re-called, and hinks began the formation of an attacking party from his division. the confederates were in an open field, their battery upon a knoll in the same field, commanding a sweeping position to its approaches. the advancing troops must come out from the woods, rush up the slope and carry it at the point of the bayonet, exposed to the tempest of musketry and cannister of the battery. hinks formed his line for the assault, and the word of command was given,--"forward." the line emerged from the woods, the enemy opened with cannister upon the steadily advancing column, which, without stopping, replied with a volley of minie bullets. "the long, dusky line, arm to arm, knee to knee." [illustration: phalanx soldiers at work on river obstructions.] then shells came crashing through the line, dealing death and shattering the ranks; but on they went, with a wild cheer, running up the slope; again a storm of cannister met them; a shower of musketry came down upon the advancing column, whose bristling bayonets were to make the way clear for their white comrades awaiting on the roadside. a hundred black men went down under the fire; the ranks were quickly closed however, and with another wild cheer the living hundreds went over the works with the impetuosity of a cyclone; they seized the cannon and turned them upon the fleeing foe, who, in consternation, stampeded toward petersburg, to their main line of intrenchments on the east. thus the work of the th and nd phalanx regiments was completed and the road made clear for the th corps. brooks now moved up simultaneously with martindale, on the river road. by noon the whole corps was in front of the enemy's main line of works, martindale on the right, brooks in the center, the phalanx and cavalry on the left, sweeping down to the jerusalem plank road on the southeast. hinks, with the phalanx, in order to gain the position assigned him, had necessarily to pass over an open space exposed to a direct and cross-fire. nevertheless, he prepared to occupy his post, and forming a line of battle, he began the march. the division numbered about , , a portion of it being still at wilson's landing, fort powhatan, city point and bermuda hundreds. this was a march that veterans might falter in, without criticism or censure. the steady black line advanced a few rods at a time, when coming within range of the confederate guns they were obliged to lie down and wait for another opportunity. now a lull,--they would rise, go forward, and again lie down. thus they continued their march, under a most galling, concentrated artillery fire until they reached their position, from which they were to join in a general assault; and here they lay, from one till five o'clock,--four long hours,--exposed to ceaseless shelling by the enemy. badeau says, in speaking of the phalanx in this ordeal: "no worse strain on the nerves of troops is possible, for it is harder to remain quiet under cannon fire, even though comparatively harmless, than to advance against a storm of musketry." general w. f. smith, though brave, was too cautious and particular in detail, and he spent those four hours in careful reconnoissance, while the troops lay exposed to the enemy's concentric fire. the main road leading east from petersburg ascends a hill two or more miles out, upon the top of which stood what was then known as mr. dunn's house. in front of it was a fort, and another south, and a third north, with other works; heavy embankments and deep ravines and ditches, trunks of hewn trees blackened by camp fires, formed an abatis on the even ground. here the sharpshooters and riflemen had a fair view of the entire field. the distance from these works to the woods was about three hundred and sixty paces, in the edge of which lay the black phalanx division, ready, like so many tigers, waiting for the command, "forward." the forts near dunn's house had direct front fire, and those on the north an enfilading fire on the line of advance. smith got his troops in line for battle by one o'clock, but there they lay. hinks impatiently awaited orders; oh! what a suspense--each hour seemed a day,--what endurance--what valor. shells from the batteries ploughed into the earth where they stood, and began making trouble for the troops. hinks gave the order, "lie down;" they obeyed, and were somewhat sheltered. five o'clock--yet no orders. at length the command was given, "forward." the skirmishers started at quick time; the enemy opened upon them vigorously from their batteries and breastworks, upon which they rested their muskets, in order to fire with accuracy. a torrent of bullets was poured upon the advancing line, and the men fell fast as autumn leaves in a gale of wind. then the whole line advanced, the phalanx going at double-quick; their well aligned ranks, with bayonets glittering obliquely in the receding sunlight, presented a spectacle both magnificent and grand. [illustration: a gallant charge. the nd negro regiment, duncan's brigade, carrying the first line of confederate works before petersburg, va.] duncan rushed his skirmishers and reached the ditches in front of the breastworks, which, without waiting for the main body, they entered and clambered up the steep embankments. a sheet of flame from above was rained down, causing many a brave man to stagger and fall back into the ditch, never to rise again. the troops following, inspired by the daring of the skirmishers, pressed forward on the run up to the forts, swept round the curtains, scaled the breastworks and dashed with patriotic rage at the confederate gunners, who deserted their pieces and ran for their lives. brooks and martindale advanced simultaneously upon the works at osborn's house and up the railroad, sweeping everything before them. the phalanx seized upon the guns and turned them instantly upon the fleeing foe, and then with spades and shovels reversed the fortifications and prepared to hold them. fifteen pieces of artillery and three hundred confederates were captured. "the phalanx," says the official report, took two-thirds of the prisoners and nine pieces of artillery. general smith, finding that general birney, with the nd corps, had not arrived, instead of marching the troops into petersburg, waited for re-inforcements unnecessarily, and thereby lost his chance of taking the city, which was soon garrisoned with troops enough to defy the whole army. thus grant was necessitated afterward to lay siege to the place. the confederates never forgot nor forgave this daring of the "niggers," who drove them, at the point of the bayonet, out of their breastworks, killing and capturing their comrades and their guns. they were chided by their brother confederates for allowing negroes to take their works from them. the maidens of the cockade city were told that they could not trust themselves to men who surrendered their guns to "niggers." the soldiers of the phalanx were delirious with joy. they had caught "ole massa," and he was theirs. general hinks had their confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever he led. the chaplin of the th corps, in his history, says: "in this movement a division of colored troops, under brigadier-general hinks, seems to have won the brightest laurels. they first attacked and carried the enemy's outpost at bailey's farm, capturing one piece of artillery in the most gallant manner. on their arrival before petersburg, they lay in front of the works for nearly five hours, waiting for the word of command. they then, in company with the white troops, and showing equal bravery, rushed and carried the enemy's line of works, with what glorious success has already been related." this, indeed, was a victory, yet shorn of its full fruits; but that petersburg was not captured was no fault of the phalanx. they had carried and occupied the most formidable obstacles. badeau, in chronicling these achievements, says: "general smith assaulted the works on the city point and prince george court house roads. the rebels resisted with a sharp infantry fire, but the center and left dashed into the works, consisting of five redan's on the crest of a deep and difficult ravine. kiddoo's ( d) black regiment was one of the first to gain the hill. in support of this movement, the second line was swung around and moved against the front of the remaining works. the rebels, assaulted thus in front and flank, gave way, four of the guns already captured were turned upon them by the negro conquerors, enfilading the line, and before dark, smith was in possession of the whole of the outer works, two and a half miles long, with fifteen pieces of artillery and three hundred prisoners. petersburg was at his mercy." this failure made a siege necessary, and general grant began by regular approaches to invest the place, after making the three desperate assaults on the th, th and th. it had been indeed a bloody june; the soil of the old dominion, which for two centuries the negro had tilled and made to yield the choicest products, under a system of cruel and inhuman bondage he now reddened with his blood in defense of his liberty, proving by his patriotism, not only his love of liberty, but his courage and capacity to defend it. the negro troops had marched and fought with the white regiments with equal intrepidity and courage; they were no longer despised by their comrades; they now had recognition as soldiers, and went into the trenches before petersburg as a part of as grand an army as ever laid siege to a stronghold or stormed a fortification. on the th of june, general ferrero reported to general meade, with his division of the phalanx, ( th division, th corps), and was immediately ordered to join its own proper corps,--from which it had been separated since the th of may,--at the crossing of the rapidan. it had served under sedgwick and sheridan until the th, when it came under the direct command of general grant, and thus remained until the th of may, when general burnside, waiving rank to meade, the th corps was incorporated into the army of the potomac. during its absence the division sustained the reputable renown of its corps, not only in protecting the trains, but in fighting the enemy, and capturing prisoners. before rejoining the corps, the division was strengthened by three regiments of cavalry,--the th new york, rd new jersey and nd ohio. from the th of may till the th, the division occupied the plank road, looking to the old wilderness tavern, covering the extreme right of the army, extending from todd's to banks' ford. on the th, the division moved to salem church, near the main road to fredericksburg, where, as we have seen, it defended the rear line against the attack made by the confederates, under general ewell. the historian of the corps says: "the division on the st of may was covering fredericksburg, and the roads leading hence to bowling green. on the nd it marched toward bowling green, and on the rd it moved to milford station. from that date to the th it protected the trains of the army in the rear of the positions on the north anna. on the th, the division moved to newtown; on the th, to dunkirk, crossing the maltapony; on the th, to the pamunkey, near hanovertown. on the st of june the troops crossed the pamunkey, and from the nd to the th, covered the right of the army; from the th to the th they covered the approaches from new castle ferry, hanovertown, hawe's shop, and bethusda church. from the th to the th they moved by easy stages, by way of tunstall's new kent court house, cole's ferry, and the pontoon bridge across the james, to the line of the army near petersburg. the dismounted cavalry were left to guard the trains, and the th division prepared to participate in the more active work of soldiers. through the remainder of the month of june, and the most of july, the troops were occupied in the second line of trenches, and in active movements towards the left, under generals hancock and warren. while they were engaged in the trenches they were also drilled in the movements necessary for an attack and occupation of the enemy's works. a strong feeling of pride and esprit de corps sprung up within the hearts of the blacks, and they began to think that they too might soon have the opportunity of some glory for their race and country." how natural was this feeling. as we have seen, their life for more than a month had been one of marching and counter-marching, though hazardous and patriotic. when on the th, they entered upon the more active duty of soldiers, they found the rd division of the th corps, composed of the phalanx of the army of the james, covered with glory, and the welkin ringing with praises of their recent achievements. the men of the th division chafed with eager ambition to rival their brothers of the th corps, in driving the enemy from the cockade city. general burnside was equally as anxious to give his black boys a chance to try the steel of the chivalry in deadly conflict, and this gave them consolation, with the assurance that their day would ere long dawn, so they toiled and drilled carefully for their prospective glory. but the situation of the phalanx before petersburg was far from being enviable. smarting under the thrashing they had received from hinks' division, the confederates were ever ready now to slaughter the "niggers" when advantage offered them the opportunity. a steady, incessant fire was kept up against the positions the phalanx occupied, and their movements were watched with great vigilance. although they did not raise the black flag, yet manifestly no quarter to negro troops, or to white troops that fought with them, was the confederates' determination. "judging from their actions, the presence of the negro soldiers, both in the eighteenth and ninth corps," says woodbury, "seemed to have the effect of rendering the enemy more spiteful than ever before the fourth division came. the closeness of the lines on the front of the corps rendered constant watchfulness imperative, and no day passed without some skirmishing between the opposing pickets. when the colored soldiers appeared, this practice seemed to increase, while in front of the fifth corps, upon the left of our line, there was little or no picket firing, and the outposts of both armies were even disposed to be friendly. on the front of the ninth, the firing was incessant, and in many cases fatal." [illustration: in the trenches] "general potter, in his report, mentions that, when his division occupied the front, his loss averaged some fourteen or fifteen officers killed and wounded per diem. the sharpshooters on either side were vigilant, and an exposure of any part of the person was the signal for the exchange of shots. the men, worn by hard marching, hard fighting and hard digging, took every precaution to shield themselves, and sought cover at every opportunity. they made fire proofs of logs and earth, and with tortuous covered ways and traverse, endeavoring to secure themselves from the enemy's fire. the artillery and mortars on both sides were kept almost constantly at work. these were all precursors of the coming, sanguinary struggle for the possession of cemetery hill. immediately in front of the salient occupied by the ninth corps, the rebels had constructed a very strong redoubt, a short distance below cemetery hill. in the rear of the redoubt ran a ridge nearly at right angles with the rebels' lines, to the hill. it appeared that if this redoubt was captured, the enemy's line would be seriously threatened, if not entirely broken up. a feasible plan for the destruction of the redoubt, was seriously discussed among the soldiers of the corps; finally colonel pleasants, of the th pennsylvania regiment, devised a plan to run a mine under the intervening space between the line of the corps and the redoubt, with the design of exploding it, directly under the redoubt. to this plan general burnside lent his aid, and preparations were made for an assault upon cemetery hill, at the time of its explosion. the work of digging and preparing the mine was prosecuted under the most disadvantageous circumstances. general meade reluctantly gave official sanction, and the work of excavation proceeded with, despite the fact that general burnside's requisitions for supplies were not responded to. nevertheless, in less than a month the mine was ready, and after considerable discussion, and not without some bickering, the plan of attack was arranged, which, in brief, was to form two columns, and to charge with them through the breach caused by the explosion of the mine. then to sweep along the enemy's line, right and left, clearing away the artillery and infantry, by attacking in the flank and rear. other columns were to make for the crest, the whole to co-operate. general ferrero, in command of the phalanx division was informed, that in accordance with the plan of attack, he was to lead in the assault, when the attack was made, after the mine had been fired. he was ordered to drill his troops accordingly. after a careful examination of the ground, ferrero decided upon his methods of advance,--not to go directly in the crater formed by the explosion, but rather upon one side of it, and then to take the enemy in flank and reverse. when he informed his officers and men that they would be called upon to lead in the assault, they received the information with delight. his men, desirous of emulating their comrades of the third division of the eighteenth corps, felt that their cherished hope,--the opportunity for which they had prayed,--was near at hand; the hour in which they would show themselves worthy of the honor of being associated with the army of the potomac. they rejoiced at the prospect of wiping off whatever reproach an ill-judged prejudice might have cast upon them, by proving themselves brave, thereby demanding the respect which brave men deserve. for three weeks they drilled with alacrity in the various movements; charging upon earthworks, wheeling by the right and left, deployment, and other details of the expected operations. general burnside had early expressed his confidence in the soldierly capabilities of the men of the phalanx, and now wished to give them an opportunity to justify his good opinion." his white troops, moreover, had been greatly exposed throughout the whole campaign, had suffered severely, and had been so much under the fire of the sharpshooters that it had become a second nature with them to dodge bullets. the negro troops had not been so much exposed, and had already shown their steadiness under fire in one or two pretty severe skirmishes in which they had previously been engaged. the white officers and men of the corps were elated with the selection made by general burnside, and they, too, manifested an uncommon interest in their dark-hued comrades. the demeanor of the former toward the latter was very different from that of the other corps, of which that particular army was composed. the th corps had seen more service than any other corps in the army of the potomac. its operations in six states had given to the men an experience calculated to destroy, very greatly, their race prejudice; besides a very large portion of the regiments in the corps came from the new england states, especially massachusetts, vermont and rhode island, where race prejudice was not so strong; consequently the treatment of the men in the th division was tempered by humanity, and pregnant with a fraternal feeling of comradeship. and then there was a corps pride very naturally existing among the white troops, which prompted a desire for the achievement of some great and brilliant feat by their black comrades. this feeling was expressed in more than one way by the entire corps, and greatly enhanced the ambition of the phalanx to rout the enemy and drive him out of his fortifications before petersburg, if not to capture the city. these high hopes were soon dissipated, however. general meade had an interview with general burnside on the th; the subject was fully discussed as to the plan of the assault, as proposed by general burnside, and made known to meade by burnside, in writing, on the th. it was at this meeting that general meade made his objections to the phalanx leading the assault. general burnside argued with all the reason he could command, in favor of his plans, and especially for the phalanx, going over the grounds already cited; why his white troops were unfit and disqualified for performing the task of leading the assault, but in vain. meade was firm in his purpose, and, true to his training, he had no use for the negro but as a servant; he never had trusted him as a soldier. the plan, with general meade's objection was referred to general grant for settlement. grant, doubting the propriety of agreeing with a subordinate, as against the commander of the army, dismissed the dispute by agreeing with meade; therefore the phalanx was ruled out of the lead and placed in the supporting column. it was not till the night of the th, a few hours before the assault was made, that the change was made known to general ferrero and his men, who were greatly chagrined and filled with disappointment. general ledlie's division of white troops was to lead the assault, after the explosion of the mine on the morning of the th. it was on the night of the th, when general burnside issued his battle order, in accordance with general meade's plan and instructions, and at the appointed hour all the troops were in readiness for the conflict. the mine, with its several tons of powder, was ready at a quarter past three o'clock on the eventful morning of the th of july. the fuses were fired, and "all eyes were turned to the confederate fort opposite," which was discernible but three hundred feet distant. the garrison was sleeping in fancied security; the sentinels slowly paced their rounds, without a suspicion of the crust which lay between them and the awful chasm below. our own troops, lying upon their arms in unbroken silence, or with an occasional murmur, stilled at once by the whispered word of command, looked for the eventful moment of attack to arrive. a quarter of an hour passed,--a half hour, yet there was no report. four o'clock, and the sky began to brighten in the east; the confederate garrison was bestirring itself. the enemy's lines once more assumed the appearance of life; the sharpshooters, prepared for their victims, began to pick off those of our men, who came within range of their deadly aim. another day of siege was drawing on, and still there was no explosion. what could it mean? the fuses had failed;--the dampness having penetrated to the place where the parts had been spliced together, prevented the powder from burning. two men (lieut. jacob douty and sergeant--afterwards lieutenant--henry rees,) of the th pennsylvania volunteered to go and ascertain where the trouble was. at quarter past four o'clock they bravely entered the mine, re-arranged the fuses and relighted them. in the meantime, general meade had arrived at the permanent headquarters of the th corps. not being able to see anything that was going forward, and not hearing any report, he became somewhat impatient. at fifteen minutes past four o'clock he telegraphed to general burnside to know what was the cause of the delay. gen. burnside was too busy in remedying the failure already incurred to reply immediately, and expected, indeed, that before a dispatch could be sent that the explosion would take place. general meade ill-naturedly telegraphed the operator to know where general burnside was. at half-past four, the commanding general became still more impatient, and was on the point of ordering an immediate assault upon the enemy's works, without reference to the mine. five minutes later he _did_ order an assault. general grant was there when, at sixteen minutes before five o'clock, the mine exploded. then ensued a scene which beggars description. general badeau, in describing the spectacle, says: "the mine exploded with a shock like that of an earthquake, tearing up the rebels' work above them, and vomiting men, guns and caissons two hundred feet into the air. the tremendous mass appeared for a moment to hang suspended in the heavens like a huge, inverted cone, the exploding powder still flashing out here and there, while limbs and bodies of mutilated men, and fragments of cannon and wood-work could be seen, then all fell heavily to the ground again, with a second report like thunder. when the smoke and dust had cleared away, only an enormous crater, thirty feet deep, sixty wide, and a hundred and fifty long stretched out in front of the ninth corps, where the rebel fort had been." the explosion was the signal for the federal batteries to open fire, and immediately one hundred and ten guns and fifty mortars opened along the union front, lending to the sublime horror of the upheaved and quaking earth, the terror of destruction. a confederate soldier thus describes the explosion, in the philadelphia _times_, january, : "about fifteen feet of dirt intervened between the sleeping soldiers and all this powder. in a moment the superincumbent earth, for a space forty by eighty feet, was hurled upward, carrying with it the artillery-men, with their four guns, and three companies of soldiers. as the huge mass fell backwards it buried the startled men under immense clods--tons of dirt. some of the artillery was thrown forty yards towards the enemy's line. the clay subsoil was broken and piled in large pieces, often several yards in diameter, which afterwards protected scores of federals when surrounded in the crater. the early hour, the unexpected explosion, the concentrated fire of the enemy's batteries, startled and wrought confusion among brave men accustomed to battle." says a union account: "now was the time for action, forward went general ledlie's column, with colonel marshall's brigade in advance. the parapets were surmounted, the abatis was quickly removed, and the division prepared to pass over the intervening ground, and charge through the still smoking ruins to gain the crest beyond. but here the leading brigade made a temporary halt; it was said at the time our men suspected a counter mine, and were themselves shocked by the terrible scene they had witnessed. it was, however, but momentary; in less than a quarter of an hour, the entire division was out of its entrenchments, and was advancing gallantly towards the enemy's line. the ground was somewhat difficult to cross over, but the troops pushed steadily on with soldiery bearing, overcoming all the obstacles before them. they reached the edge of the crater, passed down into the chasm and attempted to make their way through the yielding sand, the broken clay, and the masses of rubbish that were everywhere about. many of the enemy's men were lying among the ruins, half buried, and vainly trying to free themselves. they called for mercy and for help. the soldiers stopped to take prisoners, to dig out guns and other material. their division commander was not with them, there was no responsible head, the ranks were broken, the regimental organizations could not be preserved, and the troops were becoming confused. the enemy was recovering from his surprise, our artillery began to receive a spirited response, the enemy's men went back to their guns; they gathered on the crest and soon brought to bear upon our troops a fire in front from the cemetery hill, and an enfilading and cross-fire from their guns in battery. our own guns could not altogether silence or overcome this fire in flank, our men in the crater were checked, felt the enemy's fire, sought cover, began to entrench. the day was lost, still heroic men continued to push forward for the crest, but in passing through the crater few got beyond it. regiment after regiment, brigade followed brigade, until the three white divisions filled the opening and choked the passage to all. what was a few moments ago organization and order, was now a disordered mass of armed men. at six o'clock, general meade ordered general burnside to push 'his men forward, at all hazards, white and black.' his white troops were all in the crater, and could not get out. as instructed, he ordered general ferrero to rush in the phalanx; colonel loving was near when the order came to ferrero; as the senior staff officer present, seeing the impossibility of the troops to get through the crater, at that time countermanded the order, and reported in person to general burnside, but he had no discretion to exercise, his duty was simply to repeat meade's order. the order must be obeyed; it was repeated; away went the phalanx division, loudly cheering, but to what purpose did they advance? the historian of that valiant corps, presumably more reliable than any other writer, says: "'the colored troops charged forward, cheering with enthusiasm and gallantry. colonel j. k. sigfried, commanding the first brigade, led the attacking column. the command moved out in rear of colonel humphrey's brigade of the third division. colonel sigfried, passing colonel humphrey by the flank, crossed the field immediately in front, went down the crater, and attempted to go through. the passage was exceedingly difficult, but after great exertions the brigade made its way through the crowded masses in a somewhat broken and disorganized condition, and advanced towards the crest. the rd u. s. colored troops moved over the lip of the crater toward the right, made an attack upon the enemy's line of intrenchments, and won the chief success of the day, capturing a number of prisoners and rebel colors, and _re-capturing_ a stand of national colors. the other regiments of the brigade were unable to get up, on account of white troops in advance of them crowding the line. the second brigade, under command of colonel h. g. thomas, followed the first with equal enthusiasm. the men rushed forward, descended into the crater, and attempted to pass through. colonel thomas' intention was to go to the right and attack the enemy's rifle-pits. he partially succeeded in doing so, but his brigade was much broken up when it came under the enemy's fire. the gallant brigade commander endeavored, in person, to rally his command, and at last formed a storming column, of portions of the th, th, rd, and th regiments of the phalanx division.' "'these troops' made a spirited attack, but lost heavily in officers and became somewhat disheartened. lieutenant-colonel bross, of the th, with the colors in his hands, led the charge; was the first man to leap upon the enemy's works, and was instantly killed. lieutenant pennell seized the colors, but was shot down, riddled through and through. major theodore h. rockwood, of the th, sprang upon the parapet, and fell while cheering on his regiment to the attack. the conduct of these officers and their associates was indeed magnificent. no troops were ever better lead to an assault; had they been allowed the advance at the outset, before the enemy had recovered from his first surprise, their charge would have been successful. but it was made too late. the fire to which they were exposed was very hot and destructive; it came from front and flank, it poured into the faces of the men. it enfiladed their lines. the enemy's rage against the colored troops had its bloody opportunity." and they made use of it. captain w. l. fagan, of the th alabama regiment, thus gives an account of the fight, from the confederate side: "the crater combat, unlike other battles in virginia, was a series of deeds of daring, of bloody hand-to-hand fighting, where the survivor could count with a certainty the men he had slain. a few days ago a soldier said to me: 'i killed two at the crater; they were not three feet from me when they fell. i had followed the fortunes of the confederacy from williamsburg to appomattox court house, and had, to the morning of july , only seen two bayonet wounds;--one received at frazier's farm, the other at turkey ridge, june , .' men stood face to face at the crater. often a bayonet thrust was given before the minie ball went crashing through the body. every man took care of himself, intent on selling his life as dearly as possible. the negroes did not all stampede. they mingled with the white troops. the troops of mahone, wilcox and wright were greeted with defiant yells, while their ranks were mowed down by withering fires. many officers commanding negro troops held their commissions for bravery. encouraged, threatened, emulating the white troops, the black men fought with desperation. some confederate soldiers recognized their slaves at the crater. captain j----, of the forty-first virginia, gave the military salute to 'ben' and 'bob,' whom he had left hoeing corn down in dinwiddie. if white's division had occupied reservoir hill, richmond would have been evacuated." but let the writer of the following tell what the brave black men met after having advanced beyond the crater, where they grappled with the sullen foe filled with the recollection of the capture, in june, of their works, guns and comrades by the "niggers" of the th corps. it was not _lex talionis_ that they observed, but a repetition of the fort pillow massacre. under the head of "the confederate charge," the particulars are given: "the federals now held the crater and the inner line. generals lee and mahone arrived on the field about : a. m. a ravine, which deepened on our right, ran parallel with this inner line and was used by mahone in which to form his brigade when preparing to attack. at a. m. mahone's brigade, commanded by colonel d. a. weisiger, brought from the right of hoke's division, was formed in this ravine and advanced to the assault. the federals, concentrating a terrific fire of musketry and artillery, ploughed out great gaps in these fearless virginians. nothing daunted, they pressed forward and recaptured the inner line. the loss of this brigade was heavy, both in men and officers, more than two hundred virginians falling between the ravine and the captured works. the federal troops, white and colored, fought with a desperation never witnessed on former battle-fields. the negroes, it is said, cried 'no quarter.' mahone and wright's brigades took only twenty-nine of them prisoners. the federals still held the crater and part of the line. another charge was necessary and wright's georgia brigade was ordered up from anderson's division. wright's brigade, forming in the ravine, moved forward to drive the federals from the line they still held. the enemy, expecting their attack, poured a volley into the georgians that decimated their ranks, killing and wounding nearly every field officer in the brigade. the men rushing forward, breasting a storm of lead and iron, failed to oblique far enough to the right to recapture the whole line, but gained the line occupied by and contiguous to the line already captured by weisiger, commanding mahone's brigade. mahone's brigade and wright's brigade had captured forty-two officers, three hundred and ninety men and twenty-nine negroes. "it was now about a. m. general grant made no effort to reinforce his line or to dislodge wright and mahone from the positions they held. a courier dashed up to general j. c. c. sanders, commanding wilcox's brigade, informing him that his brigade was wanted. the men were expecting this courier, as they were next in line, and they distinctly heard the shouts of mahone's and wright's men, followed by the heavy artillery firing, while the word had passed down the line that the salient had not been recaptured. general sanders moved his brigade, consisting of the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and fourteenth alabama regiments, to the left and occupied the ravine. there was no shade or water in this ravine, while the men were exposed nearly four hours to a scorching sun. the heat was almost beyond human endurance. strong men fainted and were carried to the rear. the waves of hot air at times were almost suffocating. for the first and only time the men were told what was expected of them. general saunders explained the situation to the officers of the regiments. each captain spoke to his men, urging them to retake the salient, or petersburg and richmond must be evacuated. the men were ordered to fix their bayonets securely, to trail arms--not to fire, not to yell, but to move quietly up the side of the ravine, and then, every man run for his life to the breastworks. they were told that generals lee, beauregard, hill, mahone, hoke and every general officer of the army would watch them as they moved forward. "at : p. m. the firing had almost ceased and the federals, overcome with heat, did not expect an attack. saunders formed his brigade and moved quietly up the side of the ravine. hardly a word was spoken, for the alabamians expected to die or retake that salient. the eye of general lee was fixed on them. when they caught sight of the works their old feelings came back to them and yell they must. with the fury of a whirlwind they rushed upon the line they had been ordered to take. the movement was so unexpected and so quickly executed that only one shell was thrown into the brigade. the works gained, they found the enemy on the other side. it was stated that lee, speaking to beauregard, said: 'splendid!' beauregard spoke with enthusiasm of the brilliant charge. "in an instant the federal army was aroused, and batteries opened along the whole line, while the infantry fire was a continuous roar. only a breastwork divided wilcox's brigade from the federals. a moment was required for saunders to reform, and his brigade mounted the inner line and forced the enemy backwards to the outer line and the crater. the crater was full of white and negro soldiers. the confederates, surrounding it on every side, poured volley after volley into this heaped-up mass of terrified negroes and their brave officers. the negroes ran in every direction and were shot down without a thought. bayonets, swords and the butts of muskets were used. the deafening roar of artillery and musketry, the yells and imprecations of the combatants, drowned the commands of officers. a negro in the crater attempted to raise a white flag, and it was instantly pulled down by a federal officer. the federal colors were planted on a huge lump of dirt, and waved until sergeant wallace, of the eleventh alabama, followed by others, seized them and tore them from the staff. instantly a white flag was raised, and the living, who were not many, surrendered. the crater was won." with the exception of general burnside, no commander of the army of the potomac was in favor of the phalanx participating in a battle. what, then, had the phalanx to expect of those to whom they had borne the relation of _slave_? the confederates had a right to expect hard fighting when they met the phalanx, and the phalanx knew they had to fight hard when they met the confederates. it was the previous associations and habits of the negro that kept him from retaliating for the several massacres that had been perpetrated upon his brother-soldiers. it was not for a want of courage to do it: it was only necessary for those who commanded them to have ordered it, and they would never have taken a confederate prisoner. many of those who commanded them needed but public opinion to sustain them, to give such an order as would have made every battle between the phalanx and the confederates bloody and inhuman. it was but the enlightened sentiment of the north, the religious teaching of the brotherhood of man, the high character and moral training of the statesmen on the side of the union, that restrained the phalanx from retaliation, else they possessed none of the characteristics of a courageous, sensitive and high tempered people. the negro is not naturally docile; his surroundings, rather than his nature, have given him the trait; it is not naturally his, but something which his trainers have given him; and it is not a difficult task to untrain him and advance him beyond his apparent unconsciousness of self-duty and self-preservation. let him feel that he is to be supported in any transaction uncommon to him, and he can act as aggressively as any race of men who are naturally quicker in temperament. it is this characteristic that made the negro what general grant said he was: in discipline a better soldier than the white man. it was said that he would not fight: there is no man in the south who met him on the battle-field that will say so now. these are a few of the thoughts that came to me as i listened for an hour, one evening in june, , to the confederate gen. mahone, whose acquaintance the writer enjoys, reciting the story of the fight at the crater, where the negro met the confederate, and in a hand-to-hand struggle one showed as much brute courage as the other. it would not be doing the negro justice to accord him less, and yet that courage never led him to acts of inhumanity. it is preferable that the confederates themselves should tell the stories of their butcheries than for me to attempt them. not the stories told at the time, but fifteen years afterward, when men could reflect and write more correctly. there is one, an orator, who has described the fight, whose reference to the crater so gladdened the hearts of his audience that they reproduced the "yell," and yelled themselves hoarse. no battle fought during the war, not even that of bull run, elicited so much comment and glorification among the confederates as that of the crater. it was the bloodiest fight on the soil of the old dominion, and has been the subject of praise by poets and orators upon the confederate side. capt. j. b. hope eulogized "mahone's brigade" in true southern verse. capt. mccabe, on the st of november, , in his oration before the "association of the army of northern virginia," in narrating the recapture of the works, said: "it was now o'clock in the morning. the rest of potter's (federal) division moved out slowly, when ferrero's negro division, the men, beyond question, inflamed with drink, (there are many officers and men, myself among the number, who will testify to this), burst from the advanced lines, cheering vehemently, passed at a double quick over a crest under a heavy fire, and rushed with scarcely a check over the heads of the white troops in the crater, spread to their right, and captured more than two hundred prisoners and one stand of colors. at the same time turner, of the tenth corps, pushed forward a brigade over the ninth corps' parapet, seized the confederate line still further to the north, and quickly dispersed the remaining brigades of his division to confirm his successes." the truth is over-reached in the statement of this orator if he intended to convey the idea that the men of the phalanx division were drunk from strong drink; but it may be looked upon as an excuse offered for the treatment the courageous negro soldiers received at the hands of their captors, who, worse than enraged by strong drink, gave the battle-cry on their way to the front, "_no quarter to niggers!_" this has been admitted by those in a position, at the time, to know what went on. in his "recollections of the recapture of the lines," colonel stewart of the st virginia regiment, says: "when nearly opposite the portions of our works held by the federal troops, we met several soldiers who were in the works at the time of the explosion. our men began ridiculing them for going to the rear, when one of them remarked, 'ah, boys, you have got hot work ahead,--they are negroes, and show no quarter.' this was the first intimation we had that we were to fight negro troops, and it seemed to _infuse_ the little band with impetuous daring, as they pressed toward the fray. i never felt more like fighting in my life. our comrades had been slaughtered in a most inhuman and brutal manner, and slaves were trampling over their mangled and bleeding corpses. revenge must have fired every heart, and strung every arm with nerves of steel, for the herculean task of blood." on the monday morning after the assault of saturday, the richmond _enquirer_ said: "grant's war cry of 'no quarter' shouted by his negro soldiers, was returned with interest, we regret to hear, not so heavily as ought to have been, since some negroes were captured instead of being shot. let every salient we are called upon to defend, be a fort pillow, and butcher every negro that grant hurls against our brave troops, and permit them not to soil their hands, with the capture of one negro." there is no truth in the statement. no such cry was ever made by negro soldiers; and when it is remembered that the confederate congress, in four short months after this declaration, began arming slaves for the defense of richmond, it is readily seen how deep and with what sincerity such declarations were made. the southern historian pollard thus describes the situation after the assault and the ground had again come into the possession of the confederates: [illustration: before petersburg. phalanx soldiers, under a flag of truce, burying their dead after one of the terrible battles before petersburg.] "the ground all around was dotted with the fallen, while the sides and bottom of the crater were literally lined with dead, the bodies lying in every conceivable position. some had evidently been killed with the butts of muskets, as their crushed skulls and badly smashed faces too plainly indicated.' within this crater--this hole of forty by eighty feet--were lying one hundred and thirty-six dead soldiers, besides the wounded. the soil was literally saturated with blood. general bartlett was here, with his steel leg broken. he did not look as though he had been at a 'diamond wedding,' but was present at a 'dance of death.' a covered way for artillery was so full of dead that details were made to throw them out, that artillery might be brought in. the dead bodies formed a heap on each side. the alabamians captured thirty-four officers, five hundred and thirty-six white and one hundred and thirty-nine colored soldiers. the three brigades had seventeen stands of colors, held by seventeen as brave, sweaty, dirty, powder-stained fellows as ever wore the gray, who knew that, when presenting their colors to division headquarters, to each a furlough of thirty days would be granted. "the crater was filled with wounded, to whom our men gave water. adjutant morgan cleveland, of the th alabama regiment, assisted a federal captain who was mortally wounded and suffering intensely. near him lay a burly, wounded negro. the officer said he would die. the negro, raising himself on his elbow, cried out: 'thank god. you killed my brother when we charged, because he was afraid and ran. now the rebels have killed you.' death soon ended the suffering of one and the hatred of the other. a darkness came down on the battle-field and the victors began to repair the salient. the crater was cleared of the dead and wounded. men were found buried ten feet under the dirt. twenty-two of the artillery company were missing. four hundred and ninety-eight dead and wounded confederates were buried or sent to the hospitals. between the lines lay hundreds of wounded federals, who vainly called for water. these men had been without water since early morning. some calling louder than others, their voices were recognized, and as their cries grew fainter, we knew their lives were ebbing away. our men, risking their lives, carried water to some. "i find in my diary these lines: 'sunday, july , . everything comparatively quiet along the lines. hundreds of federal soldiers are lying in front of the crater exposed to a scorching sun; some are crying for water. the enemy's fire is too heavy for a soldier to expose himself.' late on sunday evening a flag of truce was sent in and forwarded to general lee. general grant had asked permission to bury his dead and remove his wounded. the truce was granted, to begin on monday at a. m. and conclude at a. m. punctual to the hour the federal details came on the field and by a. m. had buried about three hundred. the work was hardly begun and the truce was extended. hour after hour was granted until it was evening before the field was cleared." with these selections from the mass of confederate testimony before us, of their "daring, bloody work," given by participants, it is well to read some of the statements of those who battled for the union on that occasion. many of the correspondents at the seat of war, ignorant of the real facts regarding the assault, attributed the failure, not to general meade's interference with general burnside's plan, but to the phalanx division, the men who bore the brunt of the battle and gained for themselves a fame for desperate fighting. but some of those who _were_ acquainted with the facts have left records that tell the true story and give honor to whom honor is due. gen. grant is among the number; he perfectly understood the whole matter, knew that general burnside, not being allowed to carry out his own plans, but at the last moment compelled to act contrary to his judgment, could not fight with that enthusiasm and confidence that he would have done had he been allowed to carry out his own ideas. in his "memoirs," general grant gives an account of the explosion of the mine and the assault after placing the blame for the "stupendous failure" where it belongs. i quote a few preliminary words which not only intimate where the trouble lies, but gives the key to the whole matter. speaking of general burnside's command, he says: "the four divisions of his corps were commanded by generals potter, wilcox, ledlie and ferrero. the last was a colored division; and burnside selected it to make the assault. meade interfered with this. burnside then took ledlie's division--a worse selection than the first could have been. * * * * ledlie, besides being otherwise inefficient, proved also to possess disqualifications less common among soldiers." a correspondent of the new york _evening post_ says: "we have been continually notified for the last fortnight, that our sappers were mining the enemy's position. as soon as ready, our division was to storm the works on its explosion. this rumor had spread so wide we had no faith in it. on the night of the th, we were in a position on the extreme left. we were drawn in about nine p. m., and marched to general burnside's headquarters, and closed in mass by division, left in front. we there received official notice that the long-looked-for mine was ready charged, and would be fired at daylight next morning. the plan of storming was as follows: one division of white troops was to charge the works immediately after the explosion, and carry the first and second lines of rebel intrenchments. our division was to follow immediately, and push right into petersburg, take the city, and be supported by the remainder of the ninth and twenty-eighth corps. we were up bright and early, ready and eager for the struggle to commence. i had been wishing for something of this sort to do for some time, to gain the respect of the army of the potomac. you know their former prejudices. at thirty minutes after five, the ball opened. the mine, with some fifty pieces of artillery, went off almost instantaneously; at the same time, the white troops, according to the plan, charged the fort, which they carried, for there was nothing to oppose them; but they did not succeed in carrying either of the lines of intrenchments. "we were held in rear until the development of the movement of the white troops; but, on seeing the disaster which was about to occur, we pushed in by the flank (for we could go in in no other way to allow us to get in position); so you see on this failure we had nothing to do but gain by the flank. a charge in that manner has never proved successful, to my knowledge; when it does, it is a surprise. "our men went forward with enthusiasm equal to anything under different circumstances; but, in going through the fort that had been blown up, the passage was almost impeded by obstacles thrown up by the explosion. at the same time, we were receiving a most deadly cross-fire from both flanks. at this time, our lieutenant-colonel (e. w. ross) fell, shot through the left leg, bravely leading the men. i immediately assumed command, but only to hold it a few minutes, when i fell, struck by a piece of shell in the side. capt. robinson, from connecticut, then took command; and, from all we can learn, he was killed. at this time, our first charge was somewhat checked, and the men sought cover in the works. again our charge was made, but, like the former, unsuccessful. this was followed by the enemy making a charge. seeing the unorganized condition and the great loss of officers, the men fell back to our own works. yet a large number still held the fort until two p. m., when the enemy charged again, and carried it. that ended the great attempt to take petersburg. "it will be thus seen that the colored troops did not compose the first assaulting, but the supporting column; and they were not ordered forward until white troops in greater numbers had made a desperate effort to carry the rebel works, and had failed. then the colored troops were sent in; moved over the broken ground, and up the slope, and within a short distance of the parapet, in order, and with steady courage; but finally broke and retreated under the same fire which just before had sent a whole division of white regiments to the right-about. if there be any disgrace in that, it does not belong exclusively nor mainly to the negroes. a second attack is far more perilous and unlikely to succeed than a first; the enemy having been encouraged by the failure of the first, and had time to concentrate his forces. and, in this case, there seems to have been a fatal delay in ordering both the first and second assault." an officer in the same engagement says: "in regard to the bravery of the colored troops, although i have been in upwards of twenty battles, i never saw so many cases of gallantry. the 'crater,' where we were halted, was a perfect slaughter-pen. had not 'some one blundered,' but moved us up at daylight, instead of eight o'clock, we should have been crowned with success, instead of being cut to pieces by a terrific enfilading fire, and finally forced from the field in a panic. we had no trouble in rallying the troops and moving them into the rifle-pits; and, in one hour after the rout i had nearly as many men together as were left unhurt. "i was never under such a terrific fire, and can hardly realize how any escaped alive. our loss was heavy. in the twenty-eighth (colored) for instance, commanded by lieut.-col. russell (a bostonian), he lost seven officers out of eleven, and ninety-one men out of two hundred and twenty-four; and the colonel himself was knocked over senseless, for a few minutes, by a slight wound in the head; both his color-sergeants and all his color-guard were killed. col. bross, of the twenty-ninth, was killed outright, and nearly every one of his officers hit. this was nearly equal to bunker hill. col. ross, of the thirty-first, lost his leg. the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth (colored), all charged over the works; climbing up an earthwork six feet high, then down into a ditch, and up on the other side, all the time under the severest fire in front and flank. not being supported, of course the storming party fell back. i have seen white troops run faster than these blacks did, when in not half so tight a place. our brigade lost thirty-six prisoners, all cut off after leaving the 'crater.' my faith in colored troops is not abated one jot.'" the congressional committee on the conduct of the war investigated the affair, before which general grant testified. he was severe upon general ledlie, whom he regarded as an inefficient officer; he blamed himself for allowing that officer to lead the assault. general grant also testified: "general burnside wanted to put his colored division in front; i believe if he had done so it would have been a success." on the morning of the th of august, , a brigade of the phalanx, consisting of the th, th, th and th regiments, crossed from bermuda hundreds to the north side of the james river, on pontoons, near jones' landing, and bivouacked for the night. general grant was led to believe that general lee had sent a portion of his troops, at least three divisions of infantry, and one of cavalry, from the front of petersburg, to re-enforce gen. early, then operating in the valley. consequently he thought it a favorable opportunity to threaten richmond, and ordered hancock with the nd, and birney with a part of the th corps, with gregg's cavalry, to attack the confederate works on the north side of the james. the object was two-fold: to prevent lee from re-enforcing early, confronted by sheridan's troops; and likewise to drive the confederates from out their works. the troops crossed the james on the th, the d corps going to deep bottom by transports, the other troops crossing the river by pontoons, and advancing, found the enemy in force. several spirited engagements took place, after which the main forces withdrew again across the river, to the front of petersburg. the following account applies to the brigade as well as the th phalanx regiment, from whose record it is extracted: "during the forenoon of the th the ( th) regiment acted as reserve, moving forward occasionally as the line advanced. most of the work of the day was done to the right, little being done in the immediate front except skirmishing. about p. m. a portion of the seventh and ninth, forming line in the edge of some timber, moved across an open field and charged upon reaching the farther side and captured the enemy's line of rifle-pits. the companies of the seventh pushed on some distance further toward their second line, but were met with so severe a fire that they fell back to the captured line; which was held. this charge, known as the action of kingsland road, was made in fine style. the battalion of the seventh was commanded by capt. weiss--col. shaw having been detailed as corps officer of the day, and lieut.-col. haskell being temporarily in command of the brigade. our losses were two men killed, and one officer (lieut. eler) and thirty-two men wounded. "about o'clock p. m., the troops moved down the road to the right, and at o'clock col. shaw withdrew the pickets of the corps, re-crossed the pontoons, where we had crossed in the morning, and moved down the neck. then followed four hours of the most wearisome night-marching--moving a few rods at a time and then halting for troops ahead to get out of the way; losing sight of them and hurrying forward to catch up; straggling out into the darkness, stumbling and groping along the rough road, and all the time the rain coming down in a most provoking, exasperating drizzle. about daylight crossed back to the north side and halted for coffee, and then moved forward some four miles and rejoined the corps, taking position behind the crest of a hill. the eighth and twenty-ninth were left in a work on the hill. "about : p. m. orders came to pile knapsacks and be ready to march immediately. a little after o'clock the brigade moved to the right, some three-quarters of a mile, into an open cornfield, and, after halting a few moments, turned down a road through the woods to the left with gen. wm. birney, who ordered col. shaw to throw out skirmishers and advance with his brigade down a road which he pointed out, find the enemy and attack vigorously, and then rode away. finding the road turning to the left, col. shaw sent word to gen. birney that the designated road would probably bring him back on our own line. the order came back from gen. birney to go ahead. the road still bearing to the left, word was again sent that we should strike our own line if we continued to advance in the direction we were going. a second time the answer came to move on. a third messenger having brought from gen. birney the same reply, col. shaw decided to disobey the order and call in the skirmishers. before it could be done firing commenced and continued briskly for several minutes, before the men recognized each other, and it was discovered that we had been firing into our own second brigade--col. osborn's. this sad affair, which would not have occurred had col shaw's caution been heeded, resulted in the killing of the lieutenant commanding the picket-line and the wounding of many men on both sides. after this _fiasco_ the brigade moved out into the cornfield, where it had halted earlier in the day, and bivouacked for the night. the regiment had been more or less exposed all day to shell-fire, but lost from it only four or five men wounded, in addition to the ten or twelve men wounded in the skirmish with osborn's brigade. "early on the morning of the th, the regiment marched back to its knapsacks and halted for breakfast. about o'clock it was ordered out to support two batteries, and remained on this duty until p. m., changing position frequently, in the meantime gen. terry, with the first division of the tenth corps, had charged the rebel line, near fuzzel's mills, and captured it, together with three colors and some three hundred prisoners. but the enemy rallied, and with reinforcements, soon compelled gen. terry to relinquish the captured line. about dark gen. wm. birney came up, and taking the left wing of the seventh--the right wing, under col. shaw, was in support of a battery--and two companies of the ninth, placed them under command of lieut.-col. haskell, and ordered him with this handful of men to take an earthwork in his front which a division a short time before had failed to carry. the timely arrival of gen. terry put an end to this mad scheme. the regiment lost during the day eight or ten men wounded. "the general results of the day's fighting had been unsatisfactory, for not only had terry's attack failed in its object, but the advance on the right, along the charles city road, by the troops of the second corps and gregg's cavalry division, had been equally unsuccessful. the rebel general chambliss was among the killed. "about : a. m. of the th, the left wing of the regiment was sent back to a line of rifle-pits that had been thrown up some two hundred yards to the rear, where it was joined by the right wing in the morning after breakfast. picket-firing continued during the day and heavy artillery firing was heard in the direction of petersburg. at p. m. a flag of truce was sent out and two hours given to bring in the dead from between the lines. gen. chambliss' body was delivered, and we received that of capt. williams, of the thirty-ninth illinois. early in the evening the regiment was ordered on picket. considerable picket-firing occurred during the night and day, the men being with difficulty restrained from it. we were relieved about noon of the th by the one hundred and fifteenth new york and seventy-sixth pennsylvania. * * * "early in the morning the eighth and the twenty-ninth connecticut rejoined the regiment, and after the regiment was relieved from picket, it, with the twenty-ninth, fell back a quarter of a mile, leaving the eighth and ninth on the line. rations having been drawn, the men got supper and prepared for a good night's sleep. suddenly a heavy musketry fire broke out toward the left which rapidly extended to the right and the entire line was soon under fire. the regiment moved forward at double-quick, but by the time it reached the front and formed line, darkness set in and the enemy fell back. about p. m. our forces were withdrawn, and, after several hours spent in marching and halting, the regiment went into camp two miles from the pontoons. here it lay all day of the th. the following congratulatory order was received from corps headquarters, in which the brigade was spoken of in very flattering terms by maj.-gen. d. b. birney, commanding: "'headquarters tenth army corps, fuzzel's mills, va., august , . "'_general orders._--the major-general commanding congratulates the tenth army corps upon its success. it has, on each occasion, when ordered, broken the enemy's strong lines. it has captured during this short campaign four siege guns protected by formidable works, six colors and many prisoners. it has proved itself worthy of its old wagner and fort sumter renown. "'much fatigue, patience and heroism, may still be demanded of it, but the major-general commanding is confident of the response. to the colored troops, recently added to us, and fighting with us, the major-general tenders his thanks for their uniform good conduct and soldierly bearing. they have set a good example to our veterans, by the entire absence of straggling from their ranks on the march. "'by order of maj.-gen. d. b. birney. "'e.w. smith, _lieutenant-colonel and assistant adjutant-general._' "the special correspondent of the new york _tribune_ said: "'gen. butler, in a dispatch to the tenth corps, on receiving official report of its work, said: 'all honor to the brave tenth corps; you have done more than was expected of you by the lieutenant-general.' "'the loss in the four colored regiments is about three hundred. the seventh u. s. c. t. on the first day, carried, with fixed bayonets, a line of rifle-pits, and carried it without a shot, but with a loss of . it was one of the most stirring and gallant affairs i have ever known'. "it began to rain in the afternoon and continued during the night and until nearly noon of the following day, th. during the afternoon of the th, orders were received to send all sick to the rear and be ready to withdraw quietly at dark. the movement began at p. m., both the second and tenth corps participating--the second corps and the cavalry returning to the petersburg line, and the tenth to the bermuda hundred front. the night was dark and the roads muddy, and after various delays the pontoons were crossed; and at a. m., the regiment went into camp near the spot it occupied the first night after its arrival in virginia. "an amusing incident occurred when we halted, after crossing the river. when the fires were lighted our line presented the appearance of a checker-board--alternate black and white men. the latter belonged to the second corps, and having straggled from their commands, and belonging to regiments with the same numbers, had fallen into our solid ranks by mistake. their astonishment and our amusement were about equal. capt. walker, having been asked if his men were all present, replied: 'yes, and about twenty recruits.' "thus ended a very hard week's work, during which the regiment was almost constantly under fire; marching, counter-marching, supporting a battery here or strengthening the line there--duties which required almost constant wakefulness and watchfulness. the losses of the brigade footed up some two hundred and fifty. "this movement, which had begun on the th by the withdrawal of the second corps, gen. hancock, and gregg's cavalry division, from the petersburg front to the north bank of the james, to act in conjunction with the tenth corps in an attempt to turn the left of the rebel line, proved as abortive as the similar attempt made by the same corps in the latter part of june; gen. lee, in both instances, seeming to have received timely information of our plans to enable him to transfer re-enforcements from the petersburg to the richmond front. the union losses during the movement have been estimated at five thousand. "sunday, the st, was a day of rest. the men put up shelter tents and made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow. gen. birney resumed command of the brigade and col. shaw returned to the regiment. about p. m. orders came to be ready to move during the night with one day's rations. moved out of camp at a. m., nd, and reported at maj.-gen. birney's headquarters, where, after remaining a short time, the regiment returned to camp. about p. m. orders were received to pack everything, and at the regiment marched to the front and went into the trenches near battery walker, (no. ), relieving a regiment of hundred-days' men, whose time had expired. "the d passed quietly. tents were pitched, and in the evening a dress-parade was held. lieut. mack returned to duty from absent sick. "line was formed at dawn on the th, and again about noon--rapid picket-firing in each instance rendering an attack probable. "about daybreak on the th, the enemy attacked toward the left, drove in our pickets--capts. weld and thayer in command--but were checked before reaching the main line. the regiment was placed in support of battery england (no. ). two men were wounded. "some changes in the division here took place--the twenty-ninth connecticut was transferred to another brigade, and the tenth u. s. c. t. to ours, and col. duncan was placed in command. "about noon ( th) packed up everything, crossed the appomattox, and after a fatiguing march through the heat and dust, reached the petersburg front a little before sunset and halted for orders. soon after dark moved to the left in a heavy rain squall, and lay down on a hillside as reserve to the troops in the trenches. at p. m. ordered to report to gen. terry. marched back a mile and reported. another mile's march in another direction brought the regiment, about a. m., to its position, where it lay down in the woods, again as a reserve. a rattling fire of musketry was kept up all night. "on the th, a camp was selected and had been partially cleared up, when orders were received for the regiment to go into the trenches. reported at brigade headquarters at sunset, and soon afterward, through the mud and darkness, the men silently felt their way into the trenches, which the rain had reduced to the condition of a quagmire. it was a slow process, and o'clock came before all were in their places. "during the following day ( th,) the parapet was raised and paths made through the muddier portions of the trenches. soon after dark a furious cannonade began which lasted for several hours, and afforded to the spectators on both sides a brilliant pyrotechnic display. "just after daybreak on the th, the enemy opened a heavy musketry fire which lasted until after sunrise. he did not leave his works, however, and our men remained stationary. a man of company b, while watching for a shot through a section of stove-pipe, which he had improvised into a port-hole, was struck and killed by a sharpshooter's bullet. "soon after midnight on the th- th, the regiment moved out of the trenches, and after daylight marched a quarter of a mile to the right and rear and went into camp in a cornfield. the men were at once put to work constructing bomb-proofs, as the position was within sight and range of the enemy's line. this occupied the entire day. "brig.-gen. birney's arrangement of the brigade did not seem to have given satisfaction to higher authority, and it was broken up, and the old brigade--seventh, eighth, ninth u. s. c. t., and twenty-ninth connecticut--were again united, with col. shaw in command. "from this time until the th of september, the seventh and eighth alternated with the ninth and twenty-ninth for duty in the trenches--two days in and two out; and on the 'off' days furnishing details of officers and men for fatigue purposes, in constructing new works and strengthening old ones. the main lines at this point were scarcely over a hundred yards apart, while from the advanced posts a stone could almost be thrown into the enemy's works, and it was considered the most disagreeable portion of the line. "during the evening of the th of september, there was a grand salute along the whole line, in honor of the fall of atlanta. at every battery the men stood at the guns, and when the monster mortar--"the petersburg express"--gave the expected signal, every lanyard was pulled. the effect was exceedingly grand. "at o'clock on the morning of the th, the regiment met with an irreparable loss in the death of capt. a. r. walker. capt. walker, who was at the time in the trenches, had raised his head above the parapet to observe the enemy's movements, when he was struck in the head by a bullet, and fell without speaking against the parapet. he was carried back and laid upon the ground in rear of the trench, but all efforts failed to elicit any token of recognition. he breathed for a few moments and life was extinct. his body was sent to the rear the same afternoon under charge of lieut. teeple, upon whom the command of his company devolved, who made the necessary arrangements for having it embalmed and forwarded to his friends at caledonia, new york. * * * * "on the th col. howell, who was commanding the division in the absence of gen. birney, who was absent sick, died of injuries received from a fall from his horse, and the command of the division devolved upon col. pond. col. howell was highly esteemed, and was a thorough gentleman and a good officer. "on the th, sergt. wilson, company f, color-sergeant, was reduced to the ranks for cowardice, and sergt. griffin, company b, appointed in his place. "on the st, capt. thayer resigned. "on the d, gen. birney returned and resumed command of the brigade; the division having been temporarily broken up by the withdrawal of troops, and col. shaw returned to the regiment. "on the d, companies b and c were detailed to garrison fort steadman. "on the evening of the th, the regiment was relieved from duty in the trenches by the sixty-ninth new york, and moving about two miles to the rear, went into camp with the remainder of the brigade--some four miles from city point. here regular drills and parades were resumed. "at p. m. on the th, camp was broken, and an hour later the brigade followed the two divisions of the corps on the road toward bermuda hundred. a tedious night-march followed, during which the north side of the james was reached by way of broadway and jones' landings. after an hour or two of rest on the morning of the th, the brigade moved forward as a support to the first division (paine's), the first brigade of which, under col. duncan, charged and carried the enemy's works on signal-hill, on the new market road, beyond the line of works taken by the seventh and ninth on the th of august.[ ] [see foot-note next page.] * * * the eighteenth corps at the same time charged and carried fort harrison and a long line of rebel works. soon after noon, while the brigade, which had been moving by the flank down the new market road, had halted in the road, orders came to form column of regiments, faced to the left, in the woods. scarcely had this been done when gen. wm. birney, commanding brigade, rode up to the right of the column and ordered the seventh to move off by the right flank. as it was crossing the mill road, col. shaw reached the head of the line and received from him the order to "form on the right by file into line, and charge and take the work that is firing," and adding, "if that work is taken when you reach it, push right on and take the next _before gen. foster can get there_." in the meantime the ninth had charged a work on the right and had been repulsed, and the commanding officer of the eighth had been ordered to send four companies deployed as skirmishers to take the work to the left, but when major wagner found how strong it was he halted his line and remained in advance as skirmishers. as the regiment was forming for the charge, behind the crest of a knoll, capt. bailey, gen. birney's adjutant-general, rode up to col. shaw with the order to send four companies deployed as skirmishers to 'attack and take the work that is firing.' col. shaw replied that he had orders to charge it with his regiment, to which capt. bailey answered, 'well, _now_ the general directs you to send four companies, deployed as skirmishers, to take the work.' lieut.-col. haskell, being absent on leave, and maj. mayer sick, companies c, d, g and k were placed under command of capt. weiss, who, when he received the order to charge, replied, 'what! take a fort with a skirmish line?' and then added, 'i will try, but it can't be done.' what followed can best be described by quoting his own words: "captain weiss says: 'i at once, about p. m., ordered the four companies on the right of the regiment, c, d, g and k, twenty-five or thirty paces to the front, where a slight depression in the ground secured them from the eyes, if not the projectiles, of the enemy. after being deployed by the flank on the right of the second company from the right, the command advanced in ordinary quick step against the objective point. emerging from the swale into view, it became at once the target for a seemingly redoubled fire, not only from the fort in front, but also from the one on _its_ right. the fire of the latter had been reported silenced, but instead, from its position to the left oblique, it proved even more destructive than that of the one in front. "'both forts were most advantageously situated for defense, at the extremity of a plain, variously estimated at from to yards wide, whose dead level surface afforded at no point shelter from view or shot to an assailing party. the forts were connected by a curtain of rifle-pits containing a re-entrant angle, thus providing for a reciprocal enfilading fire in case either was attacked. "'the nature of the ground and the small altitude of the ordnance above the level of the plain also made the fire in the nature of a ricochet. "'as the party advanced the enemy's shell and schrapnel were exchanged for grape and cannister, followed soon by a lively rattle of musketry. when within range of the latter, and after having traversed about three-fourths of the distance, the order to charge was given and obeyed with an alacrity that seemed to make the execution almost precede the order. for a moment, judging from the slacking of their fire, the enemy seemed to be affected by a panicky astonishment, but soon recovering, they opened again with cannister and musketry, which, at the shorter range, tore through the ranks with deadlier effect. capt. smith and lieut. prime, both of company g, here fell grievously wounded, while forty or fifty enlisted-men dotted the plain with their prostrate forms. "'in a few minutes the ditch of the fort was reached. it was some six or seven feet deep and ten or twelve wide, the excavated material sufficing for the embankments of the fort. some men and officers precipitated themselves into it, many losing their lives at its very edge. after a short breathing spell men were helped up the exterior of the parapet on the shoulders of others; fifty or sixty being thus disposed an attempt was made to storm the fort. at the signal nearly all rose, but the enemy, lying securely sheltered behind the interior slope, the muzzles of their guns almost touching the storming party, received the latter with a crushing fire, sending many into the ditch below shot through the brain or breast. several other attempts were made with like result, till at last forty or fifty of the assailants were writhing in the ditch or resting forever. "'the defense having been obviously re-enforced meanwhile from other points not so directly attacked, and having armed the gunners with muskets, it was considered impolitic to attempt another storm with the now greatly reduced force on hand, especially as the cessation of the artillery fire of the fort was considered a sufficient hint to the commander of the union forces that the attacking party had come to close quarters and were proper subjects for re-enforcements. no signs, however, of the latter appearing, it was decided to surrender, especially as the rebels had now commenced to roll lighted shells among the stormers, against which there was no defense, thus inviting demoralization. seven officers, capts. weiss and mccarty, lieuts. sherman, mack, spinney, ferguson and eler, and from seventy to eighty enlisted-men, delivered up their arms to an enemy gallant enough to have fought for a better cause. "'many, in mounting the parapet, could not help taking a last mournful look on their dead comrades in the ditch, whose soldierly qualities had endeared them to their best affections; and many, without for a moment selfishly looking at their own dark future, were oppressed with inexpressible sadness when reflecting on the immensity of the sacrifice and the deplorableness of the result. it was a time for manly tears.' "lieut. spinney gives the following account of the charge against fort gilmer: "'the charge was made in quick time, in open order of about three paces, until we could plainly see the enemy; then the order was given by capt. weiss to 'double-quick,' which was promptly obeyed, the line preserving its order as upon drill. upon arriving at the ditch there was no wavering, but every man jumped into the trap from which but one man returned that day (george w. washington, company d.) "'upon looking about us after getting into the ditch we found there was but one face where the enemy could not touch us, so all the survivors rallied at that face. then commenced a scene which will always be very fresh in my memory. "'capt. weiss gave orders to raise men upon the parapet, which was done by two men assisting one to climb. capt. weiss, having from thirty to forty men up, attempted to gain the inside of the fort, but he with all of his storming party were knocked back, either killed or wounded, into the ditch. a second attempt was made with the same result, lieut. ferguson being wounded by a bullet across the top of his head. a third attempt was made with no better success. "'the enemy during this time had been rolling shell upon us, and calling upon us to surrender, which was answered by some of the men in the words, 'we will show you how to surrender,' at the same time rising and firing into the fort. one of these men i remember to have been perry wallace, company d. "'upon a consultation of the officers who were in the ditch, it was decided to surrender what was left of the command. i was still upon the face of the parapet, when lieut. sherman passed me a handkerchief which i raised upon the point of my sword. but the rebels, fearing it was only done to gain a foothold, would not take notice of it, but called upon me to come in, which i did, and met with a warm reception at their hands, being plucked of all they could lay hands upon. an adjutant of an alabama regiment coming up, ordered his men to return to me what they had taken, but this was not done, however. i stated that our men had disarmed themselves and were ready to give up the hopeless struggle. still they would not believe me, but made me mount the parapet first, when they had the courage to do so themselves, when the remnant of the four companies marched into the fort. "'the march to richmond was one continued insult from the troops that were hurrying to the front; one man being determined to kill capt. weiss, whom he thought was not humble enough. the female portion of the inhabitants were also very insolent. "'upon arriving at libby prison the officer in charge asked the commander of our guard if the 'niggers' would fight. his answer was, 'by g--d! if you had been there you would have thought so. they marched up just as if they were on drill, not firing a shot.' "'after being lodged in libby, salisbury and danville prisons, we were returned to richmond about february th, paroled on the st, and reached our lines on the d.' "an article in the new york _herald_ of november th, , copied from a rebel newspaper, arguing for the arming of slaves, has in it the following passage: "'but a. b. says that negroes will not fight. we have before us a letter from a distinguished general (we wish we were at liberty to use his name and influence) who says 'fort gilmer proved the other day that they would fight. they raised each other on the parapet to be shot as they appeared above.' "the officer referred to was understood to be gen. lee. "after the four companies had disappeared in the ditch of the fort, capt. pratt, with company f, was ordered to move forward as near the work as he could get and keep down its fire and cover their retreat. capt. smith and lieut. prime came back, both severely wounded. later in the day companies a, b, e and i, under capt. spaulding, moved to the left and relieved the four companies of the eighth, who were out of ammunition. co. f lost two men killed and twenty-three wounded, and the four companies under capt. spaulding had eleven men killed and wounded. lieut. teeple, commanding company i, was wounded in the arm, but remained in command of his company during the day. "four companies annihilated, killed, wounded and missing tells the story of fort gilmer. "the regiment, or what was left of it, remained at the front until o'clock p. m., when the wounded were gathered together and it moved half a mile to the rear and slept on its arms. "this day proved the most unfortunate one in the history of the regiment. the storming of a strong field-work, whose garrison was on the alert, with a thin skirmish line without supports, resulted as could easily have been foreseen. first, the ninth was sent unsupported to charge a work to the left of fort gilmer, across an open field where its line was enfiladed by the enemy's fire, and was repulsed; then four companies of the eighth, as skirmishers, were sent against the same work, with no better success, and after this bitter experience, four companies of the seventh were sent to their destruction on an errand equally hopeless. had the brigade been sent together, instead of its three regiments in detail, the rebel line would have been carried and the road to richmond opened to us. this is no conjecture. the testimony of a rebel staff-officer on duty at fort gilmer, and that of our own officers who were captured, fully substantiate the statement. "about noon on the following day, the th, the regiment moved a mile to the left and went into the rifle-pits to the left of fort harrison. soon after, the rebel maj.-gen. field, who had commanded the ft. gilmer line the day previous, made a determined assault on fort harrison from one side, while hoke's division attacked on the other; but the attack was not made simultaneously and was repulsed with heavy loss. while this charge was being made, col. shaw was struck on the head by a rifle bullet, but was uninjured. the next morning the rebels opened their batteries on our line. during the cannonade, lieut. bjornmark was wounded in the foot by the fragment of a shell. "the following is the report of capt. weiss to the commanding officer of the regiment, announcing his arrival in richmond: "'libby prison, richmond, va., september , . "'_sir_:--i respectfully inform you that the following officers of the seventh u. s. c. t. are here, prisoners: capts. weiss and mccarty, lieuts. mack, sherman, eler, ferguson and spinney. lieut. ferguson and myself are wounded in the head, but doing well. "'please inform our friends of the above, and oblige, "'yours, on the part of my associates, "'julius a. weiss, "'_capt. seventh u. s. c. t._" "on the th of october, the regiment was relieved from duty in the trenches by the eight, and moving a short distance to the rear, went into camp near division headquarters. "on the th, gen. birney divided the regiments of his command into two brigades. the first brigade, composed of the seventh, ninth and one hundred and twenty-seventh, was placed under command of col. voris, of the sixty-seventh ohio, although each regiment had a colonel serving with it; and the second, composed of the eighth, twenty-ninth and forty-fifth, under lieut.-col. armstrong, of the ninth. capt. rice returned from sick-leave the same day and was assigned to the command of company a, his own company (k) having disappeared in the _melee_ of the th of september. "during the forenoon of the th, the enemy attacked in force on the right, driving in kautz's cavalry and capturing elder's battery of the first united states artillery, but was checked and driven back by the first division of the tenth corps. the regiment was moved to the right, and after changing positions several times, went into the trenches near the new market road. "on the afternoon of the th, orders came for the regiment to be ready to move in light marching order, and later it moved out about half of a mile to the front and right, and deployed two companies as skirmishers. shortly after dark it was withdrawn to the position it held earlier in the day. a cold rain was falling, and as the men were without overcoats, they suffered considerably. "about o'clock on the morning of the th, our own division (third), together with the first, moved out of camp and marched to the right until it reached the darbytown road. here it formed line, and advancing through the thick undergrowth finally lay down in front of the enemy's works to await developments. at o'clock the first division, which, with the cavalry, had gone to the right, charged the enemy's line, but failed to break it and had to withdraw with considerable loss. about noon the regiment relieved the eighth on the skirmish line. capt. dickey, of the eighth, was killed during the movement. here it remained until about o'clock, when, the remainder of the division having been withdrawn, it fell back covering the movement of the corps and returned to its old camp on the new market road. * * * "the regiment remained in camp until the th, furnishing in the meantime a large picket detail, together with details for fatigue, employed in the construction of earthworks, abattis, etc. on this date col. voris was relieved from command of the brigade by col. shaw, lieut.-col. haskell taking command of the regiment. "on the evening of this day orders were received for the regiment to be ready to move on the following morning, with three days' cooked rations, and in light marching order. at a. m. we moved out of camp and took the road toward the right. the eighteenth, as well as our own corps, was in motion. the orders were for the tenth corps to threaten the enemy's line near the darbytown road, while the eighteenth moving by the rear to the right, was to strike their left flank. if they weakened their line in its front, the tenth corps was to advance. the whole movement being made to cover the advance of the army of the potomoc against the rebel lines covering hatcher's run and the boydtown plank-road. "marching about two miles to the right we struck the darbytown road, when line of battle was formed to the left, and moved forward through the woods, and, in places, almost impassable undergrowth--the seventh having the left of the division as well of the line. our ears were soon greeted with the scattering fire of our skirmish line, interspersed by the crashing of an occasional shell through the tree-tops. after an advance of half a mile the division halted to await the result of the attack on the right. the irregular skirmish fire soon swelled out into long, heavy volleys, deepened by the hoarser notes of the artillery. from a. m. until p. m. we lay and listened to this concert of diabolical sounds, momentarily expecting the order would be passed along the line to advance. about a. m. it began to rain, which continued until far into the night. at p. m. we fell back out of the woods, behind an old line of rebel rifle-pits, and bivouacked for the night near kell's house. "at o'clock the following morning we were ordered in to relieve the twenty-ninth on the picket-line. the clouds had cleared away and the air was keen and cold. we felt our way through the dense, dripping undergrowth to the musical accompaniment of rebel bullets singing above our heads. by daybreak we were in position along the edge of a belt of woods, something less than a quarter of a mile from the rebel works. their skirmishers kept up a lively fire all through the forenoon, and as a consequence we lost some thirty odd men, killed and wounded, from their fire. about p. m. orders were given to fall back, but through some misunderstanding, the two companies holding the extreme left of the line failed to receive the order, and held their ground until their retreat was nearly cut off by the rebel advance, when they fell back without orders, meeting on their way the remainder of the brigade coming to their rescue. the same evening the troops returned to their camps. "here ended our fighting for the fall. * * * "on the th, gen. birney returned and relieved gen. hawley in command of the division, which he had held during the absence of the former in philadelphia, where he had gone about the st to attend the funeral of his brother, maj.-gen. d. b. birney. col. shaw was placed permanently in command of the first brigade, and col. wright, tenth u. s. c. t., of the second. "about the th, a general order was received from gen. butler thanking capt. weiss and the officers under him for their gallant conduct on the th, and saying that their absence in prison alone prevented their promotion. "on the st of november, the division was reviewed by gen. birney, and the proclamation of the governor of maryland, announcing the adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in that state, was read to the command. this paper, which conveyed to the men the knowledge that their wives and children were no longer slaves, produced an effect more easily imagined than described. * * * * "on the th, capt. cheney and lieut. teeple, with companies h and i, were detached from the regiment to garrison fort 'no. ,' at spring hill--a work on the right flank of the army of the james--where they remained until the th of december. "on the st of december, the reorganization of the tenth and eighteenth corps was determined upon. the white troops of the two corps were consolidated and formed the twenty-fourth corps, under gen. foster; and the colored troops of the ninth, tenth and eighteenth corps, with other colored troops not assigned, formed the twenty-fifth corps, under gen. weitzel. its three divisions were commanded by gens. wild, birney and paine, respectively. the first brigade of birney's division was made up of the seventh, one hundred and ninth, one hundred and sixteenth and one hundred and seventeenth, under col. shaw. the forty-first forty-fifth and one hundred and twenty-seventh had at different times been attached to the brigade--_to learn our ways_, as they said at headquarters. eventually, however, the one hundred and fifteenth was substituted for the one hundred and seventeenth in the brigade. "on the th, a general re-assignment of positions was made. the seventh moved from the new market road to fort burnham (harrison), which was garrisoned by the first brigade. the second brigade, under doubleday, was on our right, and the third on our left. the second brigade joined the twenty-fourth corps, near the new market road, and paine's division was on our left and extended to the river. the other division was in reserve to the rear. the seventh was under command of lieut.-col. pratt, and so remained during the remainder of our stay in virginia." the prolonged but decisive struggle began to draw near. general grant had pushed the troops nearer and closer, at every opportunity, to the beleaguered cities, until they were well-nigh completely invested. general sherman's splendid victories influenced the veteran corps lying before these places, and filled them with the spirit of sure success. the intrepid commander, having reached north carolina, visited grant at the latter's headquarters at city point, where he also found president lincoln, and received their congratulations for his successful march to the sea, which achievement had not been surpassed by any of the undertakings of either hannibal or bonaparte in point of daring and strategy. an important conference then took place, and on the th of march sherman returned to his command. [illustration: govrnt. blacksmiths' shop] grant throughout the winter had been preparing for the spring campaign. the phalanx regiments heretofore in the th, th and th corps had been consolidated, and formed the th corps, under the command of major-general godfrey weitzel, who at new orleans refused to command negro troops. the corps was divided into three divisions, with brigadier-generals wilde, birney and paine as commanders. major-general ord had succeeded to the command of the army of the james, then numbering about , effective men, and was to take part with three divisions of his command in the onward movement to commence on the th of march, while weitzel was to command the remainder of the troops north of the james and at bermuda hundreds. lee, as though he had knowledge of grant's intention and meant to frustrate his plans by taking the initiative, attacked the th corps at fort steadman on the th, with signal success. he was finally repulsed, however, and grant began moving the union troops. on the morning of the th, general birney with the nd division of the th corps was near hatcher's run, with general ord's command. the division consisted of three brigades of phalanx infantry, commanded by colonels james shaw, jr., ulysses doubleday and william w. woodward. a brigade of artillery commanded by captain louis l. langdon was attached to the corps; but, owing to the country being wooded, it was of little use, and most of it was left on the north side with general weitzel. on the same day sheridan reached dinwiddie, and the next morning he encountered the confederates near the court house. here were w. h. f. lee's cavalry, picket's and bushrod johnson's divisions of infantry, and wise's brigade. sheridan made the attack. his men, on account of the marshy ground, had to dismount. the confederates fought desperately, but sheridan's men contested every inch of ground, and at night fell back to dinwiddie court house and bivouacked. the th corps came up during the night to attack the confederates in the rear; but at daylight it was found that they had fallen back to five forks. here was found the cavalry of w. h. f. lee and fitzhugh lee, with ross', picket's, wise's and johnson's divisions of infantry. on the morning of the st of april, sheridan advanced the th corps toward five forks. that afternoon it fell upon picket's rear, and now began the decisive battle. the roar was deafening. night was coming on, and sheridan was anxious to carry out grant's order and "end the matter if possible to do so." he gave the order, "charge bayonets!" in five minutes picket's outer line was in possession of the federals. crawford's division struck them in the flank, and, with mckenzie's brigade, routed and sent the confederates flying. the th corps rallied and captured the enemy's entire force in their front. general sheridan says in report: [illustration: "you must throw away that cigar, sir!" a phalanx guard refusing to allow general u. s. grant to pass by the commissary store-house till he had thrown away his cigar.] "the enemy were driven from their strong line of works, completely routed, the fifth corps doubling up their left flank in confusion, and the cavalry of general merritt dashing on to the white oak road, capturing their artillery, turning it upon them, and riding into their broken ranks, so demoralized them that they made no serious stand after their line was carried, but took flight in disorder." the writer well remembers the eagerness of the phalanx brigade of colonel shaw, composed of the th, th and th regiments, as they waited orders near hatcher's run. the sound of distant guns fell upon their ears; colonel shaw was impatient; all seemed to feel the end was near, and wanted to lend a hand in the consummation. oh, what suspense! the brigade lay upon their arms in a state of great agitation, all that night, waiting for orders to advance upon the foe. who can tell the thoughts of those brave black soldiers as thus they lay upon the rumbling earth. fathers, mothers, sisters, wives and children, yet slaves, behind the enemy's guns: precious property they are, and guarded like dearest treasure and even life itself, by an army of slave-holders--lee's men, who, with the desperation of demons, vainly attempted to check the advance of the men of the north, who, with their lives, defended the union. the black brigade wanted to strike one more blow for freedom--for the freedom of their wives and children--to make one more charge, and the confederate banner should go down; one more charge, and the light of liberty's stars should blazon over the ramparts of the confederate forts. at length, with the dawning of day, came the order; then the black brigade went forward, but to find the enemy gone and their works deserted. the confederate lines were broken, and sheridan's troopers, mckenzie and merritt, with their cavalry, although it was night, had followed up the fleeing foe, capturing them by thousands. the brigade pushed on along the captured works. the federal batteries, from every mound and hill, were showering shot and shell into the enemy's inner works; while the gleaming bayonets of the thousands of infantry could be seen as far as the eye could reach, their proud banners kissing the stifling air, and the bugles sounding the "forward march," leaving in their rear smoking camps and blazing dwellings. what a sunday morning was that, with its thunders of terrific war, instead of the mellow chimes of church bells and the repose of peace. it was late in the afternoon, and huge, black clouds of smoke rolled up out of the city of petersburg, and then a loud report, told that the confederates had evacuated it. away to the left, the huzzas of colonel doubleday's phalanx brigade ( nd) were heard. now came a race to reach the city, between the th and th phalanx regiments. no matter which was first, they were among the troops which took possession of the city, and gladdened the hearts of the negro population, as they marched through the streets singing their battle song: "we will hang jeff davis on a sour apple-tree as we go marching on." it was a glorious victory, bringing freedom to thousands of slaves, though it cost as many lives and millions of treasure. it was the beginning of the end. the confederates deserted their army by thousands. the south side railroad was in the hands of the federals, and starvation threatened the enemy. lee, says a historian, was no longer himself: he rode wildly through his camps hither, and thither, trying to save his shattered and routed soldiers from annihilation. the defeat at five forks settled the fate of the army of north virginia. grant had almost the entire federal army actively engaged; he stopped the exchange of prisoners, invited president lincoln, then at city point, to come out and see the army advance, which he did. he met grant in the city of petersburg, amid the exultations of the troops and the joyous demonstrations of the negro population. general lee made no stop at richmond; he had informed jefferson davis that he must give up the city. the latter, with his aids and all the money he could collect,--not the confederate paper, but the gold of the united states,--stampeded. general weitzel, with kautz's division of the th corps and thomas' and ashborne's division of the th corps, on the north side of the james river, lay quietly upon their arms during the fight on the south side. grant kept weitzel informed as to the results of the attack, and warned him to be on the alert and take every advantage offered, to press the confederates. general longstreet's forces had been in weitzel's front, but were partly withdrawn to defend petersburg; therefore the latter kept unceasing vigil upon the fortifications before him. sunday evening the bands were ordered out to play, and it was late into the night when their melodious strains ceased to float through the air. it was a night long to be remembered, the hearts of the black soldiers of the th corps, gladdened by the reports of the victories of the troops before petersburg, were jubilant, and with vigilant watch each looked for morning. they were impatient for the light, and ere it dawned they were ready for the onset which they believed must come with it. the enemy whom they supposed were preparing to give them battle, was silently stealing away to the enchanting strains of the federal musicians. it was near the morning hours when a sudden report startled the sleeping soldiers; an explosion, another, and yet another followed in rapid succession. general weitzel soon became satisfied that the enemy was moving, the continuous sound of distant cannonading away to the south, told that the combat still raged. from the signal tower bright lights were discernable at richmond. the city appeared to be on fire; a confederate picket was captured, but he knew nothing; he had got astray from his comrades and command. a deserter came in with intelligence that the city was being evacuated, and half an hour later a negro drove into camp and gave information that the enemy was flying. the ground in front was thickly set with torpedoes, and the troops dared not move. day came and colonel draper's black brigade of the th corps went forward. the road was lumbered with all manner and sort of military gear and munitions of war. keeping clear of the red flags which marked the torpedoes, the troops pushed on; they soon reached the defences of the city to find them untenanted; the negro had told the truth and the phalanx brigade entered the city welcomed by thousands of happy kinsfolks. badeau says: "the sun was an hour up, when suddenly there rose in the streets the cry of 'yankees! yankees!' and the mass of plunderers and rioters, cursing, screaming, trampling on each other, alarmed by an enemy not yet in sight, madly strove to extricate themselves and make an opening for the troops. soon about forty men of the fourth massachusetts cavalry rode into the crowd, and, trotting straight to the public square, planted their guidons on the capitol. lieutenant de peyster, of weitzel's staff, a new yorker eighteen years of age, was the first to raise the national colors, and then, in the morning light of the d of april, the flag of the united states once more floated over richmond. "the command of weitzel followed--a long blue line--with gun-barrels gleaming, and bands playing 'hail columbia' and 'john brown's soul goes marching on.' one regiment was black.[ ] the magistrates formally surrendered the city to weitzel at the capitol, which stands on a hill in the centre of the town, and overlooks the whole country for miles. the national commander at once set about restoring order and extinguishing the flames. guards were established, plundering was stopped, the negroes were organized into a fire corps, and by night the force of the conflagration was subdued, the rioting was at an end, and the conquered city was rescued by the efforts of its captors from the evils which its own authorities had allowed, and its own population had perpetrated." [illustration: receiving the president. abraham lincoln riding through richmond, april th, , after the evacuation of the city by the confederates.] lee and his famishing host were fleeing towards danville, hotly pursued by the federal army. resting there until the th they resumed the march, fighting and running, until, at appomattox they gave up and surrendered. major alexandria s. johnson of the th phalanx regiment thus relates the story in part which the phalanx brigade took in the memorable movement of the two armies to appomattox. he says: "as a participant in these events i will speak merely of what came under my own observation. the one hundred and sixteenth (colored) infantry, in which i commanded a company, belonged to the third brigade, second division of the twenty-fifth army corps, and during the winter of - held the lines on chapin's farm, the left resting on fort burnham. the division was commanded by major-general birney. the winter was passed in endeavoring to get the troops in as high a state of discipline as possible by constant drill and watchful training. when the spring opened we had the satisfaction of feeling that they were the equal, as soldiers, of most of the white troops. they were a contented body, being well fed and clothed, and they took delight in their various duties. the news of the capture of savannah by sherman and the defeat of hood at nashville had a cheering effect upon the whole command, and we looked forward with confidence that the end was drawing near. "on the night of the th of march our division silently left the lines on chapin's farm, and marching to the rear some three miles went into bivouac. on the night of the th we crossed the james on muffled pontoons, and after a weary march arrived at hatcher's run at daybreak of the th. crossing the original lines of breastworks we built new breastworks some two hundred yards in advance and bivouacked in the pine woods awaiting events. sheridan at this time was operating on the confederate right flank. the news of his decisive victory at five forks and of the complete turning of the enemy's flank was the immediate cause of a verbal order, given to company commanders by our colonel on the afternoon of april st, to advance on the lines in our front at dawn on the following day. that night the union artillery opened along the whole line. hissing and bursting shells from appomattox river to hatcher's run filled in a scene never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. it was as if demons incarnate were holding a jubilee. as far as the eye could reach there was one blaze of fiery shot. the world has seldom seen its like. where our brigade was to operate was a dense wilderness of pines with matted underbrush, but in the morning it looked as though a sirocco had kissed it. "with the dawn of day the brigade was in line of battle. not a breath of air was stirring. a misty vapor shed its gloom and hung like a pall among the tree-tops. the silk covers were taken from our flags, but their folds hung lazily along the staff when the command, 'forward! guide centre! march!' was given. at first slashed timber and brush obstructed our way, but as the obstruction began to cease an obstacle in the shape of a long line of abattis met our gaze. the dusky line broke through the abattis, however, as if the stakes had been so many reeds, and charged over the breastworks and into the confederate camp. the rush must have been a surprise, as the enemy offered little resistance. in front of one of the tents a federal sergeant (white) lay dead, his right arm extended to the full length, and firmly clenched in his hand was a piece of fancy soap. a bullet had entered his forehead, the blood from the wound was trickling down his face, but the hue of health was still on his cheek. how he came to be there is to me a mystery, as that part of the line was forced by colored troops. swinging by the right flank we kept our way along the boydton road. a confederate light battery in position alongside of a cottage, which stood in a hollow, shelled the column as it advanced, and so accurate had the gunners got the range that almost every shell did damage. a couple of shells burst together above my company. the flash blinded me for a few seconds. i heard a scream of pain and just then was ordered to lie down. not twenty yards from me was a wounded soldier. his leg was shattered badly. he prayed and sang hymns alternately, but his voice gradually grew weaker until it ended in death. one of our batteries was brought into position, and engaging the confederate battery, the latter was silenced, when the column again resumed the march, arriving in front of petersburg about noon. "it was the intention of general birney to carry by assault the main fort which commanded the city, and he deployed the division in line of battle for that purpose, but general ord, coming up in time, ordered him to retire his division out of range and await further orders. we went into bivouac for the night, and at early dawn of the d we entered the city, the confederates having evacuated the forts during the night. the field music played "john brown's body," and a tiny union flag in the hands of a girl of ten years waved us a welcome. resting an hour in the city the division started in pursuit of the confederates. for a mile or two outside of the city the road was strewn with plug tobacco. blood could be seen also at intervals in patches along the road. we bivouacked some fifteen miles from the city. a few of our officers took supper in a house close to our camping ground. our fare was "corn pone," scraps of bacon, sorghum molasses, and a solution of something called coffee, for which we each gave our host, a middle-aged virginian, one dollar. the colored troops being encamped on his farm his indignation was stirred and he exclaimed, while the tears trickled down his cheeks, 'poor old virginia! poor old virginia! that i should have lived to see this day!' "at dawn of the th the column resumed the pursuit. it is needless for me to tell in detail how our cavalry destroyed and burned over five hundred confederate wagons on the th and th, and how ewell's command was defeated and captured at sailor's creek on the th. our brigade having arrived at farmville on the afternoon of the th and encamped for the night, some of the citizens poured forth pitiful tales to our officers. they told how our cavalry had entered their houses and ripped open their feather beds, how the rude troopers had broken open bureaus and chests in search of valuables, and how they had carried away with them what they could find. nothing of interest took place until the th, which was noted for the forced march made by the brigade, starting at daybreak and going into bivouac at twelve midnight. the morning of the th broke calm and serene. it was a lovely morning, the sun had not yet gotten above the horizon when the brigade was on the march again, but it went only a short distance when it was halted. to the right of the road, in a clearing, was a portion of the twenty-fourth corps, with arms stacked and the men cooking breakfast. sides of bacon at intervals hung from their bayonets. although the woods were full of our cavalry and three divisions of our infantry were in close proximity, all was as quiet as a sabbath morning. one of our batteries, some six hundred yards to the right, broke the stillness by fitfully throwing a shell once in a while, but to a looker-on all seemed inaction. such was the situation at appomattox at sunrise on the morning of the th. "our brigade, after resting some thirty minutes, resumed the march. it soon filed to the right. in a few minutes the command was given--'right shoulder, shift arms! double quick, march!' onward we went, the objective point being the lynchburg pike. dismounted cavalry retreating from the front broke through the column, saying as they passed us, 'give it to them, boys! they are too many for us!' in a few minutes the head of the column reached the pike, when it halted and faced to the front. the command--'unsling knapsacks!'--was given, and then we knew we were stripping for a fight. skirmishers were deployed on our front, and as we advanced the confederate skirmishers retired before us. after advancing some eight hundred yards the brigade was ordered to halt and form in line of battle. it formed into column of companies. some eight hundred yards away was the army of northern virginia, with its three lines of battle awaiting us. "we had not been at a halt more than twenty minutes when the news of lee's surrender reached us. our brigade celebrated the event by firing volleys of musketry in the air. officers hugged each other with joy. about four hundred yards to the rear was a portion of the twenty-fourth corps, which had been marching to our support. the men in that long line threw their caps upwards until they looked like a flock of crows. from wood and dale came the sound of cheers from thousands of throats. appomattox will never hear the like again. the brigade moved forward a short distance and went into camp some three hundred yards from the confederate camp. in the afternoon i strolled over the ground we had traversed in the morning. i came across the body of a dead confederate soldier, covered with a blanket. some one had taken the shoes from his feet. uncovering him i found that a shot had pierced his right breast. his white cotton shirt was matted with blood. a small bag was attached to the button-hole of his jacket. undoing the bag i found it contained sixty ounces of corn meal. he was not over twenty-six years of age, and was of fair complexion. who knows but he was the last soldier who fell belonging to the army of northern virginia?" it was palm sunday, celebrated by many of the followers of christ as the day of his triumphal entrance into jerusalem, a day of great rejoicing among christians, known in our annual calendar as the th day of april, . the morning broke clear and bright in the neighborhood of appomattox court house, and there was every evidence of spring. the birds chirped in the trees half clad with the early foliage, which trembled in the soft breeze. along the roadside yet untrod by the hostile feet of man or steed, the tiny floweret buds had begun to open to the warmth of genial nature, and the larger roses, red and white, cast their fragrance to the lingering winds. here the half clad, sore footed soldiers of the army of northern virginia, were trembling with dread impatience for the onset,--the inevitable--which would decide their fate and their prospect of reaching the mountains just beyond. in front of them the federal cavalry awaited their coming. it was yet grey in the morning when general lee sent word to his lieutenant gordon to cut his "_way through at all hazards_." with the impetuosity of a cyclone, his shattered corps rushed upon the dismounted cavalry in their front, the federal line quivered, and bent to the gale. on and on they came, pressing closer and closer upon the cavalry. the struggle was becoming desperate, it was the last hope of the confederates they must go through the lines, or perish in the attempt. again the confederate yell rose above the din of the battle's roar, and soon the cavalry fell back. where was their leader sheridan? he came, galloping at break-neck speed, his men cheering him as he rode to the front. he had been to the rear some five miles away. he saw at a glance the daring object of the foe, and ordered his men to fall back slowly. the confederates followed up the wavering line with brightened hopes, but hopes that were to be dissipated; soon the bristling bayonets, and glistening musket barrels of the army of the james gleamed in their front; then the pressure ceased, and sheridan's bugle sounded the order to mount, and his troopers dashed themselves against the enemy's left flank. then, one bearing a white flag--a flag of truce, rode to the front of the confederate lines. capt. j. d. cook of general mile's staff went forward to meet him. it was colonel taylor of general lee's staff; he bore a note from lee, asking a suspension of hostilities, and an interview with general grant. now let us go back to the night of the th, and trace the flying columns to this point. badeau says: "that night once more the rebels evacuated their works, this time in front of meade, and when morning dawned were far on their way, as they fondly thought, to lynchburg, and lee defiantly informed his pursuer that the emergency for the surrender had not yet arrived. but he reckoned without his host. he was stretching, with the terrific haste that precedes despair, to appomattox for supplies. he need hardly have hastened to that spot, destined to be so fatal to himself and his cause. grant's legions were making more haste than he. the marvelous marching, not only of sheridan, but of the men of the fifth and twenty-fourth corps, was doing as much as a battle to bring the rebellion to a close. twenty-eight, thirty-two, thirty-five miles a day in succession these infantry soldiers marched, all day and all night. from daylight until daylight again, after more than a week of labor and fatigue almost unexampled, they pushed on to intercept their ancient adversary, while the remainder of the army of the potomac was at his heels. "finally lee, still defiant, and refusing to treat with any view of surrender, came up to his goal, but found the national cavalry had reached the point before him, and that the supplies were gone. still he determined to push his way through, and with no suspicion that men on foot could have marched from rice's station to his front in thirty hours, he made his last charge, and discovered a force of infantry greater than his own before him, besides cavalry, while two corps of the army of the potomac were close in his rear. he had run straight into the national lines. he was enclosed, walled in, on every side, with imminent instant destruction impending over him. he instantly offered to submit to grant, and in the agony of alarm, lest the blow should fall, he applied to meade and sheridan also for a cessation of hostilities. thus in three directions at once he was appealing to be allowed to yield. at the same moment he had messengers out to sheridan, meade, and grant. the emergency, whose existence he had denied, had arrived. he was out-marched, out-fought, out-witted, out-generaled--defeated in every possible way. he and his army, every man, numbering , , surrendered. he and his army, every man, was fed by the conqueror." from the date of lee's surrender, the confederates, from virginia to the mississippi, began to lay down their arms. howell cobb surrendered at macon, ga., on the st; johnston surrendered to general sherman on the th, in north carolina; dick taylor, east of the mississippi, on the th of may, and on the th kirby smith surrendered his forces west of the mississippi. jeff. davis had been captured, disguised as a woman, and thus the cause, which originated in treason, based on the enslavement of a race, and which derived its only chance of success from men who were false to their oaths, collapsed. the mightiest blow given the confederacy was struck by the immortal proclamation of emancipation, giving freedom to four millions of slaves; more than two hundred thousand of whom, with dash and gallantry excelled by no other race, tore down the traitor's banner from their deemed impregnable breastworks and planted in its stead the national flag. that emblem, whose crimson folds, re-baptised in the blood of liberty's martyrs, invited all men, of all races, who would be free, to gather beneath the effulgent glare of its heaven-lighted stars, regardless of color, creed or condition. the phalanx nobly bore their part all through the long night of war, and at last they occupied charleston,--the traitors' nest,--petersburg,--their eastern gibraltar,--and richmond--their capitol. they marched proudly through the streets of these once impregnable fortresses, in all of which many of the soldiers of the phalanx had been slaves. oh! what a realization of the power of right over might. what a picture for the historian's immortal pen to paint of the freemen of america, whose sufferings were long, whose struggle was gigantic, and whose achievement was a glorious personal and political freedom! at the close of the war, the government, anticipating trouble in texas, ordered general steele to the command of the rio grande, under these instructions: "washington, may st, . "maj. gen. f. steele, commanding rio grande expedition. "by assignment of the president, gen. sheridan takes general command west of the arkansas. it is the intention to prosecute a vigorous campaign in that country, until the whole of texas is re-occupied by people acknowledging allegiance to the government of the united states. sheridan will probably act offensively from the red river. but it is highly important that we should have a strong foothold upon the rio grande. you have been selected to take that part of the command. in addition to the force you take from mobile bay, you will have the th corps and the few troops already in southern texas. "any directions you may receive from gen. sheridan, you will obey. but in the absence of instructions from him you will proceed without delay to the mouth of the rio grande and occupy as high up that river as your force and means of supplying will admit of. "your landing will probably have to be made at brazos, but you will learn more fully upon that matter on your arrival. we will have to observe a strict neutrality towards mexico, in the french and english sense of the word. your own good sense and knowledge of international law, and experience of policy pursued towards us in this war teaches you what will be proper. "signed, u. s. grant, _lieutenant-general._ "official: signed, geo. k. leet, a. a. g." in the meantime general grant sent the following dispatches to generals halleck and weitzel: "washington, may th, , . p. m., "major-general h. w. halleck, richmond va. "please direct major-general weitzel commanding th army corps to get his corps in readiness for embarkation at city point immediately upon the arrival of ocean transportation. he will take with him forty ( ) days rations for twenty thousand men, one-half of his land transportation and one-fourth of his mules with the requisite amount of forage for his animals. all surplus transportation and other public property he may have he will turn over to the depots at city point. "by command of lieutenant-general grant. "signed, john a. rawlins, "_brigadier-general and chief of staff._ "official. signed, george k. leet, a. a. g." * * * * * "washington, may st, . "major-general g. weitzel, commanding th a. c. "as soon as your corps is embarked you will proceed with it to mobile bay, ala., and report to major-general steele for further orders. "in addition to rations, ammunition, and other articles which you have received directions to take with you, you should take a fair quantity of intrenching tools. "signed, u. s. grant, _lieutenant-general._ "official, signed, george k. leet, a. a. g." on the th of may the th corps began embarking for texas by way of mobile bay. the troops, however, occupied texas but a short time, the confederate forces there surrendering upon the same terms as those of general lee. all fears having been dissipated, the troops were slowly mustered out of the united states service. the men returned to their wonted fields of labor to provide for their long-neglected families, upon a new career of peace and happiness, rising, phoenix like, from the ashes of slavery to join the phalanx of industry in upbuilding the greatness of their country, which they had aided in saving from desolation and ruin. such is the history of the negro in the wars of the united states. coming to its shores in the condition of slavery, it required more than two centuries for the entire race to reach the estate of freedom. but the imperishable records of their deeds show that however humble and despised they have been in all political and social relations they have never been wanting in patriotism at periods of public peril. their devotion has been not only unappreciated, but it has failed to receive a fitting commemoration in pages of national history. it has been the purpose of the writer of this volume to relate herein the patriotic career of the negro race in this country in an authentic and connected form. in the time to come the race will take care of itself. slavery is ended, and now they are striking off link by link the chains of ignorance which the servitude of some and the humility of all imposed upon them. if the past is the story of an oppressed race, the future will reveal that of one uprisen to great opportunities, which they will improve from generation to generation, and guard with the same vigilance that they will the liberties and boundaries of the land. footnotes: [ ] the reader will bear in mind that there were several changes in the command of these troops during the campaign, on account of promotions, but the troops remained in the department and army of the james. see roster, for changes. [ ] the phalanx at new market heights.[a] "on the th of september, , gen. grant ordered gen. butler to cross the james river, at two points, and attack the enemy's line of work, in the centre of which was fort harrison; on the left, at new market heights, was a very strong work, the key of the enemy's flank on the north side of the river. it was a redoubt built on the top of a hill of some considerable elevation, then running down into a marsh. in that marsh was a brook--then rising again to a plain, which gently rolled toward the river. on that plain, when the flash of dawn was breaking, butler placed a column of the black phalanx," [which consisted of the th, th, th and nd cavalry regts.], "numbering three thousand, in close column, by division, right in front with guns at 'right shoulder shift.' the center of the line was given to the eighteenth corps composed of white troops, under gen. ord, and they drove the enemy from a very strong work, capturing several pieces of cannon. "gen. butler had been severely criticised by officers of the regular army for organizing twenty-five regiments of negroes. 'why.' said they, 'they will not fight' in contradiction of this assertion butler made up his mind to prove the worth and value of the black phalanx. notwithstanding their gallantry at petersburg and on the fredericksburg road, the metal of the th corps of the army of the james was to be tried; so butler took command of the phalanx himself with a determination to set at rest forever the question of the fighting capacity of a portion of his command. addressing the phalanx, he said, pointing to the works on the enemy's flank, 'those works must be taken by the weight of your column; not a shot must be fired. in order to prevent them from firing he had the caps taken from the nipples of their guns. 'when you charge.' he said, 'your cry will be 'remember fort pillow.' "'twas in the early grey of the morning, ere the sun had risen. the order 'forward' set the column in motion, and it went forward as if on parade--down the hill, across the marsh, and as the column got into the brook they came within range of the enemy's fire, which was vigorously opened upon them. the column broke a little, as it forded the brook, it wavered! what a moment of intense anxiety? but they formed again, as they reached the firm ground, marching on steadily with close ranks under the enemy's fire until the head of the column reached the first line of abatis, some one hundred and fifty yards from the enemy's work. then the axemen ran to the front to cut away the heavy obstacles of defense while one thousand men of the enemy with their artillery concentrated poured from the redoubt a heavy fire upon the head of the column of fours. the axemen went down under that murderous fire; other strong black hands grasped the axes in their stead and the abatis was cut away. again, at double-quick, the column went forward to within fifty yards of the fort, to meet there another line of abatis. the column halted and there a very fire of hell was poured upon them. the abatis resisted and held the head of the column which literally melted away under the rain of shot and shell; the flags of the leading regiments went down, but a brave black hand seized the colors. they were soon up again and waved their starry light over the storm of battle. again the axemen fell, but strong hands and willing hearts seized the heavy sharpened trees and dragged them away, and the column rushed forward and with a shout that rang out above the roar of artillery went over the redoubt like a flash, and the enemy did not stop running within four miles, leaving the phalanx in possession of their deemed impregnable work, cannons and small arms. the autocrats of the regular army could croak no longer about the negro soldiers not fighting. "this gallantry of the phalanx won for them and the negro race the admiration of the man who supported jeff davis and the slave power in the charleston convention in . ten years after this splendid victory of the phalanx, in support of their civil rights, general butler then a member of congress, made an eloquent appeal in behalf of the equal civil rights of the negro race. in it he referred to the gallant charge of the phalanx. he said: "it became my painful duty to follow in the track of that charging column, and there, in a space not wider than the clerk's desk and three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of five hundred and forty-three of my colored comrades, fallen in defense of their country, who had offered up their lives to uphold its flag and its honor, as a willing sacrifice: and as i rode along among them, guiding my horse this way and that way, lest he should profane with his hoofs what seemed to me the sacred dead, and as i looked on their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun, as if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the country for which they had given their lives, whose flag had only been to them a flag of stripes, on which no star of glory had ever shone for them--feeling i had wronged them in the past and believing what was the future of my country to them--among my dead comrades there, i swore to myself a solemn oath--'may my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof my mouth, if i ever fail to defend the rights of those men who have given their blood for me and my country that day and for their race forever, and god helping me, i will keep that oath." * * * * * "new market heights.[b] "'freedom their battle cry, freedom or leave to die.'--_boker._ at new market heights, there afric's lineage stood, and poured out copiously its best blood; of them i would sing, my lyre's restrung, and allures not diffidently to the song, paternal muse with thy patriot valor reign supreme, and the brightness of ages regain, in the deep recess of the past lower me, to where the battle's blast has been given to oblivion, the sigh of dying patriots let greet me nigh. and my thoughts waft on memory's wing, to where their charging shouts yet ring. if mine the task indulgent muse vouchsafed, whilst i commune 'mongst bones that paved, and flesh that bridged the chasm o'er, where butler numbered five hundred and more of afric's sons, who for liberty fell. in the corridors of a stockaded hell. i'll essay their deeds of valor done, by which the nation its victory won. 'twas early in the grey september morn, ere the suns fulgent light had shown, whilst departed patriots looked out from above, emitting their twinkling silvery light of love, upon the silent bivouac of freedom's sons, weary and resting upon their bayonetless guns; quite near the bank of the james, just above where their own fathers' names, were first enrolled as ignoble slaves. _the second brigade_, valiant men and braves, saw a meteor like rocket burst high, high up in the dewey morning sky. then came the summons prepare to away, butler leads to new market heights at day. beat the long roll, sound the alarm, break the monotone and the dead calm, and the bugle's clarion notes aroused, awoke, the host that waited ere day broke; infantry, cavalry prepared to make away, butler leads to new market heights at day. from rank to rank the summons ran, bayonets rattle and clank of sabres began. with whetted steel the sturdy axe-men, capless riflemen, horseless cavalry men. formed on that plain in battle array, butler leads to new market heights at day. when the flash of dawn was breaking, their leader rode in front, and speaking, gave the charging shout '_remember fort pillow_,' and their banners brightened in the mellow light of heaven; '_forward_,' they marched away, following butler to new market heights that day. went down the hill across the marsh,-- into the brook--there halted--ah! how harsh the rebels' fire opened upon them, artillery hail swept the run, and the infantry broke, the column wavered tho' not in dismay, following butler to new market heights that day. again the shattered columns form and again advance to firmer ground, tho' the redoubt hurl'd like an avalanche in quick succession, bursting bombs and canister shot, but with closed ranks the column, fearing not unheedful of the iron hail bent its way, following butler to new market heights that day. now the head of the column of fours go down under the murderous fire and the hissing song of the enemy's shells, now the axe men spring to the _abatis_ high and long, now their axes ring out on the morning air, they were swept away. following butler to new market heights that day. the flags are where, do they kiss the morning light, do they wave in the battle's gale, are their stars bright, illumining the path of the brave? riddled and torn, with the dead they lay. soon again they shone, in the first gleam of the rising-sun's ray, following butler to new market heights that day. upon the brigade each felt that all was placed, their race and country's future honored or disgraced, hence with spartan courage they the charge renewed, and in hot haste the nation's enemy pursued, and sweat and blood from pore and wound inveigh, following butler to new market heights that day. '_forward, forward!_' rung the command, the flags are up again, the axe-men grin, and with a shout go over the slain, to a second line of _abatis_. the welkin's aglow. the advancing brigade shouts, '_remember fort pillow_!' and with a will and spirit they clear the way, following butler to new market heights that day. down the dismounted cavalrymen fall by ranks, the infantry an adamantine wall on the flanks, close up briskly on right and left receive the enflading fire from the brazen crest, breathe they not a word in complaint, freedom's impulse obey, following butler to new market heights that day. mow the black axe-men tear from the sod the huge logs which science and treason placed deep in the bogs, skill gave way to freedom's might in the dastardly fight, and the black brigade, with capless rifles and starry light, go through the gap to the rebel's hell in gallant array, following butler to new market heights that day. volley after volley poured, cannon after cannon roared, like reapers in a field a thousand artillerists mowed in the gap, the brigade's advancing files of four, yet on through the flood of death still the brigade pour. their battle cry, _remember fort pillow_, the enemy dismay, following butler to new market heights that day. hark! above the raging carnage swells the shout, '_no quarter to niggers_,' with hope of a rout, but the brigade was not deterred, they retaliate the defiant yells, _remember fort pillow_, the fate of its garrison how it fell, on through the fray, following butler to new market heights that day. on for the _redoubt_ over the rampart they go, not a rifle was fired, not a shot at the foe, by the weight of the column the _redoubt_ is theirs, and the enemy routed, the chivalry scattered everywhere victorious shouts the empyrean ring in repay, following butler to new market heights that day. in the track of the brigade lay the loyal dead, afric's hecatomb, her lineage's pyre to liberty wed, their upturned countenances to the burning sun, were appeals to mars for their race's freedom won, five hundred lives on the patriotic alter lay, following butler to new market heights that day. no marble shaft or granate pile mark the spot where they fell--their bones lay harvested from sun-rot, in the nation's cities of the dead. hannibal led no braver than they through alpine snow, nor wed to freedom were greece's phalanx more, who o'er gory clay followed butler to new market heights that day. [a] (author in the n. y. _globe_.) [b] (author in "_voice of a new race_.") [ ] see report of th regiment connecticut colored volunteers in appendix. chapter xii. roll of honor. the following enlisted men of the black phalanx received medals of honor from the united states government for heroic conduct on the field of battle: sergeant-major c. a. fleetwood, th regiment. color-sergeant alfred b. hilton, th regiment. private charles veal, th regiment. st sergeant james brownson, th regiment. sergeant-major milton m. holland, th regiment. st sergeant, robert pinn, th regiment. st sergeant powhatan beaty, th regiment. st sergeant alex. kelley, th regiment. sergeant samuel gilchrist, th regiment. sergeant william davis, th regiment. corporal miles james, th regiment. private james gardner, th regiment. st sergeant edward ratcliff, th regiment. private william barnes, th regiment. chapter xiii. roster of the black phalanx cavalry. st regiment, lieutenant-colonel seip.--organized at camp hamilton, va., december, . battles: bermuda hundreds, smithfield, wilson's landing, fort pocahontas, cabin point, powhatan. mustered out february, . nd regiment, colonel g. w. cole.--organized at ft. monroe, december, . battles: suffolk, drewry's bluff, may , th and th, . point of rocks, deep bottom, chapin farm, richmond. mustered out february, . d regiment, lieutenant colonel j. b. cook.--organized at vicksburg, october th, . battles: haines bluff, shipwith's landing, miss., memphis, tenn., bayou boeuf, yazoo expedition, rolling fork, vicksburg, jackson, fort adams, franklin, roache's plantation, yazoo city. mustered out january, . th regiment, ( st _corps d'afrique_), lieutenant-colonel n. c. mitchell.--organized september, , at new orleans, la. battle: clinton. mustered out march, . th regiment, colonel l. henry carpenter.--organized at camp nelson, ky., october, . battles: saltville, hopkinsville, harrodsburg, simpsonville. mustered out march, . th regiment, massachusetts, colonel s. e. chamberlin.--organized at readville, mass., may, . battle: petersburg. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel james f. wade.--organized at camp nelson, ky., nov., . battles: saltville, marion, smithfield. mustered out april, . heavy artillery. st regiment, colonel john e. mcgowan.--organized at knoxville, tenn., february, . battle: decatur. rd regiment, colonel ignatz g. kappner.--organized at memphis, tenn., and fort pickering, tenn., june, , as st regiment tennessee heavy artillery. its designation was changed to nd regiment and to rd, april, . mustered out april, . th regiment, major wm. n. lansing.--organized at columbus, ky., june, , as nd regiment tennessee. its designation was changed march, , to the rd regiment, and to the th, april, . battles: fort donelson. mustered out february, . th regiment, colonel herman leib.--organized at vicksburg, miss., august, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers. its designation was changed to st regiment, mississippi, september, , and to the th, march, . battles: milliken's bend, june th, th and th, , vicksburg. mustered out may, . th regiment, colonel hubert a. mccaleb.--organized at natchez, miss., september, , as nd regiment, miss. its designation was changed to the th regiment, march, , and to the th, april, . battles: vidalia, concordia bayou, black river. mustered out may, . for th regiment see th infantry. th regiment, colonel henry w. barry.--organized at paducah, ky., april, . battle: fort anderson. mustered out february, . th regiment, major edward grosskoff.--organized at clarksville, nashville, tenn., october, ; broken up may, ; officers and enlisted men transferred to other organizations. th regiment, colonel c. a. hartwell, (regular army).--organized at new orleans, la., november, , as st regiment louisiana. its designation was changed to st regiment _corps d'afrique_, november, , and to the th regiment united states, april, ; to the th, may, . the th regiment infantry was consolidated with it october, . mustered out february, . battle: pass-manchæ. th regiment, colonel j. hale sypher.--organized at providence, r. i., august, , as the th regiment, r. i. its designation was changed to the th regiment united states, april, , and to the th, may, . battle: indian village. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel norman s. andrews.--organized at camp nelson, ky., july, . battles: big springs, fort jones. mustered out, april, . th regiment, colonel jacob t. foster.--organized at camp nelson, ky., june, . mustered out november, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel walter s. poor.--organized at new berne and marblehead, n. c., march, , as the st north carolina. its designation was changed to the th, march, . mustered out december, . light artillery. nd regiment.--organized at nashville, tenn., april, . mustered out january, . battery a, captain f. p. meigs. battery b, captain francis c. choate.--organized at fort monroe. va. january, . battles: wilson's wharf, city point. mustered out march, . battery c, captain robert ranney.--organized at hebron's plantation, miss., november, , as the st louisiana battery. its designation was changed to battery a, d regiment, march, , and to battery c april, . mustered out december, . battery d, captain w. h. pratt.--organized at black river bridge, miss., december, , as the d louisiana battery. its designation was changed to battery b, d regiment united states, march, , and to battery d april, . battery e, captain edwin bancroft.--organized at helena, ark., december, , as the d louisiana battery. its designation was changed to battery c, d regiment united states, march, , and to battery e april. . battles: island no. , big creek. battery f, captain carl a. lamberg.--organized at memphis, tenn., as the memphis light battery, november, . its designation was changed to battery d, d united states regiment, march, , and to battery f, april, . consolidated with the d united states heavy artillery, december, . battles: fort pillow, brice's cross roads. mustered out april, . battery g, captain jeremiah s. clark.--organized at hilton head, s. c., may, . mustered out august, . battery h, captain john driscoll.--organized at pine bluff, ark., june, , as the st arkansas colored battery. changed to battery h, d united states, december, . mustered out september, . battery i, captain louis b. smith.--organized at memphis, tenn., april, . mustered out january, . independent battery, captain h. ford douglass. organized at leavenworth, kan., december, . mustered out july, . infantry. st regiment,[ ] colonel john h. holman.--organized at district of columbia, may, . battles: wilson's wharf, petersburg, chapin's farm, fair oaks, fillmore, town creek, wilmington, warsaw. mustered out, september . d regiment, colonel b. f. townsend.---organized at arlington, va., june, . battles: fort taylor, cedar keys, natural bridge. mustered out january, . d regiment, colonel f. w. bardwell.--organized at philadelphia, penn., august, . battles: fort wagner, bryant's plantation, marion county, jacksonville. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel s. a. duncan.--organized at baltimore, md., july, . battles: bermuda hundreds, petersburg, dutch gap, chapin's farm, sugar-loaf hill. mustered out may, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel john b. cook. organized at camp delaware, ohio, august, . battles: sandy swamp, new kent court house, city point, petersburg, chapin's farm, fair oaks, raleigh. mustered out, september . th regiment, colonel john w. ames, (regular army).--organized at camp william penn, pa., . battles: williamsburg, chapin's. farm, sugar-loaf hill, january th, february th, . mustered out september, . th regiment, louisiana, colonel robert des anges.--organized at new orleans, la., july, --sixty days. mustered out august, . th regiment, colonel james shaw, jr.--organized at baltimore, md., september, . battles: deep bottom, johns island, james island, darbytown road, jacksonville, may st, th, , bermuda hundreds, chapin's farm, fort burnham, petersburg, richmond. mustered out october, . th regiment, louisiana, colonel m. wilson phanley.--organized at new orleans, la.--sixty days. mustered out august, . th regiment, colonel charles w. fribley.--organized at camp william penn., pa., september, . battles: olustee, chapin's farm, darbytown road. mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel thomas bayley.--organized at camp staunton, md., november, . battles: deep bottom, chapin's farm, darbytown road, fair oaks. mustered out november, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel e. h. powell.--organized in virginia, november, . battles: wilson's wharf, plymouth, november th, , april th, , petersburg. mustered out may, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel james m. steele.--organized (five companies) at fort smith, ark., december, . battles: fort smith, boggs mills. mustered out may, . th regiment consolidated with the th and th, old regiments, april, , and designated the th. mustered out may, . th regiment, colonel william d. turner.--organized at la grange, lafayette, memphis, tenn., corinth, miss, june, , as the st regiment alabama siege artillery, changed to th regiment united states heavy artillery march, , to th regiment april, , and to th regiment january, . battles: fort pillow, holly springs. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel charles r. thompson.--organized in the state of tennessee july, . battles: nashville, section , n. & n. w. r. r., murfreesboro. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel john a. hollenstein.--organized at nashville, tenn., november, . battles: johnsonville, nashville. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel henry c. corbin.--organized at gallatin, tenn., november, . battles: dalton, decatur, nashville. mustered out march, . th regiment, colonel william inness.--organized at nashville, tenn., december, . battles: nashville, magnolia. mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel william b. gaw. organized at nashville, tenn., december, . battles: chattanooga. mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel william r. shafter.--organized at nashville, tenn., december, . battles: nashville, decatur, brawley fork. mustered out april, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel j. j. sears.--organized in the state of missouri february, . battles: nashville, december th, th, and th, , sand mountain. mustered out february, . th regiment, colonel joseph g. perkins.--organized at camp staunton, md., december, . battles: petersburg, bermuda hundreds, november th, december th, . mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel nelson b. bertram.--organized at piker's island, n. y., february, . mustered out october, . st regiment, colonel augustus g. bennett. organized at hilton head, s. c., fernandina, fla., june, , as the d and th south carolina. consolidated march, , and designated as the st u. s. regiment. mustered out april, . d regiment, colonel joseph b. kiddoo. organized at philadelphia, pa., january, . battles: petersburg, new market heights, dutch gap, chapin's farm, september th, november th, , fair oaks. mustered out . d regiment, lieutenant-colonel marshall l. dempey. organized at camp casey, va., november, . battles: petersburg, bermuda hundreds. mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel orlando brown.--organized at camp william penn, pa., january, --one year. company f mustered out september, ; remaining companies october, . th regiment, colonel f. l. hitchcock.--organized at philadelphia, pa., january, . mustered out december, . th regiment, colonel william b. guernsey.--organized at piker's island, n. y., february, . battles: john's island, july th and th, mckay's point, gregory's farm. th regiment, lieutenant-colonel john w. dounellon.--organized at camp delaware, ohio, january, . battles: petersburg, hatcher's run. mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel charles s russell, (regular army).--organized at indianapolis, ind., december, . battles: jones bridge, petersburg. mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel clark e. royce. organized at quincy, ill., in the field, virginia, april, october, --one and three years. battles: petersburg, white oak road. mustered out november, . th regiment, connecticut, lieutenant-colonel david torrence.--organized at new haven, conn., march, . battles: petersburg, chapin's farm, darbytown road, fair oaks, mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel delevan bates.--organized at camp stanton, md., february, . battles: petersburg, sugar loaf hill, cox's bridge. mustered out december, . st regiment, colonel henry c. ward.--organized at hart's island, n. y., in the field, virginia, april, november, . battle: petersburg. the th connecticut consolidated with this regiment may, . mustered out november, . d regiment, colonel george w. baird.--organized at camp william penn, pa., february, . battles: honey hill, deveaux neck. mustered out august, . d regiment, colonel william f. bennett.--organized at beaufort, s. c., january, , as the st regiment south carolina volunteers; changed to d regiment u. s. february, . battles: township, mill town bluff, hall island, jacksonville, john's island. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel william w. marple.--organized at beaufort, hilton head, s. c., may, . battles: ashepoo river, john's island, deveaux neck. mustered out february, . organization commenced as d regiment, south carolina; changed before completion to the th regiment u. s. th regiment, colonel james c. beecher.--organized at new berne, n. c., june, , as the st north carolina regiment, changed to th u. s. regiment february, . battles: olustee, black creek, st. john's river, honey hill. mustered out june, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel william h. hart.--organized at portsmouth, va., as the d regiment north carolina, changed february, . battles: indian town, point lookout, pierson's farm. petersburg, chapin's farm, dutch gap. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel nathan goff.--organized at norfolk, va., january, , as the d north carolina regiment; changed to th u. s. regiment, february, . battles: plymouth, chapin's farm, fair oaks. mustered out february, . th regiment, colonel robert w. hall, (regular army).--organized in virginia january, . battles: chapin's farm, deep bottom. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel ozora p. stevens.--organized at baltimore, md., march, . battles: petersburg, federal point, bermuda hundreds, hatcher's run. mustered out december, . th regiment, colonel f. w. lester.--organized at nashville and greenville, tenn. battle: south tunnel. mustered out april, . st regiment, (battalion), lieutenant-colonel julius a. weiss.--organized at philadelphia, pa., september, , composed of men enlisted, drafted for one, two, and three years. consolidated into a battalion of four companies september, , of one year men. battles: hatcher's run, fort burnham, petersburg, appomattox court house. mustered out december, . d regiment, lieutenant-colonel j. r. putnam.--organized at chattanooga and nashville, tenn., april, , composed of enlisted and drafted men for one and three years. mustered out january, . d regiment, colonel s. b. yoeman. organized at philadelphia, pa., march, . battles: petersburg, hatcher's run. mustered out . th regiment, colonel lewis johnson.--organized at chattanooga, tenn., rome, dalton, ga., april, . battles: nashville, december d, st, . mustered out april, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel e. mayer.--organized at philadelphia, pa., june, . battles: hatcher's run, petersburg. mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel c. whittlesey.--organized in arkansas may, , as the st regiment arkansas volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., may, . battle: mound plantation. mustered out january, . th regiment. colonel hiram schofield.--organized at lake providence, la., may, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: lake providence, liverpool heights, yazoo city, fort blakely. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel f. m. crandal.--organized at lake providence and goodrich's landing, la., may, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: bayou tensa, vicksburg, fort blakely. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel van e. young.--organized at miliken's bend, la., may, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: miliken's bend, waterproof. mustered out march, . th regiment, colonel charles a. gilchrist.--organized at vicksburg, miss., july, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battle: fort blakely. mustered out march, . st regiment, colonel a. watson webber.--organized at miliken's bend, la., and vicksburg, miss., may, , as the st regiment mississippi volunteers; changed to st regiment u. s., march, . battles: miliken's bend, ross landing, floyd, fort blakely. mustered out june, . d regiment, colonel george m. ziegler.--organized at vicksburg, miss., july th, , as the d regiment mississippi volunteers; changed to d regiment u. s., march, . battles: vicksburg, coleman's plantation, bayou bidell. mustered out may, . d regiment, colonel orlando c. risdon.--organized at warrentown, miss., may, , as the d regiment mississippi volunteers; changed to d regiment u. s., march, . battles: haines' bluff, grand gull, white river. mustered out march, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel charles fair.--organized in arkansas september, , as the d regiment arkansas volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: cow creek, arkansas river, sabine river, fort gibson, cabin creek. mustered out august, . th regiment massachusetts volunteers, colonel e. n. hallowell.--organized at camp meigs, readville, mass., march, . battles: james island, fort wagner, olustee, honey hill, boykin's mill, before charleston. mustered out august, . th regiment, colonel n. b. bartman.--organized at corinth, miss., may, , as the st regiment alabama volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., . battles: ripley, brice's cross roads, moscow, waterford. mustered out december, . th regiment massachusetts volunteers, colonel alfred s. hartwell.--organized at camp meigs, readville, mass., may, . battles: james island, may st, july d, , february th, , honey hill, briggen creek, st. stephens, deveaux neck. mustered out august, . th regiment, colonel charles bentzoni, (regular army). organized at st. louis, mo., august, , as the d regiment arkansas volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: indian bay, meffleton lodge, wallace's ferry. mustered out september, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel silas hunter.--organized at duvall's bluff, little rock. helena, ark., december, , as the th regiment arkansas volunteers, changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: little rock, april th and may th, , camden. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel simon m. preston.--organized at natchez, miss., august, , as the th regiment mississippi volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battle: natchez. mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel edward bonton.--organized at la grange, tenn., june, , as the st regiment tennessee volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: brice's cross roads, tupelo. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel john g. hudson.--organized at keokuk, iowa, and benton barracks, mo., october, , as the st regiment iowa volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battle: big creek. mustered out october, . st regiment lieutenant-colonel john foley.--organized at la grange, tenn., june, , as the nd regiment tennessee volunteers; changed to st regiment u. s., march, . battles: moscow station, tupelo, waterford, memphis, castport. mustered out december, . nd regiment, lieutenant-colonel david branson.--organized at benton barracks, mo., december, , as the st regiment missouri volunteers; changed to nd regiment u. s., march, . battles: glasgow, palmetto ranch. mustered out march, . rd regiment, major wm. g. sargent.--organized at memphis, and island no. , tenn., vicksburg, miss., and goodrich's landing, la., november, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers; changed to rd regiment u. s., march, . battles: waterproof, ashwood, marengo. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel samuel thomas.--organized at camp holly springs, memphis, and island no. , tenn., december, , as the th regiment louisiana volunteers, changed to the th regiment u. s., march, . battles; ashwood landing, point pleasant, pine bluff, david's bend, june nd, th, , helena. mustered out march, . th regiment, colonel alonzo j. edgerton.--organized at benton barracks, mo., december, , as the nd regiment missouri volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s. march, . mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel michael w. smith. organized at vicksburg, miss., december, , as the th regiment mississippi volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: columbia, goodrich's landing, march th, and july th, , issequena county, july th and august th, , bayou macon, bayou tensas, july th, and august th, . mustered out march, . th regiment, colonel alonzo j. edgerton.--organized at benton barracks, mo., january, , as the rd regiment missouri volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march ; consolidated with the th regiment, july th, . battle: mount pleasant landing. th regiment, major oliver h. holcomb.--organized at benton barracks, mo., march, , as the th regiment missouri volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., march, . battles: tupelo, spanish fort, fort blakely. mustered out february, . th regiment, captain james t. watson.--organized at pine bluff, duvall's, bluff, little rock, and helena, ark., and memphis, tenn., december, . organization discontinued september, , and the commissioned officers and enlisted men transferred to the d and th regiments. th regiment, lieutenant-colonel morris yeomans.--organized in part, april, , at natchez, miss.; completed november, , by the consolidation of the st regiment. mustered out march, . st regiment, colonel willard c. earle.--organized at black river bridge and natchez, miss., and alexandria, la., march, ; consolidated with the th regiment november, . d regiment, colonel alexander duncan.--organized at covington, ky., april, ; discontinued may, ; commissioned officers ordered before a board for examination, and enlisted men transferred to other regiments. d regiment, colonel samuel m. quincy.--organized at new orleans, la., september, , as the st native guard volunteers; changed to st regiment _corps d'afrique_, and to d regiment u. s., april, ; consolidated with the th regiment u. s., september, . battles: port hudson, jackson, bayou tunica, steamer city belle, morganzia, fort blakely. men mustered out at the expiration of time. th regiment, lieutenant-colonel a. g. hall.--organized at new orleans, la., october, , as the d regiment louisiana native guard volunteers; changed to d regiment _corps d'afrique_, june, , and to the th regiment u. s., april, . battle: east pascagoula. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel henry w. fuller.--organized at new orleans, la., november, , as the d regiment louisiana native guard volunteers; changed to d regiment _corps d'afrique_, june, , and to the th regiment u. s., april, . battles: jackson, port hudson, pleasant hill, waterloo. mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel charles w. drew.--organized at new orleans, la., february, , as the th regiment louisiana native guard volunteers; changed to th regiment _corps d'afrique_, june, , and to the th regiment u. s., april, . battle: fort blakely. mustered out december, . th regiment, colonel charles a. hartwell.--organized at fort st. philip, la., december, , as the th regiment infantry _corps d'afrique_, by the transfer of enlisted men from the th corps regiment volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., april, ; consolidated with the th regiment and with the th regiment heavy artillery, october, . battle: amite river. th regiment, colonel charles l. norton.--organized at port hudson, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . battle: port hudson. mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel james c. clark.--organized at port hudson, la., august, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . broken up july, . battle: port hudson. th regiment, colonel james m. williams.--organized at fort scott, kan., january, , as the st regiment kansas volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., december, . battles: sherwood, bush creek, cabin creek, honey springs, prairie d'anne, poison springs, jenkins ferry, joys ford, clarksville, horse head creek, roseville creek, timber hill, lawrence, island mound, fort gibson. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel william s. mudget.--organized at port hudson, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . battle: port hudson. mustered out march, . st regiment, colonel john f. appleton.--organized at port hudson, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to st regiment u. s., april, . battle: port hudson. mustered out november, . d regiment, colonel ladislos l zulasky.--organized at port hudson, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to d regiment u. s., april, . battles: port hudson, barrancas, mariana, mitchell's creek, pine barren ford, fort blakely. mustered out september, . d regiment, colonel e. martindale.--organized at port hudson, la., august, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to d regiment u. s., april, . broken up july, , and enlisted men transferred to other regiments. d regiment, brevet colonel j. h. gillpatrick.--organized at forts scott and leavenworth, kan., august, , as the d regiment kansas volunteers; changed to d regiment u. s., december, . battles: jenkins' ferry, april th, may th, , prairie d'anne, sabine river, fort smith, steamer chippewa, steamer lotus, rector's farm. th regiment, colonel william h. dickey.--organized at port hudson, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . battle: morganzia. mustered out march, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel henry c. merriam.--organized at new orleans, la., march, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, ; consolidated with the th regiment u. s., may, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel george e. yarrington.--organized at new orleans, la., august, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . battle: fort blakely. mustered out april, . th regiment, major h. tobey.--organized at new orleans, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, ; consolidated with the th regiment u. s., november, , to form the th regiment u. s.; subsequently changed to th regiment u. s. th regiment, lieutenant-colonel william w. bliss.--organized by the consolidation of the th and th regiments u. s., november, , and designated as the th regiment u. s.; consolidated with the th regiment u. s., august, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel george e. biles.--organized at port hudson, la., , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., . broken up july, , and the enlisted men transferred to other regiments. th regiment, colonel edmund r. wiley.--organized at memphis, tenn., february, ; consolidated with the d regiment u. s. heavy artillery, december, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel robert f. atkins.--organized at port hudson, la., october, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . broken up july, , and the enlisted men transferred to other regiments. th regiment, colonel charles e. bostwick.--organized at madisonville, la., february, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s., april, . broken up july, , and enlisted men transferred to other regiments. st regiment, colonel eliot bridgeman.--organized at fort pike, la., september, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to st regiment u. s., july, ; consolidated with th regiment u. s., july, . battle: bayou st. louis. nd regiment, colonel h. n. frisbie.--organized at new orleans, la., september, , as the nd regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to nd regiment u. s., april, . battle: red river expedition. mustered out dec. . rd regiment, colonel simon jones.--organized at new iberia, la., november, , as the th regiment _corps d'afrique_; changed to rd regiment u. s., april, . broken up june ; enlisted men transferred to st and nd regiments u. s. battle: ash bayou. th regiment, lieutenant-colonel a. f. wrohwuski.--organized at camp parapet, la., april, , as the st regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_; divided to form the rd regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment u. s.; consolidated with th regiment november, , to form st regiment; changed to th regiment. battle: port hudson. th regiment, lieut.-colonel o. l. f. e. fariola.--organized at new orleans, la., august, , as the nd regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_; changed to th u. s., april, . battle: fort gaines. consolidated with rd regiment september, ; mustered out january, . th regiment, geo. d. robinson.--composed of men transferred from the st regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_. organized at new orleans, la., august, , as the rd regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_; changed to th u. s., april, . battle: pine barren creek. mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel chas. l. morton.--organized at camp parapet, new orleans, and berwick city, la., september, , as the th regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_; changed to th u. s., april, ; consolidated with the th regiment august, . battles: berwick, natchez. th regiment, major samuel pollock.--organized at new orleans, la., august, , as the th regiment infantry _corps d'afrique_; changed to th regiment engineers _corps d'afrique_ february, , and to the th u. s., april, ; consolidated into a battalion of five companies, december, . battles: natural bridge, steamer 'alliance.' mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel reuben d. massey, (regular army).--organized in kentucky, may, . battles: n. & n. w. r. r., nashville. mustered out december, . st regiment, colonel robert w. barnard, (regular army).--organized in tennessee, september, . battles: scottsboro, boyd's station, madison station. mustered out january, . d regiment, colonel henry l. chipman, (regular army).--organized at detroit, mich., february, , as the st regiment michigan volunteers; changed to d regiment u. s., may, . battles: honey hill, deveaux neck, salkehatchie, bradford's spring, swift's creek. mustered out september, . d regiment, lieutenant-colonel john a. bogert.--organized at hilton head, s. c., march, . mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel douglas frazar.--organized at beaufort, s. c., april, . mustered out february, . th regiment, captain frederick holsman.--organized at decatur, ala., march, , as the th regiment alabama infantry; changed to th regiment u. s., may, . battles: mud creek, athens. consolidated with the th regiment u. s., november, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel david m. sells.--organized at louisville, ky., may, . mustered out november, . th regiment, colonel john s. bishop.--organized at louisville, ky., june, . battle: owensboro. mustered out march, . th regiment, colonel orion a. bartholomew.--organized at louisville, ky., july, . mustered out february, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel dedrick f. tiedemaun.--organized at pulaski, tenn., november, , as the d regiment alabama volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., june, . battles: dallas, athens. mustered out february, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel william h. scroggs.--organized at pulaski, prospect, and lynnville, tenn., and sulphur branch trestle, ala., january, , as the d regiment alabama volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., june, . battles: pulaski, sulphur branch trestle, athens, richland. mustered out april, . th regiment, lieutenant colonel john g. gustafson.--organized at little rock, ark., april, ; consolidated with the th and th regiments u. s., april, , to form the th regiment u. s. th regiment, (old), lieutenant-colonel lanniston w. whipple.--organized at little rock, ark., march, , as the th regiment arkansas volunteers; changed to th regiment u. s., june, ; consolidated with the th and th regiment u. s. to form the th, (new), april, . th regiment, (new), colonel lanniston w. whipple.--organized at little rock, ark,, april, , by the consolidation of the th, th, and th--old regiments. mustered out april, . th regiment, colonel thomas d. sedgwick.--organized at camp nelson, ky., july, . mustered out april, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel george t. elder.--organized at bowling green, ky., july, . mustered out february, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel charles kireker.--organized at camp nelson, ky., july, . mustered out february, . battle: petersburg. th regiment, colonel lewis g. brown.--organized at covington, ky., july, . battle: ghent. mustered out august, . th regiment, colonel john c. moon. organized at baltimore, md., october, . battles: fort brady, henderson. mustered out february, . th regiment, colonel charles g. bartlett, (regular army).--organized at camp nelson, ky. battles: glasgow, taylorsville. mustered out february, . th regiment, lieutenant-colonel john glenn.--organized at henderson, ky., november, . discontinued june, , and enlisted men transferred to other regiments. st regiment, colonel hubert a. mccaleb.--organized at nashville, tenn., october, . discontinued june, , and enlisted men transferred to other regiments. d regiment, lieutenant-colonel david m. layman.--organized at louisville, ky., december, ; consolidated into a battalion of three companies january, . mustered out february, . d regiment, colonel samuel a. porter.--organized at louisville, ky., december, . mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel frederick h. bierbower.--organized at camp nelson, ky., january, . mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel william r. gerhart.--organized at louisville, ky., february. . mustered out october, . th regiment, (battalion), lieutenant-colonel james givin.--organized at philadelphia, pa., august, ; consolidated into a battalion of three companies september, . battle: deep bottom. mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel charles h. howard.--organized at hilton head, s. c., april, . mustered out october, . th regiment, colonel richard root.--organized at atlanta, ga., july, . mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel martin r. archer.--organized at selina, ala., april, . mustered into the united states service at macon, ga., june, . mustered out january, . th regiment, colonel f. w. benteen.--organized at atlanta, ga., july, . mustered out july, . independent company a. first lieutenant, e. m. harris.--organized at camp william penn, pa., (one hundred days,) july, . mustered out november, . company a, (unassigned), captain george l. barnes.--organized at alexandria, va., (one year), september, . mustered out july, . ninth army corps. th division,[ ] brigadier-general edward ferrero. first brigade, colonel joshua k. sigfried.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment, d regiment. second brigade, colonel henry g. thomas.-- th regiment, th regiment, d regiment, th regiment, st regiment. eighteenth army corps. d division, (june th to july st, .)--brigadier-general e. w. hinks, june st to july st; colonel john h. holman, july st to th; colonel s. a. duncan, july th to th; brigadier-general joseph b. carr, since july th. first brigade, colonel john h. holman; colonel jeptha garrard since july d.-- st regiment, th regiment,[ ] th regiment,[ ] st cavalry, th massachusetts cavalry.[b] second brigade, colonel s. a. duncan.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment, d regiment, d cavalry.[ ] the following regiments composed the provisional detachment of the army of the tennessee, rd army corps, commanded by major-general james b. steadman, in : first brigade, colonel t. j. morgan.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment, th regiment, (battalion), th regiment. second brigade, colonel charles r. thompson.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. post of nashville, battery a, nd artillery. tenth army corps. army of the ohio, major-general a. h. terry.-- d division, brigadier-general c. j. paine. first brigade, brevet brigadier-general d. bates.-- st regiment, th regiment, th regiment. second brigade, brevet brigadier-general s. duncan.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. third brigade, colonel j. h. holman-- th regiment, (mass.,) th regiment, th regiment. tenth army corps.[ ] d division, brigadier-general william birney. first brigade, colonel james shaw, jr.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. second brigade, colonel ulysses doubleday.-- th regiment, st regiment, th regiment, th regiment. eighteenth army corps. d division, brigadier-general charles j. paine. first brigade, colonel elias wright.-- st regiment, d regiment, th regiment. second brigade, colonel alonzo g. draper.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. third brigade, colonel john w. ames.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. provisional brigade, colonel e. martindale.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. second regiment cavalry. twenty-fifth army corps. organized in the field december, ; commander, major-general godfrey weitzel. st division. brigadier-general chas. j. paine. first brigade, colonel j. h. holman.-- st regiment, th regiment, th regiment. second brigade, brevet brigadier-general samuel a. duncan.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. third brigade, colonel elias wright, th regiment.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. nd division. brigadier-general wm. birney. first brigade, colonel james shaw, th regiment.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. second brigade, colonel ulysses doubleday, th regiment.-- th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. third brigade, colonel chas. s. russell, th regiment.-- th regiment, th regiment, st regiment, th regiment. rd division. brigadier-general c. a. heckman. first brigade, brevet brigadier-general a. g. draper.-- nd regiment, th regiment, th regiment, th regiment. second brigade, colonel e. martindale, st regiment.-- th regiment, th conn. regiment, st regiment. third brigade, colonel h. g. thomas, th regiment.-- th regiment, rd regiment, rd regiment. cavalry brigade, brevet brigadier-general b. c. ludlow.-- st cavalry, nd cavalry, light battery b, nd artillery. artillery brigade.[ ] battery d, st u. s. artillery, battery m, st u. s. artillery, battery e, rd u. s. artillery, battery d, th u. s. artillery, battery c, rd r. i. artillery, th new jersey battery, th new jersey battery, battery e, st pa. artillery. regiments in the department of the south, april, . st mich., rd, th, th, th, st, th u. s., th conn., nd, rd, th, th u. s., th mass., th mass. regiments. regiments with general sturgis in june, . th, st, th regt's., battery i, nd reg't., artillery (light.) footnotes: [ ] dr. wright, a prominent secessionist at norfolk, va., swore to shoot the first white man that he caught drilling negroes. lieutenant a. s. sanborn, of this regiment, while marching a squad to headquarters through the main street of the city was shot and killed by this dr. wright, for which he was hanged. [ ] there was with this division eleven batteries, four regiments of cavalry of white troops. [ ] detached in july. [ ] detached june th to department headquarters. [ ] assigned june d, . [ ] organized in november, . [ ] all white in the artillery brigade. chapter xiv. the confederate service. the leaders at the south in preparing for hostilities showed the people of the north, and the authorities at washington, that they intended to carry on the war with no want of spirit; that every energy, every nerve, was to be taxed to its utmost tension, and that not only every white man, but, if necessary, every black man should be made to contribute to the success of the cause for which the war was inaugurated. consequently, with the enrollment of the whites began the employment of the blacks. prejudice against the negro at the north was so strong that it required the arm of public authority to protect him from assault, though he declared in favor of the union. not so at the south, for as early as april, , the free negroes of new orleans, la., held a public meeting and began the organization of a battalion, with officers of their own race, with the approval of the _state_ government, which commissioned their negro officers. when the louisiana militia was reviewed, the native guards (negro) made up, in part, the first division of the state troops. elated at the success of being first to place negroes in the field together with white troops, the commanding general sent the news over the wires to the jubilant confederacy: "new orleans, nov. rd, . "over , troops were reviewed to-day by governor moore, major-general lovell and brigadier-general ruggles. the line was over seven miles long; _one regiment comprised , free colored men_." the population of the city of new orleans differs materially from that of any other city on this side of the atlantic ocean. it has several classes of colored people: the english, french, portuguese and spanish,--all a mixture of the african,--and the american negro,--mulatto,--numerically stronger than either of the others, but socially and politically less considered and privileged; the former enjoyed distinctive rights, somewhat as did the mulattoes in the west indies before slavery was abolished there. of these foreign classes many were planters, and not a few merchants, all owning slaves. it was from these classes that the , colored men, forming the native guard regiment, came, and which recruited to , before the city was captured by the union fleet. this brigade was placed at the united states mint building, under command of a creole, who, instead of following the confederate troops out of the city when they evacuated it, allowed his command to be cut off, and surrendered to general butler. of course, prior to this date, the negro at the south had taken an active part in the preparations for war, building breastworks, mounting cannon, digging rifle-pits and entrenchments, to shield and protect his rebelling master. january st, , hon. j. p. walker, at mobile, ala., received from r. r. riordan, esq., of charleston, s. c., a dispatch rejoicing that-- "large gangs of negroes from plantations are at work on the redoubts, which are substantially made of sand-bags and coated with sheet-iron." these doubtless were slaves, and mere machines; but the charleston _mercury_ of january rd, brought the intelligence that-- "one hundred and fifty able-bodied free colored men yesterday offered their services gratuitously to the governor, to hasten forward the important work of throwing up redoubts, wherever needed, along our coast." only the fire-eaters based their hope of success against the north,--the national government,--upon the stubborn energies of the white soldiery; the deliberate men rested their hopes,--based their expectations, more upon the docility of the negro, than upon the audacity of their white troops. the legislature of tennessee, which secretly placed that state in the southern confederacy, enacted in june, , a law authorizing the governor-- "to receive into the military service of the state all male free persons of color, between the age of and , who should receive $ per month, clothing and rations." and then it further provided-- "that in the event a sufficient number of free persons of color to meet the wants of the state shall not tender their service, the governor is empowered, through the sheriffs of the different counties, to _press_ such persons until the requisite number is obtained." a few months after, the memphis _avalanche_, of september rd, , exultingly announced the appearance on the streets of memphis, of two regiments of negroes, under command of confederate officers. on the th of september, again the _avalanche_ said: "upwards of negroes armed with spades and pickaxes have passed through the city within the past few days. their destination is unknown, but it is supposed that they are on their way to the 'other side of jordan.'" nor were the negroes in virginia behind those of the other southern states. in april, the lynchburg _republican_ chronicled the enrollment of a company of free negroes in that city, also one at petersburg. thus instead of revolts among the negroes, slaves and free, as predicted by some union men at the north, many became possessed of a fervor,--originating generally in fear,--stimulated by an enthusiasm of the whites, that swept the populace like a mighty sea current into the channel of war. the negro who boasted the loudest of his desire to fight the yankees; who showed the greatest anxiety to aid the confederates, was granted the most freedom and received the approval of his master. the gayly decked cities; the flags, bunting and streamers of all colors; the mounted cavalry; the artillery trains with brazen cannons drawn by sturdy steeds; followed by regiments of infantry in brilliant uniforms, with burnished muskets, glittering bayonets and beautiful plumes; preceeded by brass bands discoursing the ever alluring strains of the quick-step; all these scenes greatly interested and delighted the negro, and it was filling the cup of many with ecstasy to the brim, to be allowed to connect themselves, even in the most menial way, with the demonstrations. there was also an intuitive force that led them, and they unhesitatingly followed, feeling that though they took up arms against the national government, freedom was the ultimatum. many of those who enlisted feared to do otherwise than fight for slavery, for to refuse would have invited, perchance, torture if not massacre; to avert which many of the free blacks, as well as some of the slaves, gave an apparent acquiescence to the fervor of their lesser informed comrades, who regarded any remove from the monotony of plantation life a respite. the readiness with which they responded to the call was only astonishing to those who were unacquainted with the true feelings of the unhappy race whose highest hope of freedom was beyond the pearly gates of the celestial domain. one thing that impressed the blacks greatly was the failure of denmark vesy, nat turner and john brown, whose fate was ever held up to them as the fate of all who attempted to free themselves or the slaves. escape to free land was the only possible relief they saw on earth, and _that_ they realized as an individual venture, far removed from the field-hand south of delaware, maryland and virginia. it was not unnatural, then, for some to spring at the opportunity offered to dig trenches and assist beauregard in mounting cannon, and loading them with shot and shell to fire upon fort sumter. [illustration: doing military duty for the confederates. negroes building fortifications for the confederates at james island, s. c., under direction of general beauregard, to repel the land attack of the federal troops.] the negro did not at first realize a fight of any magnitude possible, or that it would result in any possible good to himself. so while the _free_ negroes trembled because they _were_ free, the slaves sought refuge from suspicion of wanting to be free, behind, _per se_, an enthusiasm springing, not from a desire and hope for the success of the confederates, but from a puerile ambition to enjoy the holiday excitement. later on, however, when the war opened in earnest, and the question of the freedom and slavery of the negro entered into the struggle; when extra care was taken to guide him to the rear at night; when after a few thousand yankee prisoners, taken in battle, had sought and obtained an opportunity of whispering to him the _real_ cause of the war, and the surety of the negroes' freedom if the north was victorious, the slave negro went to the breastworks with no less agility, but with prayers for the success of the union troops, and a determination to go to the yankees at the first opportunity; though he risked life in the undertaking. when the breastworks had been built and the heavy guns mounted, when a cordon of earthworks encircled the cities throughout the south, and after a few thousand negroes had made good their escape into the union lines, then those who had labored upon the fortifications of the south were sent back to the cotton-fields and the plantations to till the soil to supply the needs of the confederate soldiers who were fighting to keep them in bondage. but when the policy of the north was changed and union and _liberty_ were made the issues of the struggle, as against slavery and disunion, and the union forces began to slay their enemies, the confederate government realized the necessity of calling the negroes from the hoe to the musket,--from the plantations to the battle-fields. in the incipiency of the struggle, many of the states made provision for placing the negro at the disposal of the confederate government; but elated at their early victories, the leaders deemed the enforcement of the laws unnecessary, negro troops not being needed. as the change came, however, and defeats, with great losses in various ways depleted the armies, the necessity of the aid of the negroes became apparent. stronghold after stronghold, city after city, states in part, fell before the march of the union troops. the negro had become a soldier in the union army, and was helping to crush the rebellion. president lincoln had declared all slaves in rebeldom free, and thousands of black soldiers were marching and carrying the news to the slaves. this state of affairs lead president davis and his cabinet to resign to the inevitable, as had the north, and to inaugurate the policy of emancipating and arming the slaves, knowing full well that it was sheer folly to expect to recruit their shattered armies from the negro population without giving them their freedom. it was therefore in the last days of the confederate authorities, and it was their last hope and effort for success. despair had seized upon them. the army was daily thinned more by desertion than by the bullets of the union soldiers, while sherman's march from atlanta to the sea had awakened the widest alarm. in the winter of and the question of arming the slaves was presented as a means of recruiting the depleted and disordered ranks of the army, and it soon assumed an importance that made it an absorbing topic throughout the confederacy. there was no other source to recruit from. the appeal to foreigners was fruitless. "the blacks had been useful soldiers for the northern army, why should they not be made to fight for their masters?" it was asked. of course there was the immediate query whether they would fight to keep themselves in slavery. this opened up a subject into which those who discussed it were afraid to look; nevertheless it seemed unavoidable that a black conscription should be attempted, and with that in view, every precaution was taken by those who supported the scheme to avoid heightening the dissensions already too prevalent for good. the newspapers were advised of the intended change of policy, to which not a few of them acquiesced. general lee was consulted, as the following letter, afterward printed in the philadelphia _times_, shows: "headquarters army northern virginia, "january th, . "hon. andrew hunter: i have received your letter of the th instant, and, without confining myself to the order of your interrogatories, will endeavor to answer them by a statement of my views on the subject. "i shall be most happy if i can contribute to the solution of a question in which i feel an interest commensurate with my desire for the welfare and happiness of our people. "considering the relation of master and slave controlled by human laws, and influenced by christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races, while intermingled as at present in this country, i would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation, unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. i should, therefore, prefer to rely on our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and that of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe. but in view of the preparations of our enemies it is our duty to prepare for continued war and not for a battle or a campaign, and i own i fear we can not accomplish this without overtaxing the capacity of our white population. "should the war continue under existing circumstances the enemy may in course of time penetrate our country, and get access to a large part of our slave population. it is his avowed policy to convert the able-bodied men among them into soldiers, and emancipate all. the success of the federal arms in the south was followed by a proclamation from president lincoln for two hundred and eighty thousand men, the effect of which will be to stimulate the northern states to procure as substitutes for their own people the negroes thus brought within their reach. many have already been obtained in virginia, and should the fortunes of war expose more of her territory the enemy will gain a large accession of strength. his progress will thus add to his numbers, and at the same time destroy slavery in a manner most pernicious to the welfare of our people. their negroes will be used to hold them in subjection, leaving the remaining force of the enemy free to extend his conquest. "whatever may be the effect of our employing negro troops it can not be as mischievous as this. if it end in subverting slavery it will be accomplished by ourselves, and we can devise the means of alleviating the evil consequences to both races. i think, therefore, we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our social institutions. my own opinion is that we should employ them without delay. i believe that, with proper regulations, they can be made effective soldiers. they possess the physical qualifications in an eminent degree. long habits of obedience and subordination, coupled with that moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish the best foundation for that discipline which is the surest guarantee of military efficiency. our chief aim should be to secure their fidelity. there have been formidable armies composed of men having no interests in the country for which they fought beyond their pay or the hope of plunder. but it is certain that the best foundation upon which the fidelity of an army can rest, especially in a service which imposes peculiar hardships and privations, is the personal interest of the soldier in the issue of the contest. such an interest we can give our negroes by granting immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully, whether they survive or not, together with the privilege of residing at the south. "to this might be added a bounty for faithful service. we should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. the reasons that induce me to recommend the employment of negro troops at all render the effect of the measures i have suggested upon slavery immaterial, and in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation. as that will be the result of the continuance of the war, and will certainly occur if the enemy succeed, it seems to me most advisable to adopt it at once, and thereby obtain all the benefits that will accrue to our cause. "the employment of negro troops under regulations similar to those indicated would, in my opinion, greatly increase our military strength, and enable us to relieve our white population to some extent. i think we could dispense with the reserve forces, except in cases of emergency. it would disappoint the hopes which our enemies have upon our exhaustion, deprive them in a great measure of the aid they now derive from black troops, and thus throw the burden of the war upon their own people. in addition to the great political advantages that would result to our cause from the adoption of a system of emancipation, it would exercise a salutary influence upon our negro population, by rendering more secure the fidelity of those who become soldiers, and diminishing the inducements to the rest to abscond. "i can only say in conclusion that whatever measures are to be adopted should be adopted at once. every day's delay increases the difficulty. much time will be required to organize and discipline the men, and action may be deferred till it is too late. "very respectfully, "your obedient servant, "a true copy. j. b. w." "(signed,) r. e. lee, _general._" this letter was intended for members of congress to read, and it was circulated among them, but all was not harmony. many members were bitterly opposed to arming the slaves, some of them denounced general lee for writing the letter, and prepared to oppose the measure when it should be introduced into congress.[ ] at length the period for its introduction arrived. lee in his attempted invasion of the north made no more careful preparations than did mr. davis and his cabinet to carry through congress the bill enrolling slaves and to emancipate them. finally the hour was at hand, and amid the mutterings of dissenters, and threats of members to resign their seats if the measure was forced through, the administration began to realize more sensibly its weakness. however, it stood by the carefully drawn bill. of course the negro people about the city of richmond heard of the proposition to arm and emancipate them if they would voluntarily fight for their old masters. they discussed its merits with a sagacity wiser than those who proposed the scheme, and it is safe to say that they concluded, in the language of one who spoke on the matter, "it am too late, de yankees am coming." there were those among them, however, known as the free class, who stood ever ready to imitate the whites, believing that course to be an evidence of their superiority over the slaves. they were very anxious to enlist. on february th senator brown, of mississippi, introduced a resolution which, if it had been adopted, would have freed , negroes and put them into the army; but on the next day it was voted down in secret session. upon this very february th, when senator brown's resolution was lost, mr. benjamin, secretary of state, addressed a large public meeting at richmond. he made a very extraordinary speech, setting forth the policy of president davis and his cabinet. emissaries of mr. davis had just returned from the peace conference at fortress monroe, where they met representatives of the united states government, and learned that the conditions upon which the southern states could resume their relations were those which they were compelled to accept finally. during mr. benjamin's speech he said: "we have , blacks capable of bearing arms, and who ought now to be in the field. let us now say to every negro who wishes to go into the ranks on condition of being free, go and fight--you are free. my own negroes have been to me and said, 'master, set us free and we'll fight for you.' you must make up your minds to try this or see your army withdrawn from before your town. i know not where white men can be found." mr. benjamin's speech created an intense excitement among the slave-holders. the situation seemed to have narrowed itself down to a disagreeable alternative. they must either fight themselves or let the slaves fight. doubtless many would have preferred submission to lincoln, but then they could not save their slaves. immediately following mr. benjamin's speech on the th, a bill was introduced into the house of representatives authorizing the enlistment of , slaves, with the consent of their owners. as a test of its strength a motion was made for the rejection of this bill, and the vote not to reject it was more than two to one. there was every indication that the bill would pass. it was while this measure was under discussion that general lee wrote the letter which follows in answer to one of inquiry from a member of the house: "headquarters confederate state armies, "february th, . "hon. barksdale, house of representatives, richmond. "sir: i have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the th inst. with reference to the employment of negroes as soldiers. i think the measure not only expedient but necessary. the enemy will certainly use them against us if he can get possession of them, and as his present numerical superiority will enable him to penetrate many parts of the country, i can not see the wisdom of the policy of holding them to await his arrival, when we may, by timely action and judicious management, use them to arrest his progress. i do not think that our white population can supply the necessities of a long war without overtaxing its capacity, and imposing great suffering upon our people; and i believe we should provide resources for a protracted struggle, not merely for a battle or a campaign. "in answer to your second question i can only say that, in my opinion, under proper circumstances the negroes will make efficient soldiers. i think we could at least do as well with them as the enemy, and he attaches great importance to their assistance. under good officers and good instructions i do not see why they should not become soldiers. they possess all the physical qualifications, and their habits of obedience constitute a good formulation for discipline. they furnish a more promising material than many armies of which we read in history, which owed their efficiency to discipline alone. i think those employed should be freed. it would be neither wisdom nor justice, in my opinion, to require them to serve as slaves. the best course to pursue, it seems to me, is to call for such as are willing to come with the consent of their owners. impressment or draft would not be likely to bring out the best class, and the use of coercion would make the measure distasteful to them and to their owners. i have no doubt if congress would authorize their reception into service, and empower the president to call upon individuals or states for such as they are willing to contribute with the condition of emancipation to all enrolled, a sufficient number would be forthcoming to enable us to try the experiment. "if it proves successful, most of the objections to the matter would disappear, and if individuals still remained unwilling to send their negroes to the army, the force of public opinion in the states would soon bring about such legislation as would remove all obstacles. i think the matter should be left as far as possible to the people and the states, which alone can legislate as the necessities of this particular service may require. as to the mode of organizing them, it should be left as free from restraint as possible. experience will suggest the best course, and would be inexpedient to trammel the subject with provisions that might in the end prevent the adoption of reforms, suggested by actual trial. "with great respect, "robert e. lee, _general._" meanwhile the measure, to forward which this letter was written, was progressing very slowly. j. b. jones, clerk of the war department of the confederate government, entered in his diary from day to day such scraps of information as he was able to glean about the progress of this important matter. these entries are significant of the anxiety of this critical time. under february th we find this entry: "yesterday some progress was made with the measure of , negroes for the army. something must be done and soon." "february th.--did nothing yesterday; it is supposed, however, that the bill recruiting negro troops will pass. i fear when it is too late." "february th.--a letter from general lee to general wise is published, thanking the latter's brigade for resolutions recently adopted declaring that they would consent to gradual emancipation for the sake of independence and peace. from all signs slavery is doomed. but if , negro recruits can be made to fight and can be enlisted, general lee may maintain the war, very easily and successfully, and the powers at washington may soon become disposed to abate the hard terms of peace now exacted." "february st.--the negro bill has passed one house and will pass the other to-day, but the measure may come too late. the enemy is enclosing us on all sides with great vigor and rapidity." "february nd.--yesterday the senate postponed action on the negro bill. what this means i cannot conjecture, unless there are dispatches from abroad with assurance of recognition, based on stipulations of emancipation, which can not be carried into effect without the consent of the states, and a majority of these seem in a fair way of falling into the hands of the federal generals." "february th.--yesterday the senate voted down the bill to put , negroes into the army. the papers to-day contain a letter from general lee, advocating the measure as a necessity. mr. hunter's[ ] vote defeated it. he has many negroes, and will probably lose them; but the loss of popularity and fear of forfeiting all chance of the succession may have operated upon him as a politician. what madness! 'under which king, benzonian?'" "february th.--mr. hunter's eyes seem blood-shot since he voted against lee's plan of organizing negro troops." "february th.--mr. hunter is now reproached by the slave-holders he thought to please for defeating the negro bill. they say his vote will make virginia a free state, inasmuch as general lee must evacuate it for want of negro troops." "march d.--negro bill still hangs fire in congress." "march th.--yesterday the senate passed the negro troops bill--mr. hunter voting for it under instruction." "march th.--the president has the reins now, and congress will be more obedient; but can they leave the city? advertisements for recruiting negro troops are in the papers this morning." "march th.--we shall have a negro army. letters are pouring into the department from men of military skill and character asking authority to raise companies, battalions, and regiments of negro troops. it is a desperate remedy for the desperate case, and may be successful. if , efficient soldiers can be made of this material there is no conjecturing when the next campaign may end. possibly 'over the border;' for a little success will elate our spirits extravagantly, and the blackened ruins of our towns, and the moans of women and children bereft of shelter, will appeal strongly to the army for vengeance." "march th.--unless food and men can be had virginia must be lost. the negro experiment will soon be tested. curtis says that the letters are pouring into the department from all quarters asking authority to raise and command negro troops. , troops from this source might do wonders." so ends the entries on this interesting subject in mr. jones' diary. though the conscientious war clerk ceased to record, the excitement and effort of the advocates of the measure by no means slackened. grant's cordon around the city drew closer and tighter each day and hour, continually alarming the inhabitants. governor smith gave the negro soldier scheme his personal influence and attention. the newspapers began clamoring for conscription. no little effort was made to raise a regiment of free blacks and mulattoes in the latter days of january, and early in february a rendezvous was established at richmond, and a proclamation was issued by the state authorities. a detail of white officers was made, and enlistment began. the agitation of the subject in congress, though in secret session, gave some encouragement to the many despairing and heart-sick soldiers of the army of northern virginia.[ ] their chief commander, lee, perhaps dreamed nightly that he commanded , negro troops _en masse_, and was driving the yankees and their black phalanx like chaff from off the "sacred soil" of the old dominion, but, alas, such a dream was never to be realized. about twenty negroes,[ ] mostly of the free class, enlisted, went into camp, and were uniformed in confederate gray. these twenty men, three of whom were slaves of mr. benjamin, confederate secretary of state, were daily marched into the city and drilled by their white officers in the capitol square, receiving the approving and congratulatory plaudits of the ladies, who were always present.[ ] however, no accessions were gained to their ranks, consequently the scheme, to raise by enlistment a regiment of blacks, was a failure, for the few volunteers secured in virginia and a company in tennessee are all that the writer has been able to obtain any account of. the confederate authorities then sought to strengthen the army by conscripting all able-bodied negroes, free and slave, between the age of eighteen and fifty. monday, april d, was appointed as the day to begin the draft. the virginia state legislature had come to the rescue of the davis-lee-benjamin scheme, and so had the local authorities of richmond, but all was to no purpose. it was too late; they had delayed too long. with a pitiable blindness to the approach of his downfall, only a few days before he became a fugitive, jefferson davis wrote the following letter:[ ] "richmond, va., march th, . "his excellency william smith, governor of virginia: "upon the receipt of your letter of the th inst. i had a conference with the secretary of war and adjutant-general in relation to your suggestion as to the published order for the organization of negro troops, and i hope that the modification which has been made will remove the objection which you pointed out. it was never my intention to collect negroes in depots for purposes of instruction, but only as the best mode of forwarding them, either as individuals or as companies, to the command with which they were to serve. the officers in the different posts will aid in providing for the negroes in their respective neighborhoods, and in forwarding them to depots where transportation will be available, and aid them in reaching the field of service for which they were destined. the aid of gentlemen who are willing and able to raise this character of troops will be freely accepted. the appointment of commanders, for reasons obvious to you, must depend on other considerations than the mere power to recruit. "i am happy to receive your assurance of success as well as your promise to seek legislation to secure unmistakably freedom to the slave who shall enter the army, with a right to return to his old home when he shall have been honorably discharged from the military service. "i remain of the opinion that we should confine our first efforts to getting volunteers, and would prefer that you would adopt such measures as would advance that mode of recruiting, rather than that of which you make enquiry, to wit: by issuing requisitions for the slaves as authorized by the state of virginia. "i have the honor to be, with much respect, "your obedient servant, jefferson davis." [illustration: union soldiers before yorktown bringing down a southern ally. this negro being a good marksman was induced by the confederates to become a sharpshooter for them, and greatly annoyed the union pickets before yorktown by firing upon them from trees, in the branches of which he would perch himself at early morning and remain there through the day, shooting at such union soldiers as happened come within his range. his hiding place was finally discovered however, and after refusing to surrender, thinking himself safe, he was brought down by a bullet through his head.] the appointed time came, but instead of the draft, amid blazing roofs and falling walls, smoke and ashes, deafening reports of explosions, the frenzy of women and children, left alone not only by the negro conscripting officers and president davis and his cabinet, but by the army and navy; in the midst of such scenes, almost beyond description, the black phalanx of the union army entered the burning city, the capitol of rebeldom, scattering president lincoln's proclamation of emancipation to the intended confederate black army. for twelve squares they chanted their war songs, "the colored volunteers" and "john brown," in the chorus of which thousands of welcoming freed men and freed women joined, making the welkin ring with the refrain, "glory, glory hallelujah, glory, glory hallelujah, glory, glory hallelujah, we is free to-day!" the decisive events of the next few days, following in rapid succession, culminating with lee's surrender, on the th of april, at appomattox, left no time for further action, and when the war was over, with the important and radical changes that took place, it was almost forgotten that such projects as arming and freeing the negro had ever been entertained in the south by the confederate government. footnotes: [ ] general william c. wickham led the opponents of the project in a very bitter pro-slavery speech. [ ] it was upon the discussion of this bill that mr. hunter, of virginia, made these significant statements and admissions: "when we left the old government we thought we had got rid forever of the slavery agitation; but, to my surprise, i find that this (the confederate) government assumes power to arm the slaves, which involves also the power of emancipation. this proposition would be regarded as a confession of despair. if we are right in passing this measure, we are wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with slavery and to emancipate slaves. if we offer the slaves their freedom as a boon we confess that we are insincere and hypocritical in saying slavery was the best state for the negroes themselves. i believe that the arming and emancipating the slaves will be an abandonment of the contest. to arm the negroes is to give them freedom. when they come out scarred from the conflict they must be free." [ ] of these twenty volunteers six of them are frequently to be met on the streets of richmond, while some of them are members of the colored state militia of virginia. [ ] the veterans of general henry a. wise's legion adopted resolutions commending the scheme. [ ] on april st, , quite a company of negroes, most of whom were pressed into the service, paraded the streets of richmond. [ ] this letter is a copy of the original now in possession of senator george a. brooks. it has never before been published. part iii. miscellany. chapter i. the black phalanx at school. the esteem in which education was held by the soldiers of the black phalanx, can be judged of best by the efforts they made to educate themselves and to establish a system of education for others of their race. doubtless many persons suppose that the negro soldier elated with his release from slavery, was contented; that his patriotism was displayed solely upon the field of battle, simply to insure to himself that one highest and greatest boon, his freedom. such a supposition is far from the truth. the phalanx soldiers had a strong race pride, and the idea that ignorance was the cause of their oppression gave zest to their desire to be educated. when they found following the united states army a large number of educated people from the north, establishing schools wherever they could in village, city and camp, and that education was free to all, there was awakened in the black soldier's breast an ambition, not only to obtain knowledge, but to contribute money in aid of educational institutions, which was done, and with liberal hands, during and subsequent to the war. unlettered themselves, they became daily more and more deeply impressed, through their military associations, and by contact with things that required knowledge, with the necessity of having an education. each soldier felt that but for his illiteracy he might be a sergeant, company clerk, or quartermaster, and not a few, that if educated, they might be lieutenants and captains. this was not an unnatural conclusion for a brave soldier to arrive at, when men no braver than himself, were being promoted for bravery. generally there was one of three things the negro soldiers could be found doing when at leisure: discussing religion, cleaning his musket and accoutrements, or trying to read. his zeal frequently led him to neglect to eat for the latter. every camp had a teacher, in fact every company had some one to instruct the soldiers in reading, if nothing more. since the war i have known of more than one who have taken up the profession of preaching and law making, whose first letter was learned in camp; and not a few who have entered college. the negro soldier was not only patriotic in the highest sense but he was a quick observer of both the disadvantages and opportunities of his race. he recognized the fact that the general education of the white men who composed the union army in contra-distinction to so many of those of the confederate army, gave them great prestige over the enemy. the ingenuity of the yankee he attributed to his education, and he readily decided that he lacked only the yankee's education to be his equal in genius. great was the incentive given him by example, arousing his latent hope to be something more than a free man; if not that, his children might rise from the cornfield to the higher walks of life. their thirst for a knowledge of letters was evinced in more ways than one, as was their appreciation of the opportunity to assist in providing for coming generations. colonel g. m. arnold says: "aside from the military duties required of the men forming the phalanx regiments, the school teacher was drilling and preparing them in the comprehension of letters and figures. in nearly every regiment a school, during the encampment, was established, in some instances female teachers from the north, impulsed by that philanthropy which induced an army of teachers south to teach the freedmen, also brought them to the barracks and the camp ground to instruct the soldiers of the phalanx. their ambition to learn to read and write was as strong as their love of freedom, and no opportunity was lost by them to acquire a knowledge of letters. so ardent were they that they formed squads and hired teachers, paying them out of their pittance of seven dollars per month, or out of the bounty paid to them by the state to which they were accredited. in a number of instances the officers themselves gave instructions to their command, and made education a feature and a part of their duty, thereby bringing the soldier up to a full comprehension of the responsibility of his trust. "taps" was an unpleasant sound to many a soldier, who, after the fatigue and drill of the day was over, sat himself down upon an empty cracker box, with a short candle in one hand and a spelling book in the other, to study the ab, eb, ob's. when the truce was sounded after a day or night's hard fighting, many of these men renewed their courage by studying and reading in the 'new england speller.' and where they have fought,--died where they fell, and their bodies left to the enemy's mercy, they often found in the dead soldier's knapsack a spelling-book and a testament. at the siege of port hudson and charleston, and of richmond, agents of the christian commission and of various other societies, made a specialty of the spelling-book for distribution among the soldiers of the phalanx, and upon more than one occasion have these soldiers been found in the trenches with the speller in hand, muttering, bla, ble." the historian of the th regiment says: "a great desire existed among those who had been deprived of all educational privileges to learn to read and write, and through the kindness and labors of dr. bowditch and others, a school was established to teach those who desired to learn. many availed themselves of this, and many were assisted by their company officers and their better informed fellow-soldiers, so that a decided improvement in this respect was effected among the men during their stay at readville." but it is not necessary to dwell upon the subject to show the eagerness of these soldiers to learn to read and write, as many of them did. lieutenant james m. trotter,[ ] in an article published in mr. fortune's paper, gives this graphic description of "the school-master in the army": "of the many interesting experiences that attended our colored soldiery during the late war none are more worthy of being recounted than those relating to the rather improvised schools, in which were taught the rudimentary branches. one would naturally think that the tented field, so often suddenly changed to the bloody field of battle, was the last place in the world where would be called into requisition the schoolteacher's services; in fact it would hardly be supposed that such a thing was possible. yet in our colored american army this became not only possible but really practicable, for in it frequently, in an off-hand manner, schools were established and maintained, not only for teaching the soldiers to read and write but also to sing, nor were debating societies, even, things unheard of in the camp life of these men. besides in quite a number of the colored regiments military bands were formed, and under the instruction of sometimes a band teacher from the north, and at others under one of their own proficient fellow-soldiers, these bands learned to discourse most entertaining music in camp, and often by their inspiriting strains did much to relieve the fatigue occasioned by long and tiresome marches. but we are speaking now mainly of the work of the school-teacher proper. and what shall we say of the halls of learning in which were gathered his eager pupils? well, certainly these would not compare favorably with those of civil life, as may well be imagined. as says bryant, truly and beautifully, speaking of primitive religious worship: 'the groves were god's first temples.' so, too, in the groves and fields of their new land of liberty, these men found their first temples of learning, and in spite of all inconveniences these school tents were rendered quite serviceable. of the text books used there is not much to say, for these were generally 'few and far between.' books were used at times, of course, but quite as often the instruction given was entirely oral. that these spare facilities did not render the teacher's efforts ineffective was abundantly proven in the service, and has been proven since in civil life. scattered here and there over this broad country to-day are many veteran soldiers who are good readers and writers, some of them even fair scholars, who took their first lessons from some manly officer or no less manly fellow-soldier in the manner mentioned, during such camp intervals as were allowed by the dread arbitrament of war. in a number of regiments these fortunate intervals were quite frequent and of long duration, and in such cases, therefore, much progress was made. "it must, of course, be remembered that in our colored regiments a very large percentage of the men were illiterate, especially in those composed of men from the south and so lately escaped from under the iron heel of slavery. indeed, in many of them there could scarcely be found at the commencement of the service a man who could either read or write. many an officer can recall his rather novel experience in teaching his first sergeant enough of figures and script letters to enable the latter to make up and sign the company morning report. all honor to those faithful, patient officers, and all honor, too, give to those ambitious sergeants who after a while conquered great difficulties and became educationally proficient in their lines of duty. "in this connection i readily call to mind one of the most, if not the most, unique figures of all my experience in the army. it was colonel james beecher, of the famous beecher family, and a brother of henry ward beecher. he was in command of the first north carolina colored regiment. in this position it would be hard to overestimate the variety and value of his services, for he became for his soldiers at once a gallant fighter, an eloquent, convincing preacher, and a most indefatigable and successful school-teacher. preaching had been his vocation before entering the army, and so it was but natural for him to continue in that work. at one time our regiment lay encamped near his in south carolina, and i well remember how, on one sabbath morning, the two commands formed a union service, all listening with deep, thrilling interest to the inspiring words of this "fighting parson." that he was indeed a fighting parson we fully learned not long after this sabbath service. for again we met on the bloody field of battle, where in the very front of the fight we saw him gallantly leading his no less gallant men, even after he had been wounded, and while the blood almost streamed down his face. seeing him thus was to ever remember him and his noble work with his regiment. "colonel beecher when encamped neglected no opportunity to form schools of instruction for his men, in order that they might become not only intelligent, efficient soldiers, but also intelligent, self-respecting citizens, should they survive the perils of war. i do not know what are his thoughts to-day, but judging from the grand work of colonel beecher in his black regiment, i can not doubt that he looks back to it all with satisfaction and pride, and as forming the richest experience of his life. "i know another ex-colonel and scholar, of high rank as a man of letters and in social life, who yielding to the call of duty, not less to country than to a struggling race, left his congenial studies and took command of a colored regiment, becoming not only their leader, but, as chance afforded, their school-teacher also. however, as he has given to the world his army experience in a book abounding in passages of thrilling dramatic interest, i need only in this connection make mention of him. i refer to that true and tried friend of the colored race, colonel t. w. higginson. "but let it not be supposed for a moment that only officers and men of another race were engaged in this noble work of school-teaching in our colored army. not a few of the best workers were colored chaplains, who wisely divided their time between preaching, administering to the sick by reason of wounds or otherwise, and to teaching the old 'young idea how to shoot;' while many non-commissioned officers and private soldiers cheerfully rendered effective service in the same direction. nor must we close without expressing warm admiration for those earnest, ambitious soldier pupils who, when finding themselves grown to man's estate, having been debarred by the terrible system of slavery from securing an education, yielded not to what would have been considered only a natural discouragement, but, instead, followed the advice and instruction of their comrade teachers, and, bending themselves to most assiduous study, gained in some cases great proficiency, and in all much that fitted them for usefulness and the proper enjoyment of their well-earned liberty. and so we say, all honor to teachers and taught in the grand army that made a free republic, whose safe foundation and perpetuity lies in the general education of its citizens." footnotes: [ ] now registrar at washington, d. c. chapter ii. benevolence and frugality. the negro troops gave striking evidence of both benevolence and frugality with the money they received. they needed but to be shown an opportunity to contribute to some object, when they quickly responded. frequently, too, they fell easy victims to the crafty camp bummers and speculators, who were ever collecting means for some charitable object for the benefit of the negro race. however, here it will be a pleasing duty to name some of the more conspicuous instances where their charity was well and nobly bestowed. at the same time they deposited a vast aggregate sum of savings in different banks established for this purpose. the nd regiment contributed to a commendable project gotten up by its officers, who gave, themselves, $ , . , the regiment giving $ , . . with this money the founding of a school was commenced, which eventually became a college known as the lincoln institute, situated at jefferson city, mo. to this sum of $ , . , the th regiment contributed $ , . , through the efforts of their officers. the sum was soon increased to $ , , and the institute stands to-day a monument to the nd and th phalanx regiments. professor foster, in his history of this institute, gives these interesting details: [illustration: u.s. paymasters paying off phalanx soldiers.] "dr. allen, a man of high character and influence, gave the scheme standing ground by declaring that he would give $ . both our field officers, colonel barrett and lieutenant-colonel branson, though neither was with us at the time, afterwards subscribed a like amount. others responded in the same spirit. officers and men entered into the work with enthusiasm. the lieutenants gave $ each; officers of higher rank, $ . first sergeant brown, co d, gave $ ; sergeants curd, bergamire, alexander and moore each gave $ , while the number who gave , , , , and dollars apiece is too great for me to recall their names on this occasion, but they are all preserved in our records. the total result in the nd regiment was $ , . , contributed by the officers, and $ , . by the colored soldiers. the soldiers of the th regiment afterwards added $ , . . one of them, samuel sexton, gave $ from his earnings as a private soldier at $ per month, an example of liberality that may well challenge comparison with the acts of those rich men who, from their surplus, give thousands to found colleges." colonel david branson, late of the nd regiment, in his dedicatory speech, said: "my friends:--this, with one exception, has been the happiest th of july in my life. that exception was in , when i saw the rebel flag go down at vicksburg. i felt the exultation of victory then, and i feel it to-day as i look upon this splendid building. looking in the faces of my old comrades of the nd regiment here to-day, memory goes back to the past, when hundreds of you came to me at benton barracks, ragged, starving, and freezing--some did freeze to death--and emotions fill me that no language can express. i cannot sit down and think of those scenes of suffering without almost shedding tears. but happily those days are passed. no more marching with sluggish step and plantation gait through the streets of st. louis, mo., amid the jeers of your enemies; no more crossing the mississippi on ice; no more sinking steamers, and consequent exposure on the cold, muddy banks of the river; no more killing labor on fortifications at port hudson, baton rouge and morganza; no more voyages over the gulf of mexico, packed like cattle in the hold of a vessel; no mere weary marches in the burning climate of texas; no more death by the bullet, and no more afternoons on the banks of the rio grande, deliberating on the future education of yourselves when discharged from the army; but peace and prosperity here with the result of those deliberations before us. our enemies predicted, that upon the disbanding of our volunteer army--particularly the colored portion of it--it would turn to bands of marauding murderers and idle vagabonds, and this institute was our answer." when colonel shaw, of the th regiment, fell at fort wagner, the brave soldiers of that regiment gladly contributed to a fund for a monument to his memory, but which, upon reflection, was appropriated to building the shaw school at charleston, s. c. and yet all these sums sink into insignificance when compared to that contributed by the negro soldiers to the erection of a monument to the memory of president lincoln, at the capitol of the nation; seventeen hundred of them gave _ten thousand dollars_. but let the record speak for itself, for it is only a people's patriotism that can do such things: correspondence and statements of james e. yeatman, president of the western sanitary commission, relative to the emancipation monument. "st. louis, april th, . "_james e. yeatman, esq._: "my dear sir; a poor negro woman, of marietta, ohio, one of those made free by president lincoln's proclamation, proposes that a monument to their dead friend be erected by the colored people of the united states. she has handed to a person in marietta five dollars as her contribution for the purpose. such a monument would have a history more grand and touching than any of which we have account. would it not be well to take up this suggestion and make it known to the freedmen? "yours truly, t. c. h. smith." mr. yeatman says: "in compliance with general smith's suggestion i published his letter, with a card, stating that any desiring to contribute to a fund for such a purpose, that the western sanitary commission would receive the same and see that it was judiciously appropriated as intended. in response to his communication liberal contributions were received from colored soldiers under the command of general j. w. davidson, headquarters at natchez, miss., amounting in all to $ , . this was subsequently increased from other sources to $ , ." "marietta, ohio, june th, . "_mr. james e. yeatman, president western sanitary commission, st. louis_: "my dear sir: i have learned, with the greatest satisfaction, through brigadier-general t. c. h. smith and the public press that you are devoting your noble energies in giving tone and direction to the collection and appropriation of a fund for the erection of the freedmen's national monument, in honor and memory of the benefactor and savior of their race. "the general also informs me that you desire, and have requested through him that the five dollars deposited with the rev. c. h. battelle, of this city, by charlotte scott, should be used as the _original and foundation subscription_ for this most praiseworthy purpose; and mr. battelle assures me that he will most cheerfully remit it to you this day. as a slave-holder by inheritance, and up to a period after the outbreak of the rebellion, and as an ardent admirer of our lamented president, the author of universal emancipation in america, i feel an enthusiastic interest in the success of the freedmen's national monument. i hope it may stand unequalled and unrivalled in grandeur and magnificence. it should be built _essentially_ by _freedmen_, and should be _emphatically national_. every dollar should come from the former slaves, every state should furnish a stone, and the monument should be erected at the capital of the nation. nothing could be better calculated to stimulate this downtrodden and abused race to renewed efforts for a moral and national status. "charlotte scott, whose photograph general smith will forward, was born a slave in campbell county, virginia. she is about sixty years old, but is very hale and active. her reputation for industry, intelligence, and moral integrity, has always been appreciated by her friends and acquaintances, both white and colored. she was given, with other slaves, to my wife, by her father, thomas h. scott. when we received the news of mr. lincoln's assassination, the morning after its occurrence, she was deeply distressed. in a conversation with mrs. rucker, she said: '_the colored people have lost their best friend on earth. mr. lincoln was our best friend, and i will give five dollars of my wages towards erecting a monument to his memory._' she asked me who would be the best person to raise money for the purpose. i suggested mr. battelle, and she gave him the five dollars. "i am, my dear sir, truly and respectfully, "william p. rucker." "marietta, ohio, june th, . "_mr. j. e. yeatman._ "dear sir: i was providentially called upon by charlotte scott, formerly a slave of dr. w. p. rucker, now living in this place, to receive the enclosed $ , as the commencement of a fund to be applied to rearing a monument to the memory of hon. abraham lincoln. "i received her offering, and gave notice through the press that i would receive other donations, and cheerfully do what i could to promote so noble an object. other persons have signified their willingness to give when the measure is fully inaugurated. "by the advice of general t. c. h. smith i herewith forward you her contribution, and i hope to here from you upon its receipt, that i may show to charlotte and others that the money has gone in the right direction. after hearing from you i hope to be able to stir up the other colored folks on this subject. "i rejoice, dear sir, that i have some connection with this honorable movement in its incipiency. i shall not fail to watch its progress with thrilling interest, and hope to live until the top stone shall be laid amid the jubilant rejoicing of emancipated millions crying 'grace, grace unto it.' "very respectfully yours, "c. d. battelle." "the publication of the note of mr. yeatman, and the first communication received concerning the colored woman's proposed offering, brought the following letters and contributions, showing how generously the proposition of charlotte scott was responded to by the colored troops stationed at natchez, miss. these contributions have been duly deposited for safe keeping towards the freedmen's national monument to mr. lincoln. "headquarters th u. s. colored heavy artillery, "fort mcpherson, natchez, may th, . "_james e. yeatman, president western sanitary commission, st. louis_: "dear sir: i hereby transmit to you, to be appropriated to the monument to be erected to the late president lincoln, the sum of four thousand two hundred and forty-two dollars, the gift from the soldiers and freedmen of this regiment. allow me to say that i feel proud of my regiment for their liberal contribution in honor of our lamented chief. please acknowledge receipt. "very respectfully, your obedient servant, "john p. coleman, "_lieutenant-colonel commanding th u. s. colored heavy artillery._" "amounts as donated by their respective companies: company a, $ ; company b, $ ; company c, $ ; company d, $ ; company e, $ ; company f, $ ; company g, $ ; company h, $ ; company i, $ ; company k, $ ; company l, $ ; company m, $ . total, $ , ." "headquarters th u. s. colored infantry, "rodney, miss., may th, . "brevet major-general j. w. davidson, commanding district of natchez, miss.: "general: i have the honor to enclose the sum of two thousand nine hundred and forty-nine dollars and fifty cents as the amount collected, under your suggestion, for the purpose of erecting a monument to the memory of president lincoln. every dollar of this money has been subscribed by the black enlisted men of my regiment, which has only an aggregate of six hundred and eighty-three men. much more might have been raised, but i cautioned the officers to check the noble generosity of my men rather than stimulate it. allow me to add that the soldiers expect that the monument is to be built by black people's money exclusively. they feel deeply that the debt of gratitude they owe is large, and any thing they can do to keep his 'memory green' will be done cheerfully and promptly. "if there is a monument built proportionate to the veneration with which the black people hold his memory, then its summit will be among the clouds--the first to catch the gleam and herald the approach of coming day, even as president lincoln himself first proclaimed the first gleam as well as glorious light of universal freedom. "i am, general, most respectfully, your obedient servant, "w. c. earles, "_colonel th united states colored infantry._" "district of natchez, may st, . "_hon. james e. yeatman_: "upon seeing your suggestions in the _democrat_ i wrote to my colonels of colored troops, and they are responding most nobly to the call. farrar's regiment, th united states heavy artillery, sent some $ , . the money here spoken of has been turned over to major w. c. lupton, pay-master u. s. a., for you. please acknowledge receipt through the missouri _democrat_. the idea is, that the monument shall be raised to mr. lincoln's memory at the national capital exclusively by the race he has set free. "very truly yours, "j. w. davidson, _brevet major-general._" "head pay department, natchez, miss., june th, . "_james e. yeatman, esq., president western sanitary commission, st. louis_: "sir: the colored soldiers of this district, brevet major-general davidson commanding, feeling the great obligations they are under to our late president, mr. lincoln, and desiring to perpetuate his memory, have contributed to the erection of a monument at the national capital, as follows: th. united states colored infantry, colonel w. c. earle $ , . three companies d u. s. colored infantry--a, c, and e-- lieutenant-colonel mitchell . freedmen of natchez . --------- total $ , . "added to this major john p. coleman, of the th united states colored heavy artillery, (those that forrest's men did not murder at fort pillow), stationed here, has sent you nearly five thousand dollars for the same fund, and the th united states colored infantry desire me, at the next pay-day, to collect one dollar per man, which will swell the amount to nearly ten thousand dollars. this is a large contribution from not quite seventeen hundred men, and it could have been made larger--many of the men donating over half their pay, and in some instances the whole of it--but it was thought best to limit them. "will you please publish this, that the colored soldiers and their friends may know that their money has gone forward, and send me a copy of the paper. "i am, sir, with regard, "w. c. lupton, _pay-master united states navy._" "these noble contributions are a striking evidence of the favor with which this movement is regarded by the colored people, and especially the brave soldiers (the phalanx who fought to maintain their freedom) of this oppressed race who have been fighting to carry out the proclamation of their benefactor, securing them their liberty." there is still another evidence of the appreciation of freedom by the negro soldiers in their frugality. after the enlistment of colored troops became general, and they began to receive pay and bounties, the officers commanding them readily discovered the necessity of providing a better place for keeping the money paid them than in their pocket-books and in the soldier's knapsack. every payday these soldiers would carry sums of money to their officers for safe keeping, until thousands of dollars were thus deposited, which were often lost in battle. in august, , general rufus saxton, military governor of south carolina, after mature deliberation as to the best means to be adopted for the safe keeping of these soldiers' monies, established a bank in his department. general butler established a similar one at norfolk, va., about the same time. at the organization of the freedmen's savings and trust company, chartered by act of congress, these institutions transferred to the freedmen's bank all the monies on deposit in them, as the war had ceased, and the troops and officers were being mustered out of the united states service. the butler bank at norfolk in july, , transferred $ , . in december the saxton bank at beaufort transferred $ , . thus the sum of $ , , belonging to soldiers in two departments only, was placed to their credit, subject to their order, in the new national bank, called into existence by like motives. this bank had branches at these places. had similar banks been established in the other departments an enormous sum would have been collected. the freedmen's bank, however, took the place of these military banks, and had the confidence of the soldiers who continued to deposit in its various branches throughout the south. when that institution collapsed in , of the many millions of dollars deposited in it, it is estimated that two-thirds of the amount was the savings of the phalanx. there is now in the vaults of the national government more than a quarter of a million of dollars belonging to the phalanx, held as unclaimed bounty and pay--an ample sum from which to erect a suitable monument to commemorate the heroic devotion and patriotic endeavor of those who fell in freedom's cause. this money doubtless belongs to those who on the battle-fields and in hospitals died for the country's honor. these are some of the lessons taught by the history of the black phalanx. chapter iii. bibliography. the following publications have been of service in the preparation of this volume: goodrich's history of the u. s. the great rebellion.--headley. record of the seventh u. s. c. t. war of .--rossiter. negro in the rebellion.--brown. butler in new orleans--parton. american conflict.--greeley. historical research.--livermore. record th regt. mass. vols. patriotism of colored americans. boys of .--coffin. record of th u. s. c. t. history of virginia.--magill. atlanta.--cox. march to the sea.--cox. lincoln and slavery.--arnold. ramsey's history of america. grimshaw's history of the u. s. attack on petersburg.--congress. fort pillow massacre.--congress. campaigns of the army of the potomac.--swinton. army life in a black regiment.--higginson. anti-slavery measures in congress.--wilson. principles and acts of the revolution.--niles. military history of u. s. grant.--badeau. first and second year of the war.--pollard. report of the conduct of the war.--congress. bryant's popular history of the united states. virginia campaigns of ' and ' .--humphrey. life and public service of charles sumner.--lester. boys and girls magazine, .--oliver optic. burnside and the ninth army corps.--woodbury. military history of kansas.--j. b. mcafee. history of the great rebellion.--kettell. appendix. history of the th connecticut negro volunteers. "headquarters th connecticut colored volunteers, hartford, conn., november th, . "brigadier-general h. j. morse, _adjutant-general, state of connecticut._ "general: in obedience to your request i have the honor to submit the following as the history of the th regiment connecticut volunteers (colored): "recruiting for this regiment began early in the autumn of , and by the latter part of january, , the maximum number had been enlisted. during its organization the regiment was stationed at fair haven, conn. on the th of march, , the regiment was formally mustered into the service of the united states. "no field officer had as yet reported, but on the th of march william b. wooster, formerly lieutenant-colonel of the th connecticut volunteers, reported to the regiment, and soon after assumed command. "on the th day of march the regiment formed in line, and after the presentation of a flag by the colored ladies of new haven, marched on board the transport "warrior." "on the th we steamed out of new haven harbor, and after a pleasant voyage disembarked at annapolis, md. "the regiment was as yet unarmed, but on the th of april we received the full complement of the best springfield rifled muskets. "at this time the th corps was assembling at annapolis, and to it we were assigned, but on the th of april the regiment received orders to proceed to hilton head, s. c., and on the th of april we left annapolis for that place. arriving at hilton head we were ordered to beaufort, s. c., where we disembarked on the th of april. the regiment had, up to this time, learned nothing of drill or discipline, so that there was plenty of work to be done. "after a fine camp had been laid out the work of converting the raw material of the regiment into good soldiers was vigorously and systematically commenced. the men learned rapidly, and were faithful in the performance of their duties. while here, although the utmost attention was paid to all that pertained to the health of the regiment, much sickness prevailed, the change of climate telling severely upon the untried soldiers. in less than two months a decided improvement in drill and discipline had been effected, and our dress parades began to attract marked attention. but as yet our soldiers had not fired a shot at the rebellion, and had still to be tried in the fiery ordeal of battle. at last events on the bloody fields of virginia determined our destiny. "the battles fought during the summer campaign had demonstrated that negro troops could fight well; they had also shown that more men were required in virginia, and that we could not await the slow process of a draft to get them. the success of the entire campaign seemed dubious, and the army, after all its gigantic toils and losses, found itself confronted by strong lines of works, manned by a brave and resolute foe. under these circumstances the only policy was concentration in virginia. accordingly all the troops that could be spared from other points were ordered to virginia. "among the number was the th connecticut volunteers (colored). on the th day of august, , the regiment left beaufort, s. c., and disembarked at bermuda hundreds, va., on the th of the same month. this regiment was brigaded with the th, th, and th united states colored troops, forming with other colored regiments a division of the th army corps. we arrived just as the active movements terminating in the capture of the weldon railroad had commenced. that railroad being on the then extreme left of our line it was deemed advisable, as a feint, to keep the enemy well engaged on our right. for this purpose the d and th army corps had been assembled, as secretly as possible, near bermuda hundreds, and on the morning of august th had advanced upon the enemy's works near deep bottom. "this regiment accompanied the force as far as deep bottom, where, with the th united states colored troops and one light battery, it was left to defend the post, under command of colonel wooster. the two corps moved farther to the right and front, and soon became warmly engaged. during the fighting general butler, desirous to ascertain the strength and position of the enemy immediately in our front, ordered colonel wooster to make a reconnoissance with this regiment and the th united states colored troops. "this was successfully accomplished, the men in this their first encounter with the enemy, displaying great coolness and bravery. soon after this we were relieved and ordered to join our brigade, then actively engaged at the front. "we set out in a drenching rain storm, and after a tiresome march reached the battle-field about dark. our forces had suffered a bloody repulse, and had just finished burying our dead under a flag of truce. the burial parties with their bloody stretchers were returning, and the sharp crack of the rifle began again to be heard, and so continued with more or less fierceness during the night. "at daylight hostilities, except on the picket line, were not resumed. the opposing forces lay and narrowly watched each other's movements. towards night, however, it was discovered that the enemy was massing in our immediate front, and just before sunset they commenced the attack. the contest was sharp and short; a fierce roar of musketry, mingled with wild yells and the deep bass of cannon; a fainter yell and volleys less steady; finally a few scattering shots and the attack was repulsed. as this movement of the two corps on the right was merely a feint to cover more active operations on the left, it was resolved to withdraw the forces during the night. the movement began just after dark. we marched to the bermuda hundreds front, and pitched our camp near point of rocks. on the th of august, , the th corps relieved the th corps in front of petersburg. here we remained, doing duty in the trenches, until the th of september, at which time the th corps marched to the rear to rest a few days preparatory to an advance upon richmond then in contemplation. while here our ragged, dirty, and shoeless men were clad, washed, and shod as rapidly as possible. "at length, at about sundown, september th, the corps broke camp, and we once more started for deep bottom, which place we reached about four a. m., september th. "just as the first faint glimmerings of light were visible the movement against richmond commenced. after pushing through a deep wood our brigade formed in line of battle near the new market road, under fire of a rebel battery. we had scarcely formed when it was found that the rebel lines had been broken further to the left, and we were ordered forward in pursuit of the flying foe. three successive lines had been carried by impetuous charges, and during that summer forenoon the enemy on all sides was pressed steadily back. by noon fort harrison, a large powerful work, and a key to a large portion of the rebel line, had been carried at the bayonet point by the th corps, and we found ourselves in front of the strongest line of the outer defenses of richmond. an assault was immediately ordered. two regiments of the brigade to which this regiment was attached,--the th maryland and th pennsylvania--were selected to make the attack on fort gilmer, the th connecticut and th maryland being held in reserve. a charge was made on the double-quick through a felled forest, half a mile in extent. they were met by a murderous enfilading fire, and after an obstinate struggle were forced back. they re-formed quickly and again charged, this time up the very guns of the fort. after a most heroic fight they were again compelled to retire. some of the companies sprang into the ditch, and refused to surrender even after their companions had been driven back. they continued the unequal contest until dark, when we were forced to leave the brave men to their fate. "after the repulse of the second charge, the brigade formed under a galling fire, preparatory to another charge, but after a careful survey of the enemy's position, it was deemed advisable to delay the attack for the present. darkness soon after coming on, the troops were quietly withdrawn to one of the captured lines a short distance in our rear. next morning vigorous measures were at once taken to reverse this line, and to render it impregnable against a counter attack, which was constantly expected. while busily engaged in this work the rebels opened upon us with a fierce artillery fire. a powerful force, said to be under the direction of general lee in person, had been silently massed in front of fort harrison, screened from our view by the inequality of the ground. they soon made their presence known, however, and advanced with determination. they were met by a fire that sent them reeling back with immense loss. again they formed, and were again driven back. another charge more furious, and another repulse more bloody, finally convinced them that the attempt was useless, and we were left in possession of our victories of the previous day. after this, comparative quiet reigned for a few days, but they were not days of idleness; the captured lines had to be reversed and heavy picket duty to be done, and of these duties this regiment had its full share. "on the th of october, the enemy made a dash on our right, and at first met with considerable success. this regiment was detached from the brigade, and ordered to the right to assist in repelling the attack. before reaching that point the attack had been repulsed and the fighting was nearly over. we formed a skirmish line and remained until midnight, when we returned to the brigade. "on the th of october a reconnoissance was made upon the enemy's lines in front of our right, in which this regiment took an active part. the fighting was severe, and the loss considerable. the men behaved like veterans: but the wary foe behind his strong works bade defiance to our small force, and so, after fifteen hours of fighting, at night we returned to camp. on the th of october a movement commenced on our extreme left which required the active co-operation of the army of the james, that the enemy might be kept busily engaged at all points. this regiment, as part of the force selected for this purpose, set out early on the morning of the th, and came in contact with the outposts of the enemy. deploying as skirmishers, after a short, sharp action, we drove the enemy within entrenchments. after driving in the skirmish line, we remained in front of the enemy's works, picking his men as opportunity offered, and keeping him engaged generally. we were in an open field, exposed to the fire of an enemy protected by strong earthworks. the men behaved very well; for twenty-three hours they held this position, exposing themselves with the most reckless indifference, taking the ammunition from the bodies of their dead and wounded companions when their own was exhausted, and in all respects, if valor be any criteron of manhood, proving themselves to be 'good men and true.' at length on the morning of the th, the troops were withdrawn, and we returned to camp. "on the th day of november, the regiment was ordered to garrison certain detached forts on the new market road, which were considered of great importance on account of the relation they bore to the whole line north of the james. that this regiment was sent to hold them, was certainly a marked tribute to its valor and efficiency, and was expressly given to it on that account. we remained here until the formation of the th army corps, when on the th day of december, we removed to the left of fort harrison, forming a part of the nd brigade, st division of that corps. "here we remained during the rest of the winter, picketing, drilling, building forts, and making roads, and preparing for the spring campaign. one division had been sent to fort fisher, and but two were with the army of the james. at length, late in the month of march, , one of the remaining divisions was sent to the left, while the division to which this regiment was attached, together with one division of the th army corps, was left to guard the defences north of the james. the campaign opened vigorously. the last week in march brought a series of splendid victories to the union armies, and we began to feel that the 'end' so ardently desired was near at hand. this regiment had been placed in fort harrison, the most important position on our line. the fort was said to be mined, and it was feared that the rebels would make an attack in force near that point. on saturday and sunday, april st and nd, the fighting on the left had been terrific but generally favorable to us. we were ordered to observe with great care all movements of the enemy in our front. "at sunset of april nd, we witnessed the last rebel dress parade in virginia from the magazine of fort harrison. early on the morning of april rd, , the picket fires of the enemy began to wane, and an ominous silence to prevail within his lines. very soon deserters began to come within our lines who reported that the lines in our front were being evacuated. in a little while we saw the barracks of fort darling in flames, and tremendous explosions followed each other in rapid succession. the earliest dawn revealed to us the deserted lines, with their guns spiked and their tents standing. we were ordered to advance at once, but cautiously. the troops jumped over the breastworks, and, avoiding the torpedoes, filed through the rebel abbatis, and then began the race for richmond. "no words can describe the enthusiasm of the troops as they found themselves fairly within the rebel lines, and tramping along the bloody roads leading to the 'capitol of secessia.' the honor of first entering that city was most earnestly contested; many regiments threw away everything but their arms, while this regiment 'double-quicked' in heavy marching orders. two companies of this regiment--g and c--had been sent forward as skirmishers reaching the city close on the heels of our cavalry, and were, without the slightest doubt, the first companies of infantry to enter the city. through the heat and dust the troops struggled on, and at last, as we came in full view of the city, the air was rent with such cheers as only the brave men, who had fought so long and so nobly for that city could give. since that time our history has been blessedly unfruitful in stirring events. we remained in richmond for a few days, and were then ordered to petersburg; from here we went to point lookout, md., where we remained until the th corps was ordered to texas. we embarked for texas on the th day of june , arriving at brazos de santiago july rd, . from brazos we marched to brownsville, on the rio grande, where we continued until ordered to hartford, conn., to be mustered out. on the th day of october, , we left brownsville for hartford, where the regiment was discharged and paid on the th day of november, . "the following is a report of changes and casualties in the th regiment connecticut volunteers, (colored), from date of organization to date of discharge: gain by recruits officers, enlisted men. loss " discharge " " " " dismissal " -- " " " desertion -- " " " died of disease " " " " wounds " " " by killed in battle -- " " promotion into other organizations " -- " total gain " " " loss " " wounded, officers, ; men, . captured, officer, ; missing, none. "it will be necessary to remark here that fully one hundred per cent of our desertions occurred while at new haven, and during the organization of the regiment very few desertions occurred after we left the state. our total of killed and wounded was--enlisted men, ; officers, . the officer who was captured eventually re-joined us. the officers lost by promotion into other organizations were--lieutenant-colonel h. c. ward, promoted to be colonel of the st united states colored troops; major f. e. camp, promoted to be lieutenant-colonel of the th united states colored troops; captain e. w. bacon, promoted to be major of the th united states colored troops; assistant surgeon crandall, promoted to be surgeon of the d united states colored troops; st lieutenant h. h. brown, promoted to be captain of the st united states colored troops; d lieutenant edward coe, promoted to be st lieutenant and adjutant of the th united states colored troops. "thus have i attempted to trace the history of this regiment. i have done this with some degree of minuteness, owing to the fact that, as we were considered a united states organization less can be learned concerning us from the reports of the adjutant-general of the state than concerning any other connecticut organization. and as the employment of colored troops was at first tried as a grand experiment, the people of connecticut may be desirous to know how far, in the case of their colored regiment, that experiment has been successful. justice, too, demands that those who are the most competent judges--those who have been with the colored troops on the march and in the battle--should give their testimony to the loyalty and valor of this despised race. they went forth to fight the battles of the union when there was every thing to discourage even the bravest. both officers and men knew, that should they escape death on the battle-field a fate awaited them, if captured, from which death on the battle-field would have been a glorious relief. the poor rights of a soldier were denied to them. their actions were narrowly watched, and the slightest faults severely commented upon. in spite of all this the negro soldier fought willingly and bravely, and with his rifle alone he has vindicated his manhood, and stands confessed to-day as second in bravery to none. "i am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "david torrance, "(_late_) _lieutenant-colonel commanding th c. v._" diary of the third regiment during the siege of port hudson. "may st, .--regiment broke camp at fort william, baton rouge, at a. m.; marched out of bayou monticino on the road to port hudson. in the evening company g, under lieutenant quinn, was detailed for picket duty on the clinton road. colonel promised to encamp close by with the rest of the regiment, but instead of doing so he fell back to the junction of the clinton and port hudson roads, thus leaving the rebels a fine chance to cross the bayou and cut off company g from all support. lieutenant quinn was doubtful of the colonel, and to satisfy himself sent d lieutenant frederick dame with twenty men back to the woods to see how things were. lieutenant dame found that colonel nelson had retreated back to baton rouge and reported. lieutenant quinn, feeling that if attacked during the night he would not receive aid from the regiment, changed his position from the place assigned in the woods by colonel nelson, to one yards further down in the woods, and on the road-side. he then threw out his pickets in all directions, but only a short distance from the remainder of the company who were held in reserve. every man was on that night. occasionally horsemen were seen in the clearing, but as they did not appear to know of our company's proximity the pickets did not fire on them. " th.--had a slight skirmish. " th.--companies g and e, under lieutenant quinn, went on a reconnoissance; returned at midnight. " th.--all quiet in camp. " th.--fell back to bayou monticino. " th.--commenced to build a second bridge at monticino bayou. " th.--company g, lieutenant dame, and company e, lieutenant john keefe, went on a scout under command of lieutenant quinn, captured one horse, cattle, and had a skirmish with rebel pickets. " th.--company g on picket ordered to block the road with felled trees, connecting the clinton and bayou sara roads, to prevent the rebel cavalry and artillery getting in the rear of dudley's brigade, who were camped near plains store. " th.--colonel nelson and lieutenant quinn rode to dudley's headquarters. the regiment marched two miles nearer to port hudson in the evening; were ordered back and bivouacked that night. " th.--at p. m. again for port hudson. after hours of hard marching in heavy order in a hot sun on dusty roads and very little water to drink, the regiment camped at dark in the left of the union line on the road leading to springfield landing. " st.--battle of plains store. during the morning there were rumors of a fight, as the rebels were determined to prevent a junction of the force under augur and grover, of banks' army, who were moving down from st. francis. this brought on the above-named battle, in which the negro regiment held the extreme left, and thus prevented the rebels getting in the rear of the union troops. " d.--companies a and g drove back some rebel pickets, capturing one man, horse, equipments, and two rifles. the man was thrown by his horse and was badly hurt, his head striking against a tree. " d.--we formed a junction to-day with banks, and port hudson is invested. " th.--companies e and g, under captain blake, on a scout. " th.--to-day the regiment marched from the extreme left to the extreme right of the union line, a hard long tramp again in heavy order. at night we encamped near sandy creek, close to the mississippi. each man had to carry his own baggage. this regiment was never given any wagons. " th.--at sandy creek protecting men laying the pontoon bridge. skirmishing all day with the rebels. the boys are getting used to fighting. " th.--storming the batteries. the negro soldiers prove the bravest of the brave. to-day was fought one of the most desperate battles on record. our brigade, six companies of the st, and nine companies of rd regiment louisiana native guards, commenced fighting at quarter of an hour before a. m. the st, under lieutenant-colonel bassett, advanced in skirmish line up through the wood and soon drew the enemy's fire. the rd under lieutenant-colonel finnegass, were in line of battle about fifty yards in rear of the first, the whole command under colonel john a. nelson, of the rd regiment. the rebels opened with infantry fire and shells at short range, and their fire was very effective and for a short time the first, which was in danger of utter destruction, wavered, when colonel bassett and his colored officers moved among the men encouraging them by their own fearless examples. at this crisis, colonel finnegass sent forward his four left companies, under captain john e. quinn, to support the st. captain quinn moved up in good order, placing his left company under lieutenant john o'keefe so as to face the bridge on his left, held by the rebels in rifle-pits, finnegass keeping the other five companies well in hand, to use them when most needed. when within pistol shot of the fortifications, to their dismay they were stopped--not by the rebels, but by a back flow of the river. the water was not more than forty feet across, but over eight feet deep. to cross this without boat or bridge was impossible, particularly under such a terrible fire as the rebels poured upon them in front and on both flanks. on the left the rebels were actually in their rear so far had the gallant fellows advanced. the slaughter was now becoming fearful. colonel finnegass at this juncture asked captain quinn if he could cross the water; quinn called on volunteers to follow him. the whole that was left of his own company, g, and lieutenant o'keefe with company e, responded to his call, and in they plunged, the men holding their rifles and cartridge boxes above their heads. in the mean time bassett and finnegass (whose men were lying down) kept a continual fire on the rebel gunners and drove them from their guns, but the water was too much for the men, and only or --with quinn and o'keefe and lieutenants burnham and dame--succeeded in crossing. this handful actually followed their reckless leader up to the very cannon's mouth, and for or minutes held the whole rebel battery in their hands. colonel finnegass seeing that in a few minutes more his brave men would be destroyed, rushed into the water and ordered quinn to fall back, as a regiment of rebels were clambering over the works to get in their rear. the brave fellows fell back, but alas, few of them ever answered roll-call again. out of the band but six re-crossed alive, and of these, lieutenants o'keefe, burnham and sergeants vincent and taylor, who were wounded; quinn and dame were the only ones unhurt. the whole regiment now fell back about yards, in the shelter of the woods. six times we advanced, hoping to find some spot where the men could cross, but in vain. we entered this fight with men, and lost killed and wounded; total loss, . the rebels shelled us with their heavy guns. on our front were artillery and infantry; on our left a wooded ridge full of riflemen. we had two six-pounders; one of them was dismounted early in the fight, and the other the gunners ran out of range, it being of no use. "now, why were the colored troops left unsupported? why were they sent on such hopeless missions? why were the officers informed by general dwight that there were clear grounds beyond sandy creek? there were white troops who could have been sent to their support; the officers expected to fight the rebels but met the river. colonel nelson played general to perfection; during the whole battle he remained on the safe side of sandy creek, and had his corps of orderlies to attend him; in plain words he kept his men under fire from quarter before six a. m., till seven p. m. during the day he never saw a rebel's face or back. * * * the heroes of the day were the men; not one of them showed the "white feather." colonel bassett and his colored officers of the st were as brave as any men who ever drew a sword, and so were finnegass, lieutenant-colonel of the rd, and captains smith, daly, masterson and others. lieutenants o'keefe, burnham, wiley, griggs, emory, westervelt and dame of the rd, and captain quinn, who commanded the left wing and led the storming column of the rd. lieutenant-colonel bassett was formerly of the th mississippi regiment; colonel nelson and lieutenant-colonel finnegass, were both of irish parentage; captain daily and lieutenant emory, of the st massachusetts, lieutenant o'keefe of the th and burnham, of the th connecticut, masterson and wiley, of the th massachusetts, company a, of the rd, were on detached service. captain john e. quinn is a native of lowell, mass.; born april nd, came from the th massachusetts, in which he was orderly of company b." * * * * a correspondent of the new york _tribune_ writing, says: "the more i see of our colored regiments, and the more i converse with our soldiers, the more convinced i am that upon them we must ultimately rely as the principle source of our strength in these latitudes. it is perfect nonsense for any one to attempt to talk away the broad fact, evident as the sun at noonday, that these men are capable not only of making good soldiers, but the very best of soldiers. the third louisiana native guard, colonel nelson, are encamped here, and a more orderly, disciplined, robust, and effective set of men i defy any one to produce. "an old european officer, one who has followed the profession of arms from his very boyhood, said to me to-day: 'in one essential respect, sir, i believe that in a short time these colored soldiers will surpass any we have in our army--i mean in subordination--without which no army can be effective. we are in the habit of carrying our citizenship with us into the field, and that begets an amount of undue familiarity between officers and men that is often destructive of obedience. toward the black man we feel none of these delicate sentiments of equality, and he, on his part, has always been accustomed to be commanded. beside this he is acclimated, knows the country thoroughly, and if called upon to fight will fight in earnest, for he knows that if taken prisoner he will meet no mercy.' "colonel nelson, anxious to have an opportunity of exhibiting to the world what his command is capable of, and thus put their manhood beyond all question, has implored general banks to put him in the foremost point of danger in the coming struggle, and says that his men are as ready as himself to stake their lives upon the result; but the general--doubtless acting upon explicit orders--says they must, at present at least, be confined to manning the fortifications here. "i am happy to say that the feeling toward these colored regiments throughout the army is undergoing the most rapid and extraordinary changes. soldiers that only a few months, nay, weeks ago, would have flown into a furious passion at the bare idea of a black man carrying a musket like themselves, now say, 'o, if you are going to give them white officers that is another affair altogether.'" * * * * the following letter gives some interesting recollections of the military events of the department of the gulf: "new orleans, january th, . "_to colonel j. t. wilson, norfolk, va._: "friend: your two circulars issued from cailloux post no. on the th inst. are received. it is quite a compliment to louisiana to have named your post after the hero of port hudson, who immortalized himself in those celebrated charges in may, . "it is over twenty years ago that i took a commission in the d louisiana native guard as a senior lieutenant of company h. i was quite intimate with captain andre cailloux. "grave doubts had been expressed by banks, the nominal commander, and his officers regarding the fitness of colored men as soldiers. the perplexing question was, 'will they stand their christening under such a hail storm as will come from those bristling port hudson heights?' in fact those three colored regiments--the st, d, and d louisiana native guards, organized in , and afterward incorporated in the ullman brigade as the d, th, and th--had become more a subject of test than of real dependence at the critical juncture of trial. "general osterhaus solved the mystery by taking command of a division, including the st and d native guards. those magnificent series of charges were made by these two regiments. the first charge was made on a sunday, the th day of may, , supported on the right by the celebrated duryea's zouaves, of new york, which were mowed down like grass before a scythe. it was then and there that captain cailloux gloriously died in advance of his company while cheering his men. it was also on that day that the immortal color-bearer, anselino, was killed, and fell within the folds of his regimental flag, which was besmeared with his blood, with the broken flag-staff in his hand. other strong arms came to the rescue of the flag only to meet death until the honor of the flag alone cost the lives of sixteen men or more. the gallant lieutenant crowder was killed on the field of honor at the flower of his age. captain sauer was wounded in the foot while charging. the d native guards also sustained its reputation, and many deeds of valor were performed by its officers and men. but when after those engagements the roll-call was made we had many friends to mourn. you are aware, i suppose, of an historical fact. jefferson davis had issued a proclamation that any colored officer captured at the head of black troops would not be exchanged, but immediately hung. it was thus that lieutenant oscar orillion, when captured at jackson, la., was hung and shot to pieces. "port hudson was surrendered by general pemberton the th of july, . general osterhaus became very proud of his colored regiments after what he had seen at port hudson. "had these two regiments failed, or destiny betrayed their courage, the colored troops would have been universally condemned, and would not have been employed as soldiers, but used as servants, drivers, and laborers, on fortifications, bridges, and ditches. to the d louisiana native guards belongs the honor of having had the first colored major in the army, and it is major ernest dumas, now living and actually in new orleans. "the most terrible engagement ( st and d) was at spanish fort in mobile bay, ala., shortly after fort pillow's massacre. general osterhaus told the colored troops the night previous to the attack that at break of day they had to charge and take spanish fort. it was customary with the general to tell the troops by what regiments they would be sustained. the men did not seem to be very enthusiastic, but when they were told how the rebels had murdered men of their own color and their white fellow-soldiers without mercy, they sprang to their guns and called unanimously for 'revenge.' great god! they had their revenge, sure enough! the charge was made, the fort taken, and nearly every rebel slaughtered amid the deafening yells of the colored and white troops of 'remember fort pillow.' the st and the d regiments cleared alabama up to selina. "as it is impossible for me to devote my time any longer, and to turn over the leaves of the past in my clouded memory, which is quite impaired lately on account of my declining years, besides the metacarpal bone of my right hand, which was broken by a musket in the army, is always painful when i write too much, i will refer you to sergeant calice dupie, of company h, st louisiana native guards, captain sauer, who is employed in the custom house. i am told that captain r. h. isabell, of the d louisiana native guards, has taken a memorandum of all the historical incidents of those three regiments. they are all louisianians, and reside in new orleans. as for the officers of my regiment (the d native guards) they are all dead nearly, which makes me think that my time soon will be on hand. "though my information is limited, i have strictly confined myself to facts which i am sure will be corroborated by others, i court investigation upon my statements, and will always be glad to furnish witnesses to sustain them. "fraternally yours, e. longpie, "_ex- st lt. co. h d l. n. g., ex-officer of anselino post no. g. a. r._" finis. army life in a black regiment thomas wentworth higginson ( - ) originally published reprinted, , by riverside press contents chapter introductory chapter camp diary chapter up the st. mary's chapter up the st. john's chapter out on picket chapter a night in the water chapter up the edisto chapter the baby of the regiment chapter negro spirituals chapter life at camp shaw chapter florida again? chapter the negro as a soldier chapter conclusion appendix a. roster of officers b. the first black soldiers c. general saxton's instructions d. the struggle for pay e. farewell address index chapter . introductory these pages record some of the adventures of the first south carolina volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the united states during the late civil war. it was, indeed, the first colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops raised by major-general butler at new orleans. these scarcely belonged to the same class, however, being recruited from the free colored population of that city, a comparatively self-reliant and educated race. "the darkest of them," said general butler, "were about the complexion of the late mr. webster." the first south carolina, on the other hand, contained scarcely a freeman, had not one mulatto in ten, and a far smaller proportion who could read or write when enlisted. the only contemporary regiment of a similar character was the "first kansas colored," which began recruiting a little earlier, though it was not mustered in the usual basis of military seniority till later. [_see appendix_] these were the only colored regiments recruited during the year . the second south carolina and the fifty-fourth massachusetts followed early in . this is the way in which i came to the command of this regiment. one day in november, , i was sitting at dinner with my lieutenants, john goodell and luther bigelow, in the barracks of the fifty-first massachusetts, colonel sprague, when the following letter was put into my hands: beaufort, s. c., november , . my dear sir. i am organizing the first regiment of south carolina volunteers, with every prospect of success. your name has been spoken of, in connection with the command of this regiment, by some friends in whose judgment i have confidence. i take great pleasure in offering you the position of colonel in it, and hope that you may be induced to accept. i shall not fill the place until i hear from you, or sufficient time shall have passed for me to receive your reply. should you accept, i enclose a pass for port royal, of which i trust you will feel disposed to avail yourself at once. i am, with sincere regard, yours truly, r. saxton, _brig.-genl, mil. gov._ had an invitation reached me to take command of a regiment of kalmuck tartars, it could hardly have been more unexpected. i had always looked for the arming of the blacks, and had always felt a wish to be associated with them; had read the scanty accounts of general hunter's abortive regiment, and had heard rumors of general saxton's renewed efforts. but the prevalent tone of public sentiment was still opposed to any such attempts; the government kept very shy of the experiment, and it did not seem possible that the time had come when it could be fairly tried. for myself, i was at the head of a fine company of my own raising, and in a regiment to which i was already much attached. it did not seem desirable to exchange a certainty for an uncertainty; for who knew but general saxton might yet be thwarted in his efforts by the pro-slavery influence that had still so much weight at head-quarters? it would be intolerable to go out to south carolina, and find myself, after all, at the head of a mere plantation-guard or a day-school in uniform. i therefore obtained from the war department, through governor andrew, permission to go and report to general saxton, without at once resigning my captaincy. fortunately it took but a few days in south carolina to make it clear that all was right, and the return steamer took back a resignation of a massachusetts commission. thenceforth my lot was cast altogether with the black troops, except when regiments or detachments of white soldiers were also under my command, during the two years following. these details would not be worth mentioning except as they show this fact: that i did not seek the command of colored troops, but it sought me. and this fact again is only important to my story for this reason, that under these circumstances i naturally viewed the new recruits rather as subjects for discipline than for philanthropy. i had been expecting a war for six years, ever since the kansas troubles, and my mind had dwelt on military matters more or less during all that time. the best massachusetts regiments already exhibited a high standard of drill and discipline, and unless these men could be brought tolerably near that standard, the fact of their extreme blackness would afford me, even as a philanthropist, no satisfaction. fortunately, i felt perfect confidence that they could be so trained, having happily known, by experience, the qualities of their race, and knowing also that they had home and household and freedom to fight for, besides that abstraction of "the union." trouble might perhaps be expected from white officials, though this turned out far less than might have been feared; but there was no trouble to come from the men, i thought, and none ever came. on the other hand, it was a vast experiment of indirect philanthropy, and one on which the result of the war and the destiny of the negro race might rest; and this was enough to tax all one's powers. i had been an abolitionist too long, and had known and loved john brown too well, not to feel a thrill of joy at last on finding myself in the position where he only wished to be. in view of all this, it was clear that good discipline must come first; after that, of course, the men must be helped and elevated in all ways as much as possible. of discipline there was great need, that is, of order and regular instruction. some of the men had already been under fire, but they were very ignorant of drill and camp duty. the officers, being appointed from a dozen different states, and more than as many regiments, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers, had all that diversity of methods which so confused our army in those early days. the first need, therefore, was of an unbroken interval of training. during this period, which fortunately lasted nearly two months, i rarely left the camp, and got occasional leisure moments for a fragmentary journal, to send home, recording the many odd or novel aspects of the new experience. camp-life was a wonderfully strange sensation to almost all volunteer officers, and mine lay among eight hundred men suddenly transformed from slaves into soldiers, and representing a race affectionate, enthusiastic, grotesque, and dramatic beyond all others. being such, they naturally gave material for description. there is nothing like a diary for freshness, at least so i think, and i shall keep to the diary through the days of camp-life, and throw the later experience into another form. indeed, that matter takes care of itself; diaries and letter-writing stop when field-service begins. i am under pretty heavy bonds to tell the truth, and only the truth; for those who look back to the newspaper correspondence of that period will see that this particular regiment lived for months in a glare of publicity, such as tests any regiment severely, and certainly prevents all subsequent romancing in its historian. as the scene of the only effort on the atlantic coast to arm the negro, our camp attracted a continuous stream of visitors, military and civil. a battalion of black soldiers, a spectacle since so common, seemed then the most daring of innovations, and the whole demeanor of this particular regiment was watched with microscopic scrutiny by friends and foes. i felt sometimes as if we were a plant trying to take root, but constantly pulled up to see if we were growing. the slightest camp incidents sometimes came back to us, magnified and distorted, in letters of anxious inquiry from remote parts of the union. it was no pleasant thing to live under such constant surveillance; but it guaranteed the honesty of any success, while fearfully multiplying the penalties had there been a failure. a single mutiny, such as has happened in the infancy of a hundred regiments, a single miniature bull run, a stampede of desertions, and it would have been all over with us; the party of distrust would have got the upper hand, and there might not have been, during the whole contest, another effort to arm the negro. i may now proceed, without farther preparation to the diary. chapter . camp diary camp saxton, near beaufort, s. c., november , . yesterday afternoon we were steaming over a summer sea, the deck level as a parlor-floor, no land in sight, no sail, until at last appeared one light-house, said to be cape romaine, and then a line of trees and two distant vessels and nothing more. the sun set, a great illuminated bubble, submerged in one vast bank of rosy suffusion; it grew dark; after tea all were on deck, the people sang hymns; then the moon set, a moon two days old, a curved pencil of light, reclining backwards on a radiant couch which seemed to rise from the waves to receive it; it sank slowly, and the last tip wavered and went down like the mast of a vessel of the skies. towards morning the boat stopped, and when i came on deck, before six, "the watch-lights glittered on the land, the ship-lights on the sea." hilton head lay on one side, the gunboats on the other; all that was raw and bare in the low buildings of the new settlement was softened into picturesqueness by the early light. stars were still overhead, gulls wheeled and shrieked, and the broad river rippled duskily towards beaufort. the shores were low and wooded, like any new england shore; there were a few gunboats, twenty schooners, and some steamers, among them the famous "planter," which robert small, the slave, presented to the nation. the river-banks were soft and graceful, though low, and as we steamed up to beaufort on the flood-tide this morning, it seemed almost as fair as the smooth and lovely canals which stedman traversed to meet his negro soldiers in surinam. the air was cool as at home, yet the foliage seemed green, glimpses of stiff tropical vegetation appeared along the banks, with great clumps of shrubs, whose pale seed-vessels looked like tardy blossoms. then we saw on a picturesque point an old plantation, with stately magnolia avenue, decaying house, and tiny church amid the woods, reminding me of virginia; behind it stood a neat encampment of white tents, "and there," said my companion, "is your future regiment." three miles farther brought us to the pretty town of beaufort, with its stately houses amid southern foliage. reporting to general saxton, i had the luck to encounter a company of my destined command, marched in to be mustered into the united states service. they were unarmed, and all looked as thoroughly black as the most faithful philanthropist could desire; there did not seem to be so much as a mulatto among them. their coloring suited me, all but the legs, which were clad in a lively scarlet, as intolerable to my eyes as if i had been a turkey. i saw them mustered; general saxton talked to them a little, in his direct, manly way; they gave close attention, though their faces looked impenetrable. then i conversed with some of them. the first to whom i spoke had been wounded in a small expedition after lumber, from which a party had just returned, and in which they had been under fire and had done very well. i said, pointing to his lame arm, "did you think that was more than you bargained for, my man?" his answer came promptly and stoutly, "i been a-tinking, mas'r, dot's jess what i went for." i thought this did well enough for my very first interchange of dialogue with my recruits. november , . thanksgiving-day; it is the first moment i have had for writing during these three days, which have installed me into a new mode of life so thoroughly that they seem three years. scarcely pausing in new york or in beaufort, there seems to have been for me but one step from the camp of a massachusetts regiment to this, and that step over leagues of waves. it is a holiday wherever general saxton's proclamation reaches. the chilly sunshine and the pale blue river seems like new england, but those alone. the air is full of noisy drumming, and of gunshots; for the prize-shooting is our great celebration of the day, and the drumming is chronic. my young barbarians are all at play. i look out from the broken windows of this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with grayness. below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass, bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff, shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture. numerous plantation-buildings totter around, all slovenly and unattractive, while the interspaces are filled with all manner of wreck and refuse, pigs, fowls, dogs, and omnipresent ethiopian infancy. all this is the universal southern panorama; but five minutes' walk beyond the hovels and the live-oaks will bring one to something so un-southern that the whole southern coast at this moment trembles at the suggestion of such a thing, the camp of a regiment of freed slaves. one adapts one's self so readily to new surroundings that already the full zest of the novelty seems passing away from my perceptions, and i write these lines in an eager effort to retain all i can. already i am growing used to the experience, at first so novel, of living among five hundred men, and scarce a white face to be seen, of seeing them go through all their daily processes, eating, frolicking, talking, just as if they were white. each day at dress-parade i stand with the customary folding of the arms before a regimental line of countenances so black that i can hardly tell whether the men stand steadily or not; black is every hand which moves in ready cadence as i vociferate, "battalion! shoulder arms!" nor is it till the line of white officers moves forward, as parade is dismissed, that i am reminded that my own face is not the color of coal. the first few days on duty with a new regiment must be devoted almost wholly to tightening reins; in this process one deals chiefly with the officers, and i have as yet had but little personal intercourse with the men. they concern me chiefly in bulk, as so many consumers of rations, wearers of uniforms, bearers of muskets. but as the machine comes into shape, i am beginning to decipher the individual parts. at first, of course, they all looked just alike; the variety comes afterwards, and they are just as distinguishable, the officers say, as so many whites. most of them are wholly raw, but there are many who have already been for months in camp in the abortive "hunter regiment," yet in that loose kind of way which, like average militia training, is a doubtful advantage. i notice that some companies, too, look darker than others, though all are purer african than i expected. this is said to be partly a geographical difference between the south carolina and florida men. when the rebels evacuated this region they probably took with them the house-servants, including most of the mixed blood, so that the residuum seems very black. but the men brought from fernandina the other day average lighter in complexion, and look more intelligent, and they certainly take wonderfully to the drill. it needs but a few days to show the absurdity of distrusting the military availability of these people. they have quite as much average comprehension as whites of the need of the thing, as much courage (i doubt not), as much previous knowledge of the gun, and, above all, a readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill, counterbalances any defect of mental training. to learn the drill, one does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager, active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are the better. there is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites in that. as to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice; they are better fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they appear to have few inconvenient vices. they are simple, docile, and affectionate almost to the point of absurdity. the same men who stood fire in open field with perfect coolness, on the late expedition, have come to me blubbering in the most irresistibly ludicrous manner on being transferred from one company in the regiment to another. in noticing the squad-drills i perceive that the men learn less laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which is the elementary vexation of the drill-master, that they more rarely mistake their left for their right, and are more grave and sedate while under instruction. the extremes of jollity and sobriety, being greater with them, are less liable to be intermingled; these companies can be driven with a looser rein than my former one, for they restrain themselves; but the moment they are dismissed from drill every tongue is relaxed and every ivory tooth visible. this morning i wandered about where the different companies were target-shooting, and their glee was contagious. such exulting shouts of "ki! ole man," when some steady old turkey-shooter brought his gun down for an instant's aim, and then unerringly hit the mark; and then, when some unwary youth fired his piece into the ground at half-cock such guffawing and delight, such rolling over and over on the grass, such dances of ecstasy, as made the "ethiopian minstrelsy" of the stage appear a feeble imitation. evening. better still was a scene on which i stumbled to-night. strolling in the cool moonlight, i was attracted by a brilliant light beneath the trees, and cautiously approached it. a circle of thirty or forty soldiers sat around a roaring fire, while one old uncle, cato by name, was narrating an interminable tale, to the insatiable delight of his audience. i came up into the dusky background, perceived only by a few, and he still continued. it was a narrative, dramatized to the last degree, of his adventures in escaping from his master to the union vessels; and even i, who have heard the stories of harriet tubman, and such wonderful slave-comedians, never witnessed such a piece of acting. when i came upon the scene he had just come unexpectedly upon a plantation-house, and, putting a bold face upon it, had walked up to the door. "den i go up to de white man, berry humble, and say, would he please gib ole man a mouthful for eat? "he say he must hab de valeration ob half a dollar. "den i look berry sorry, and turn for go away. "den he say i might gib him dat hatchet i had. "den i say" (this in a tragic vein) "dat i must hab dat hatchet for defend myself _from de dogs_!" [immense applause, and one appreciating auditor says, chuckling, "dat was your _arms_, ole man," which brings down the house again.] "den he say de yankee pickets was near by, and i must be very keerful. "den i say, 'good lord, mas'r, am dey?'" words cannot express the complete dissimulation with which these accents of terror were uttered, this being precisely the piece of information he wished to obtain. then he narrated his devices to get into the house at night and obtain some food, how a dog flew at him, how the whole household, black and white, rose in pursuit, how he scrambled under a hedge and over a high fence, etc., all in a style of which gough alone among orators can give the faintest impression, so thoroughly dramatized was every syllable. then he described his reaching the river-side at last, and trying to decide whether certain vessels held friends or foes. "den i see guns on board, and sure sartin he union boat, and i pop my head up. den i been-a-tink [think] seceshkey hab guns too, and my head go down again. den i hide in de bush till morning. den i open my bundle, and take ole white shut and tie him on ole pole and wave him, and ebry time de wind blow, i been-a-tremble, and drap down in de bushes," because, being between two fires, he doubted whether friend or foe would see his signal first. and so on, with a succession of tricks beyond moliere, of acts of caution, foresight, patient cunning, which were listened to with infinite gusto and perfect comprehension by every listener. and all this to a bivouac of negro soldiers, with the brilliant fire lighting up their red trousers and gleaming from their shining black faces, eyes and teeth all white with tumultuous glee. overhead, the mighty limbs of a great live-oak, with the weird moss swaying in the smoke, and the high moon gleaming faintly through. yet to-morrow strangers will remark on the hopeless, impenetrable stupidity in the daylight faces of many of these very men, the solid mask under which nature has concealed all this wealth of mother-wit. this very comedian is one to whom one might point, as he hoed lazily in a cotton-field, as a being the light of whose brain had utterly gone out; and this scene seems like coming by night upon some conclave of black beetles, and finding them engaged, with green-room and foot-lights, in enacting "poor pillicoddy." this is their university; every young sambo before me, as he turned over the sweet potatoes and peanuts which were roasting in the ashes, listened with reverence to the wiles of the ancient ulysses, and meditated the same. it is nature's compensation; oppression simply crushes the upper faculties of the head, and crowds everything into the perceptive organs. cato, thou reasonest well! when i get into any serious scrape, in an enemy's country, may i be lucky enough to have you at my elbow, to pull me out of it! the men seem to have enjoyed the novel event of thanksgiving-day; they have had company and regimental prize-shootings, a minimum of speeches and a maximum of dinner. bill of fare: two beef-cattle and a thousand oranges. the oranges cost a cent apiece, and the cattle were secesh, bestowed by general saxby, as they all call him. december , . how absurd is the impression bequeathed by slavery in regard to these southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! last night, after a hard day's work (our guns and the remainder of our tents being just issued), an order came from beaufort that we should be ready in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their use. i wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went at it. never have i beheld such a jolly scene of labor. tugging these wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great uproar of merriment for two hours. running most of the time, chattering all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that i gladly stayed out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. and all this without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most natural way of doing the thing. the steamboat captain declared that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, i reproached one whom i found sitting by a campfire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin, "o no, gunnel, da's no work at all, gunnel; dat only jess enough for stretch we." december , . i believe i have not yet enumerated the probable drawbacks to the success of this regiment, if any. we are exposed to no direct annoyance from the white regiments, being out of their way; and we have as yet no discomforts or privations which we do not share with them. i do not as yet see the slightest obstacle, in the nature of the blacks, to making them good soldiers, but rather the contrary. they take readily to drill, and do not object to discipline; they are not especially dull or inattentive; they seem fully to understand the importance of the contest, and of their share in it. they show no jealousy or suspicion towards their officers. they do show these feelings, however, towards the government itself; and no one can wonder. here lies the drawback to rapid recruiting. were this a wholly new regiment, it would have been full to overflowing, i am satisfied, ere now. the trouble is in the legacy of bitter distrust bequeathed by the abortive regiment of general hunter, into which they were driven like cattle, kept for several months in camp, and then turned off without a shilling, by order of the war department. the formation of that regiment was, on the whole, a great injury to this one; and the men who came from it, though the best soldiers we have in other respects, are the least sanguine and cheerful; while those who now refuse to enlist have a great influence in deterring others. our soldiers are constantly twitted by their families and friends with their prospect of risking their lives in the service, and being paid nothing; and it is in vain that we read them the instructions of the secretary of war to general saxton, promising them the full pay of soldiers. they only half believe it.* *with what utter humiliation were we, their officers, obliged to confess to them, eighteen months afterwards, that it was their distrust which was wise, and our faith in the pledges of the united states government which was foolishness! another drawback is that some of the white soldiers delight in frightening the women on the plantations with doleful tales of plans for putting us in the front rank in all battles, and such silly talk,--the object being perhaps, to prevent our being employed on active service at all. all these considerations they feel precisely as white men would,--no less, no more; and it is the comparative freedom from such unfavorable influences which makes the florida men seem more bold and manly, as they undoubtedly do. to-day general saxton has returned from fernandina with seventy-six recruits, and the eagerness of the captains to secure them was a sight to see. yet they cannot deny that some of the very best men in the regiment are south carolinians. december , .-- p.m. what a life is this i lead! it is a dark, mild, drizzling evening, and as the foggy air breeds sand-flies, so it calls out melodies and strange antics from this mysterious race of grown-up children with whom my lot is cast. all over the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as i sit at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and glee. boys laugh and shout,--a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some tent, not an officer's,--a drum throbs far away in another,--wild kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead slave-masters,--and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous sound of that strange festival, half pow-wow, half prayer-meeting, which they know only as a "shout." these fires are usually enclosed in a little booth, made neatly of palm-leaves and covered in at top, a regular native african hut, in short, such as is pictured in books, and such as i once got up from dried palm-leaves for a fair at home. this hut is now crammed with men, singing at the top of their voices, in one of their quaint, monotonous, endless, negro-methodist chants, with obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and clapping of the hands, like castanets. then the excitement spreads: inside and outside the enclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre; some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on, others stoop and rise, others whirl, others caper sideways, all keep steadily circling like dervishes; spectators applaud special strokes of skill; my approach only enlivens the scene; the circle enlarges, louder grows the singing, rousing shouts of encouragement come in, half bacchanalian, half devout, "wake 'em, brudder!" "stan' up to 'em, brudder!"--and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect cadence, goes steadily on. suddenly there comes a sort of snap, and the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. and this not rarely and occasionally, but night after night, while in other parts of the camp the soberest prayers and exhortations are proceeding sedately. a simple and lovable people, whose graces seem to come by nature, and whose vices by training. some of the best superintendents confirm the first tales of innocence, and dr. zachos told me last night that on his plantation, a sequestered one, "they had absolutely no vices." nor have these men of mine yet shown any worth mentioning; since i took command i have heard of no man intoxicated, and there has been but one small quarrel. i suppose that scarcely a white regiment in the army shows so little swearing. take the "progressive friends" and put them in red trousers, and i verily believe they would fill a guard-house sooner than these men. if camp regulations are violated, it seems to be usually through heedlessness. they love passionately three things besides their spiritual incantations; namely, sugar, home, and tobacco. this last affection brings tears to their eyes, almost, when they speak of their urgent need of pay; they speak of their last-remembered quid as if it were some deceased relative, too early lost, and to be mourned forever. as for sugar, no white man can drink coffee after they have sweetened it to their liking. i see that the pride which military life creates may cause the plantation trickeries to diminish. for instance, these men make the most admirable sentinels. it is far harder to pass the camp lines at night than in the camp from which i came; and i have seen none of that disposition to connive at the offences of members of one's own company which is so troublesome among white soldiers. nor are they lazy, either about work or drill; in all respects they seem better material for soldiers than i had dared to hope. there is one company in particular, all florida men, which i certainly think the finest-looking company i ever saw, white or black; they range admirably in size, have remarkable erectness and ease of carriage, and really march splendidly. not a visitor but notices them; yet they have been under drill only a fortnight, and a part only two days. they have all been slaves, and very few are even mulattoes. december , . "dwelling in tents, with abraham, isaac, and jacob." this condition is certainly mine,--and with a multitude of patriarchs beside, not to mention caesar and pompey, hercules and bacchus. a moving life, tented at night, this experience has been mine in civil society, if society be civil before the luxurious forest fires of maine and the adirondack, or upon the lonely prairies of kansas. but a stationary tent life, deliberately going to housekeeping under canvas, i have never had before, though in our barrack life at "camp wool" i often wished for it. the accommodations here are about as liberal as my quarters there, two wall-tents being placed end to end, for office and bedroom, and separated at will by a "fly" of canvas. there is a good board floor and mop-board, effectually excluding dampness and draughts, and everything but sand, which on windy days penetrates everywhere. the office furniture consists of a good desk or secretary, a very clumsy and disastrous settee, and a remarkable chair. the desk is a bequest of the slaveholders, and the settee of the slaves, being ecclesiastical in its origin, and appertaining to the little old church or "praise-house," now used for commissary purposes. the chair is a composite structure: i found a cane seat on a dust-heap, which a black sergeant combined with two legs from a broken bedstead and two more from an oak-bough. i sit on it with a pride of conscious invention, mitigated by profound insecurity. bedroom furniture, a couch made of gun-boxes covered with condemned blankets, another settee, two pails, a tin cup, tin basin (we prize any tin or wooden ware as savages prize iron), and a valise, regulation size. seriously considered, nothing more appears needful, unless ambition might crave another chair for company, and, perhaps, something for a wash-stand higher than a settee. to-day it rains hard, and the wind quivers through the closed canvas, and makes one feel at sea. all the talk of the camp outside is fused into a cheerful and indistinguishable murmur, pierced through at every moment by the wail of the hovering plover. sometimes a face, black or white, peers through the entrance with some message. since the light readily penetrates, though the rain cannot, the tent conveys a feeling of charmed security, as if an invisible boundary checked the pattering drops and held the moaning wind. the front tent i share, as yet, with my adjutant; in the inner apartment i reign supreme, bounded in a nutshell, with no bad dreams. in all pleasant weather the outer "fly" is open, and men pass and repass, a chattering throng. i think of emerson's saadi, "as thou sittest at thy door, on the desert's yellow floor,"--for these bare sand-plains, gray above, are always yellow when upturned, and there seems a tinge of orientalism in all our life. thrice a day we go to the plantation-houses for our meals, camp-arrangements being yet very imperfect. the officers board in different messes, the adjutant and i still clinging to the household of william washington,--william the quiet and the courteous, the pattern of house-servants, william the noiseless, the observing, the discriminating, who knows everything that can be got, and how to cook it. william and his tidy, lady-like little spouse hetty--a pair of wedded lovers, if ever i saw one--set our table in their one room, half-way between an un glazed window and a large wood-fire, such as is often welcome. thanks to the adjutant, we are provided with the social magnificence of napkins; while (lest pride take too high a flight) our table-cloth consists of two "new york tribunes" and a "leslie's pictorial." every steamer brings us a clean table-cloth. here are we forever supplied with pork and oysters and sweet potatoes and rice and hominy and corn-bread and milk; also mysterious griddle-cakes of corn and pumpkin; also preserves made of pumpkin-chips, and other fanciful productions of ethiop art. mr. e. promised the plantation-superintendents who should come down here "all the luxuries of home," and we certainly have much apparent, if little real variety. once william produced with some palpitation something fricasseed, which he boldly termed chicken; it was very small, and seemed in some undeveloped condition of ante-natal toughness. after the meal he frankly avowed it for a squirrel. december , . give these people their tongues, their feet, and their leisure, and they are happy. at every twilight the air is full of singing, talking, and clapping of hands in unison. one of their favorite songs is full of plaintive cadences; it is not, i think, a methodist tune, and i wonder where they obtained a chant of such beauty. "i can't stay behind, my lord, i can't stay behind! o, my father is gone, my father is gone, my father is gone into heaven, my lord! i can't stay behind! dere's room enough, room enough, room enough in de heaven for de sojer: can't stay behind!" it always excites them to have us looking on, yet they sing these songs at all times and seasons. i have heard this very song dimly droning on near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting away with his "can't stay behind, sinner," till i made him leave his song behind. this evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch, a party suddenly rushed off, got a barrel, and mounted some man upon it, who said, "gib anoder song, boys, and i'se gib you a speech." after some hesitation and sundry shouts of "rise de sing, somebody," and "stan' up for jesus, brud-der," irreverently put in by the juveniles, they got upon the john brown song, always a favorite, adding a jubilant verse which i had never before heard,--"we'll beat beauregard on de clare battlefield." then came the promised speech, and then no less than seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of barrels, each orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and set on end by his special constituency. every speech was good, without exception; with the queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation, there was an invariable enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an understanding of the points at issue, which made them all rather thrilling. those long-winded slaves in "among the pines" seemed rather fictitious and literary in comparison. the most eloquent, perhaps, was corporal price lambkin, just arrived from fernandina, who evidently had a previous reputation among them. his historical references were very interesting. he reminded them that he had predicted this war ever since fremont's time, to which some of the crowd assented; he gave a very intelligent account of that presidential campaign, and then described most impressively the secret anxiety of the slaves in florida to know all about president lincoln's election, and told how they all refused to work on the fourth of march, expecting their freedom to date from that day. he finally brought out one of the few really impressive appeals for the american flag that i have ever heard. "our mas'rs dey hab lib under de flag, dey got dere wealth under it, and ebryting beautiful for dere chilen. under it dey hab grind us up, and put us in dere pocket for money. but de fus' minute dey tink dat ole flag mean freedom for we colored people, dey pull it right down, and run up de rag ob dere own." (immense applause). "but we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber; we hab lib under it for eighteen hundred sixty-two years, and we'll die for it now." with which overpowering discharge of chronology-at-long-range, this most effective of stump-speeches closed. i see already with relief that there will be small demand in this regiment for harangues from the officers; give the men an empty barrel for a stump, and they will do their own exhortation. december , . haroun alraschid, wandering in disguise through his imperial streets, scarcely happened upon a greater variety of groups than i, in my evening strolls among our own camp-fires. beside some of these fires the men are cleaning their guns or rehearsing their drill,--beside others, smoking in silence their very scanty supply of the beloved tobacco,--beside others, telling stories and shouting with laughter over the broadest mimicry, in which they excel, and in which the officers come in for a full share. the everlasting "shout" is always within hearing, with its mixture of piety and polka, and its castanet-like clapping of the hands. then there are quieter prayer-meetings, with pious invocations and slow psalms, "deaconed out" from memory by the leader, two lines at a time, in a sort of wailing chant. elsewhere, there are _conversazioni_ around fires, with a woman for queen of the circle,--her nubian face, gay headdress, gilt necklace, and white teeth, all resplendent in the glowing light. sometimes the woman is spelling slow monosyllables out of a primer, a feat which always commands all ears,--they rightly recognizing a mighty spell, equal to the overthrowing of monarchs, in the magic assonance of _cat, hat, pat, bat_, and the rest of it. elsewhere, it is some solitary old cook, some aged uncle tiff, with enormous spectacles, who is perusing a hymn-book by the light of a pine splinter, in his deserted cooking booth of palmetto leaves. by another fire there is an actual dance, red-legged soldiers doing right-and-left, and "now-lead-de-lady-ober," to the music of a violin which is rather artistically played, and which may have guided the steps, in other days, of barnwells and hugers. and yonder is a stump-orator perched on his barrel, pouring out his exhortations to fidelity in war and in religion. to-night for the first time i have heard an harangue in a different strain, quite saucy, sceptical, and defiant, appealing to them in a sort of french materialistic style, and claiming some personal experience of warfare. "you don't know notin' about it, boys. you tink you's brave enough; how you tink, if you stan' clar in de open field,--here you, and dar de secesh? you's got to hab de right ting inside o' you. you must hab it 'served [preserved] in you, like dese yer sour plums dey 'serve in de barr'l; you's got to harden it down inside o' you, or it's notin'." then he hit hard at the religionists: "when a man's got de sperit ob de lord in him, it weakens him all out, can't hoe de corn." he had a great deal of broad sense in his speech; but presently some others began praying vociferously close by, as if to drown this free-thinker, when at last he exclaimed, "i mean to fight de war through, an' die a good sojer wid de last kick, dat's _my_ prayer!" and suddenly jumped off the barrel. i was quite interested at discovering this reverse side of the temperament, the devotional side preponderates so enormously, and the greatest scamps kneel and groan in their prayer-meetings with such entire zest. it shows that there is some individuality developed among them, and that they will not become too exclusively pietistic. their love of the spelling-book is perfectly inexhaustible,--they stumbling on by themselves, or the blind leading the blind, with the same pathetic patience which they carry into everything. the chaplain is getting up a schoolhouse, where he will soon teach them as regularly as he can. but the alphabet must always be a very incidental business in a camp. december . passages from prayers in the camp:-- "let me so lib dat when i die i shall _hab manners_, dat i shall know what to say when i see my heabenly lord." "let me lib wid de musket in one hand an' de bible in de oder,--dat if i die at de muzzle ob de musket, die in de water, die on de land, i may know i hab de bressed jesus in my hand, an' hab no fear." "i hab lef my wife in de land o' bondage; my little ones dey say eb'ry night, whar is my fader? but when i die, when de bressed mornin' rises, when i shall stan' in de glory, wid one foot on de water an' one foot on de land, den, o lord, i shall see my wife an' my little chil'en once more." these sentences i noted down, as best i could, beside the glimmering camp-fire last night. the same person was the hero of a singular little _contre-temps_ at a funeral in the afternoon. it was our first funeral. the man had died in hospital, and we had chosen a picturesque burial-place above the river, near the old church, and beside a little nameless cemetery, used by generations of slaves. it was a regular military funeral, the coffin being draped with the american flag, the escort marching behind, and three volleys fired over the grave. during the services there was singing, the chaplain deaconing out the hymn in their favorite way. this ended, he announced his text,--"this poor man cried, and the lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his trouble." instantly, to my great amazement, the cracked voice of the chorister was uplifted, intoning the text, as if it were the first verse of another hymn. so calmly was it done, so imperturbable were all the black countenances, that i half began to conjecture that the chaplain himself intended it for a hymn, though i could imagine no prospective rhyme for _trouble_ unless it were approximated by _debbil_, which is, indeed, a favorite reference, both with the men and with his reverence. but the chaplain, peacefully awaiting, gently repeated his text after the chant, and to my great relief the old chorister waived all further recitative, and let the funeral discourse proceed. their memories are a vast bewildered chaos of jewish history and biography; and most of the great events of the past, down to the period of the american revolution, they instinctively attribute to moses. there is a fine bold confidence in all their citations, however, and the record never loses piquancy in their hands, though strict accuracy may suffer. thus, one of my captains, last sunday, heard a colored exhorter at beaufort proclaim, "paul may plant, _and may polish wid water_, but it won't do," in which the sainted apollos would hardly have recognized himself. just now one of the soldiers came to me to say that he was about to be married to a girl in beaufort, and would i lend him a dollar and seventy-five cents to buy the wedding outfit? it seemed as if matrimony on such moderate terms ought to be encouraged in these days; and so i responded to the appeal. december . to-day a young recruit appeared here, who had been the slave of colonel sammis, one of the leading florida refugees. two white companions came with him, who also appeared to be retainers of the colonel, and i asked them to dine. being likewise refugees, they had stories to tell, and were quite agreeable: one was english born, the other floridian, a dark, sallow southerner, very well bred. after they had gone, the colonel himself appeared, i told him that i had been entertaining his white friends, and after a while he quietly let out the remark,-- "yes, one of those white friends of whom you speak is a boy raised on one of my plantations; he has travelled with me to the north, and passed for white, and he always keeps away from the negroes." certainly no such suspicion had ever crossed my mind. i have noticed one man in the regiment who would easily pass for white,--a little sickly drummer, aged fifty at least, with brown eyes and reddish hair, who is said to be the son of one of our commodores. i have seen perhaps a dozen persons as fair, or fairer, among fugitive slaves, but they were usually young children. it touched me far more to see this man, who had spent more than half a lifetime in this low estate, and for whom it now seemed too late to be anything but a "nigger." this offensive word, by the way, is almost as common with them as at the north, and far more common than with well-bred slaveholders. they have meekly accepted it. "want to go out to de nigger houses, sah," is the universal impulse of sociability, when they wish to cross the lines. "he hab twenty house-servants, an' two hundred head o' nigger," is a still more degrading form of phrase, in which the epithet is limited to the field-hands, and they estimated like so many cattle. this want of self-respect of course interferes with the authority of the non-commissioned officers, which is always difficult to sustain, even in white regiments. "he needn't try to play de white man ober me," was the protest of a soldier against his corporal the other day. to counteract this i have often to remind them that they do not obey their officers because they are white, but because they are their officers; and guard duty is an admirable school for this, because they readily understand that the sergeant or corporal of the guard has for the time more authority than any commissioned officer who is not on duty. it is necessary also for their superiors to treat the non-commissioned officers with careful courtesy, and i often caution the line officers never to call them "sam" or "will," nor omit the proper handle to their names. the value of the habitual courtesies of the regular army is exceedingly apparent with these men: an officer of polished manners can wind them round his finger, while white soldiers seem rather to prefer a certain roughness. the demeanor of my men to each other is very courteous, and yet i see none of that sort of upstart conceit which is sometimes offensive among free negroes at the north, the dandy-barber strut. this is an agreeable surprise, for i feared that freedom and regimentals would produce precisely that. they seem the world's perpetual children, docile, gay, and lovable, in the midst of this war for freedom on which they have intelligently entered. last night, before "taps," there was the greatest noise in camp that i had ever heard, and i feared some riot. on going out, i found the most tumultuous sham-fight proceeding in total darkness, two companies playing like boys, beating tin cups for drums. when some of them saw me they seemed a little dismayed, and came and said, beseechingly,--"gunnel, sah, you hab no objection to we playin', sah?"--which objection i disclaimed; but soon they all subsided, rather to my regret, and scattered merrily. afterward i found that some other officer had told them that i considered the affair too noisy, so that i felt a mild self-reproach when one said, "cunnel, wish you had let we play a little longer, sah." still i was not sorry, on the whole; for these sham-fights between companies would in some regiments lead to real ones, and there is a latent jealousy here between the florida and south carolina men, which sometimes makes me anxious. the officers are more kind and patient with the men than i should expect, since the former are mostly young, and drilling tries the temper; but they are aided by hearty satisfaction in the results already attained. i have never yet heard a doubt expressed among the officers as to the _superiority_ of these men to white troops in aptitude for drill and discipline, because of their imitativeness and docility, and the pride they take in the service. one captain said to me to-day, "i have this afternoon taught my men to load-in-nine-times, and they do it better than we did it in my former company in three months." i can personally testify that one of our best lieutenants, an englishman, taught a part of his company the essential movements of the "school for skirmishers" in a single lesson of two hours, so that they did them very passably, though i feel bound to discourage such haste. however, i "formed square" on the third battalion drill. three fourths of drill consist of attention, imitation, and a good ear for time; in the other fourth, which consists of the application of principles, as, for instance, performing by the left flank some movement before learned by the right, they are perhaps slower than better educated men. having belonged to five different drill-clubs before entering the army, i certainly ought to know something of the resources of human awkwardness, and i can honestly say that they astonish me by the facility with which they do things. i expected much harder work in this respect. the habit of carrying burdens on the head gives them erectness of figure, even where physically disabled. i have seen a woman, with a brimming water-pail balanced on her head, or perhaps a cup, saucer, and spoon, stop suddenly, turn round, stoop to pick up a missile, rise again, fling it, light a pipe, and go through many evolutions with either hand or both, without spilling a drop. the pipe, by the way, gives an odd look to a well-dressed young girl on sunday, but one often sees that spectacle. the passion for tobacco among our men continues quite absorbing, and i have piteous appeals for some arrangement by which they can buy it on credit, as we have yet no sutler. their imploring, "cunnel, we can't _lib_ widout it, sah," goes to my heart; and as they cannot read, i cannot even have the melancholy satisfaction of supplying them with the excellent anti-tobacco tracts of mr. trask. december . last night the water froze in the adjutant's tent, but not in mine. to-day has been mild and beautiful. the blacks say they do not feel the cold so much as the white officers do, and perhaps it is so, though their health evidently suffers more from dampness. on the other hand, while drilling on very warm days, they have seemed to suffer more from the heat than their officers. but they dearly love fire, and at night will always have it, if possible, even on the minutest scale,--a mere handful of splinters, that seems hardly more efficacious than a friction-match. probably this is a natural habit for the short-lived coolness of an out-door country; and then there is something delightful in this rich pine, which burns like a tar-barrel. it was, perhaps, encouraged by the masters, as the only cheap luxury the slaves had at hand. as one grows more acquainted with the men, their individualities emerge; and i find, first their faces, then their characters, to be as distinct as those of whites. it is very interesting the desire they show to do their duty, and to improve as soldiers; they evidently think about it, and see the importance of the thing; they say to me that we white men cannot stay and be their leaders always and that they must learn to depend on themselves, or else relapse into their former condition. beside the superb branch of uneatable bitter oranges which decks my tent-pole, i have to-day hung up a long bough of finger-sponge, which floated to the river-bank. as winter advances, butterflies gradually disappear: one species (a _vanessa_) lingers; three others have vanished since i came. mocking-birds are abundant, but rarely sing; once or twice they have reminded me of the red thrush, but are inferior, as i have always thought. the colored people all say that it will be much cooler; but my officers do not think so, perhaps because last winter was so unusually mild,--with only one frost, they say. december . philoprogenitiveness is an important organ for an officer of colored troops; and i happen to be well provided with it. it seems to be the theory of all military usages, in fact, that soldiers are to be treated like children; and these singular persons, who never know their own age till they are past middle life, and then choose a birthday with such precision,--"fifty year old, sah, de fus' last april,"--prolong the privilege of childhood. i am perplexed nightly for countersigns,--their range of proper names is so distressingly limited, and they make such amazing work of every new one. at first, to be sure, they did not quite recognize the need of any variation: one night some officer asked a sentinel whether he had the countersign yet, and was indignantly answered, "should tink i hab 'em, hab 'em for a fortnight"; which seems a long epoch for that magic word to hold out. to-night i thought i would have "fredericksburg," in honor of burnside's reported victory, using the rumor quickly, for fear of a contradiction. later, in comes a captain, gets the countersign for his own use, but presently returns, the sentinel having pronounced it incorrect. on inquiry, it appears that the sergeant of the guard, being weak in geography, thought best to substitute the more familiar word, "crockery-ware"; which was, with perfect gravity, confided to all the sentinels, and accepted without question. o life! what is the fun of fiction beside thee? i should think they would suffer and complain these cold nights; but they say nothing, though there is a good deal of coughing. i should fancy that the scarlet trousers must do something to keep them warm, and wonder that they dislike them so much, when they are so much like their beloved fires. they certainly multiply firelight in any case. i often notice that an infinitesimal flame, with one soldier standing by it, looks like quite a respectable conflagration, and it seems as if a group of them must dispel dampness. december . to a regimental commander no book can be so fascinating as the consolidated morning report, which is ready about nine, and tells how many in each company are sick, absent, on duty, and so on. it is one's newspaper and daily mail; i never grow tired of it. if a single recruit has come in, i am always eager to see how he looks on paper. to-night the officers are rather depressed by rumors of burnside's being defeated, after all. i am fortunately equable and undepressible; and it is very convenient that the men know too little of the events of the war to feel excitement or fear. they know general saxton and me,--"de general" and "de gunnel,"--and seem to ask no further questions. we are the war. it saves a great deal of trouble, while it lasts, this childlike confidence; nevertheless, it is our business to educate them to manhood, and i see as yet no obstacle. as for the rumor, the world will no doubt roll round, whether burnside is defeated or succeeds. christmas day. "we'll fight for liberty till de lord shall call us home; we'll soon be free till de lord shall call us home." this is the hymn which the slaves at georgetown, south carolina, were whipped for singing when president lincoln was elected. so said a little drummer-boy, as he sat at my tent's edge last night and told me his story; and he showed all his white teeth as he added, "dey tink _'de lord'_ meant for say de yankees." last night, at dress-parade, the adjutant read general saxton's proclamation for the new year's celebration. i think they understood it, for there was cheering in all the company-streets afterwards. christmas is the great festival of the year for this people; but, with new year's coming after, we could have no adequate programme for to-day, and so celebrated christmas eve with pattern simplicity. we omitted, namely, the mystic curfew which we call "taps," and let them sit up and burn their fires, and have their little prayer-meetings as late as they desired; and all night, as i waked at intervals, i could hear them praying and "shouting" and clattering with hands and heels. it seemed to make them very happy, and appeared to be at least an innocent christmas dissipation, as compared with some of the convivialities of the "superior race" hereabouts. december . the day passed with no greater excitement for the men than target-shooting, which they enjoyed. i had the private delight of the arrival of our much-desired surgeon and his nephew, the captain, with letters and news from home. they also bring the good tidings that general saxton is not to be removed, as had been reported. two different stands of colors have arrived for us, and will be presented at new year's,--one from friends in new york, and the other from a lady in connecticut. i see that "frank leslie's illustrated weekly" of december th has a highly imaginative picture of the muster-in of our first company, and also of a skirmish on the late expedition. i must not forget the prayer overheard last night by one of the captains: "o lord! when i tink ob dis kismas and las' year de kismas. las' kismas he in de secesh, and notin' to eat but grits, and no salt in 'em. dis year in de camp, and too much victual!" this "too much" is a favorite phrase out of their grateful hearts, and did not in this case denote an excess of dinner,--as might be supposed,--but of thanksgiving. december . our new surgeon has begun his work most efficiently: he and the chaplain have converted an old gin-house into a comfortable hospital, with ten nice beds and straw pallets. he is now, with a hearty professional faith, looking round for somebody to put into it. i am afraid the regiment will accommodate him; for, although he declares that these men do not sham sickness, as he expected, their catarrh is an unpleasant reality. they feel the dampness very much, and make such a coughing at dress-parade, that i have urged him to administer a dose of cough-mixture, all round, just before that pageant. are the colored race _tough?_ is my present anxiety; and it is odd that physical insufficiency, the only discouragement not thrown in our way by the newspapers, is the only discouragement which finds any place in our minds. they are used to sleeping indoors in winter, herded before fires, and so they feel the change. still, the regiment is as healthy as the average, and experience will teach us something.* * a second winter's experience removed all this solicitude, for they learned to take care of themselves. during the first february the sick-list averaged about ninety, during the second about thirty, this being the worst month in the year for blacks. december . on the first of january we are to have a slight collation, ten oxen or so, barbecued,--or not properly barbecued, but roasted whole. touching the length of time required to "do" an ox, no two housekeepers appear to agree. accounts vary from two hours to twenty-four. we shall happily have enough to try all gradations of roasting, and suit all tastes, from miss a.'s to mine. but fancy me proffering a spare-rib, well done, to some fair lady! what ever are we to do for spoons and forks and plates? each soldier has his own, and is sternly held responsible for it by "army regulations." but how provide for the multitude? is it customary, i ask you, to help to tenderloin with one's fingers? fortunately, the major is to see to that department. great are the advantages of military discipline: for anything perplexing, detail a subordinate. new year's eve. my housekeeping at home is not, perhaps, on any very extravagant scale. buying beefsteak, i usually go to the extent of two or three pounds. yet when, this morning at daybreak, the quartermaster called to inquire how many cattle i would have killed for roasting, i turned over in bed, and answered composedly, "ten,--and keep three to be fatted." fatted, quotha! not one of the beasts at present appears to possess an ounce of superfluous flesh. never were seen such lean kine. as they swing on vast spits, composed of young trees, the firelight glimmers through their ribs, as if they were great lanterns. but no matter, they are cooking,--nay, they are cooked. one at least is taken off to cool, and will be replaced tomorrow to warm up. it was roasted three hours, and well done, for i tasted it. it is so long since i tasted fresh beef that forgetfulness is possible; but i fancied this to be successful. i tried to imagine that i liked the homeric repast, and certainly the whole thing has been far more agreeable than was to be expected. the doubt now is, whether i have made a sufficient provision for my household. i should have roughly guessed that ten beeves would feed as many million people, it has such a stupendous sound; but general saxton predicts a small social party of five thousand, and we fear that meat will run short, unless they prefer bone. one of the cattle is so small, we are hoping it may turn out veal. for drink we aim at the simple luxury of molasses-and-water, a barrel per company, ten in all. liberal housekeepers may like to know that for a barrel of water we allow three gallons of molasses, half a pound of ginger, and a quart of vinegar,--this last being a new ingredient for my untutored palate, though all the rest are amazed at my ignorance. hard bread, with more molasses, and a dessert of tobacco, complete the festive repast, destined to cheer, but not inebriate. on this last point, of inebriation, this is certainly a wonderful camp. for us it is absolutely omitted from the list of vices. i have never heard of a glass of liquor in the camp, nor of any effort either to bring it in or to keep it out. a total absence of the circulating medium might explain the abstinence,--not that it seems to have that effect with white soldiers,--but it would not explain the silence. the craving for tobacco is constant, and not to be allayed, like that of a mother for her children; but i have never heard whiskey even wished for, save on christmas-day, and then only by one man, and he spoke with a hopeless ideal sighing, as one alludes to the golden age. i am amazed at this total omission of the most inconvenient of all camp appetites. it certainly is not the result of exhortation, for there has been no occasion for any, and even the pledge would scarcely seem efficacious where hardly anybody can write. i do not think there is a great visible eagerness for tomorrow's festival: it is not their way to be very jubilant over anything this side of the new jerusalem. they know also that those in this department are nominally free already, and that the practical freedom has to be maintained, in any event, by military success. but they will enjoy it greatly, and we shall have a multitude of people. january , (evening). a happy new year to civilized people,--mere white folks. our festival has come and gone, with perfect success, and our good general has been altogether satisfied. last night the great fires were kept smouldering in the pit, and the beeves were cooked more or less, chiefly more,--during which time they had to be carefully watched, and the great spits turned by main force. happy were the merry fellows who were permitted to sit up all night, and watch the glimmering flames that threw a thousand fantastic shadows among the great gnarled oaks. and such a chattering as i was sure to hear whenever i awoke that night! my first greeting to-day was from one of the most stylish sergeants, who approached me with the following little speech, evidently the result of some elaboration:-- "i tink myself happy, dis new year's day, for salute my own cunnel. dis day las' year i was servant to a gunnel ob secesh; but now i hab de privilege for salute my own cunnel." that officer, with the utmost sincerity, reciprocated the sentiment. about ten o'clock the people began to collect by land, and also by water,--in steamers sent by general saxton for the purpose; and from that time all the avenues of approach were thronged. the multitude were chiefly colored women, with gay handkerchiefs on their heads, and a sprinkling of men, with that peculiarly respectable look which these people always have on sundays and holidays. there were many white visitors also,--ladies on horseback and in carriages, superintendents and teachers, officers, and cavalry-men. our companies were marched to the neighborhood of the platform, and allowed to sit or stand, as at the sunday services; the platform was occupied by ladies and dignitaries, and by the band of the eighth maine, which kindly volunteered for the occasion; the colored people filled up all the vacant openings in the beautiful grove around, and there was a cordon of mounted visitors beyond. above, the great live-oak branches and their trailing moss; beyond the people, a glimpse of the blue river. the services began at half past eleven o'clock, with prayer by our chaplain, mr. fowler, who is always, on such occasions, simple, reverential, and impressive. then the president's proclamation was read by dr. w. h. brisbane, a thing infinitely appropriate, a south carolinian addressing south carolinians; for he was reared among these very islands, and here long since emancipated his own slaves. then the colors were presented to us by the rev. mr. french, a chaplain who brought them from the donors in new york. all this was according to the programme. then followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected and startling, that i can scarcely believe it on recalling, though it gave the keynote to the whole day. the very moment the speaker had ceased, and just as i took and waved the flag, which now for the first time meant anything to these poor people, there suddenly arose, close beside the platform, a strong male voice (but rather cracked and elderly), into which two women's voices instantly blended, singing, as if by an impulse that could no more be repressed than the morning note of the song-sparrow.-- "my country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee i sing!" people looked at each other, and then at us on the platform, to see whence came this interruption, not set down in the bills. firmly and irrepressibly the quavering voices sang on, verse after verse; others of the colored people joined in; some whites on the platform began, but i motioned them to silence. i never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. nothing could be more wonderfully unconscious; art could not have dreamed of a tribute to the day of jubilee that should be so affecting; history will not believe it; and when i came to speak of it, after it was ended, tears were everywhere. if you could have heard how quaint and innocent it was! old tiff and his children might have sung it; and close before me was a little slave-boy, almost white, who seemed to belong to the party, and even he must join in. just think of it!--the first day they had ever had a country, the first flag they had ever seen which promised anything to their people, and here, while mere spectators stood in silence, waiting for my stupid words, these simple souls burst out in their lay, as if they were by their own hearths at home! when they stopped, there was nothing to do for it but to speak, and i went on; but the life of the whole day was in those unknown people's song. receiving the flags, i gave them into the hands of two fine-looking men, jet black, as color-guard, and they also spoke, and very effectively,--sergeant prince rivers and corporal robert sutton. the regiment sang "marching along," and then general saxton spoke, in his own simple, manly way, and mrs. francis d. gage spoke very sensibly to the women, and judge stickney, from florida, added something; then some gentleman sang an ode, and the regiment the john brown song, and then they went to their beef and molasses. everything was very orderly, and they seemed to have a very gay time. most of the visitors had far to go, and so dispersed before dress-parade, though the band stayed to enliven it. in the evening we had letters from home, and general saxton had a reception at his house, from which i excused myself; and so ended one of the most enthusiastic and happy gatherings i ever knew. the day was perfect, and there was nothing but success. i forgot to say, that, in the midst of the services, it was announced that general fremont was appointed commander-in-chief,--an announcement which was received with immense cheering, as would have been almost anything else, i verily believe, at that moment of high tide. it was shouted across by the pickets above,--a way in which we often receive news, but not always trustworthy. january , . once, and once only, thus far, the water has frozen in my tent; and the next morning showed a dense white frost outside. we have still mocking-birds and crickets and rosebuds, and occasional noonday baths in the river, though the butterflies have vanished, as i remember to have observed in fayal, after december. i have been here nearly six weeks without a rainy day; one or two slight showers there have been, once interrupting a drill, but never dress-parade. for climate, by day, we might be among the isles of greece,--though it may be my constant familiarity with the names of her sages which suggests that impression. for instance, a voice just now called, near my tent,--"cato, whar's plato?" the men have somehow got the impression that it is essential to the validity of a marriage that they should come to me for permission, just as they used to go to the master; and i rather encourage these little confidences, because it is so entertaining to hear them. "now, cunnel," said a faltering swam the other day, "i want for get me one good lady," which i approved, especially the limitation as to number. afterwards i asked one of the bridegroom's friends whether he thought it a good match. "o yes, cunnel," said he, in all the cordiality of friendship, "john's gwine for marry venus." i trust the goddess will prove herself a better lady than she appeared during her previous career upon this planet. but this naturally suggests the isles of greece again. january . on first arriving, i found a good deal of anxiety among the officers as to the increase of desertions, that being the rock on which the "hunter regiment" split. now this evil is very nearly stopped, and we are every day recovering the older absentees. one of the very best things that have happened to us was the half-accidental shooting of a man who had escaped from the guard-house, and was wounded by a squad sent in pursuit. he has since died; and this very eve-rung another man, who escaped with him, came and opened the door of my tent, after being five days in the woods, almost without food. his clothes were in rags, and he was nearly starved, poor foolish fellow, so that we can almost dispense with further punishment. severe penalties would be wasted on these people, accustomed as they have been to the most violent passions on the part of white men; but a mild inexorableness tells on them, just as it does on any other children. it is something utterly new to me, and it is thus far perfectly efficacious. they have a great deal of pride as soldiers, and a very little of severity goes a great way, if it be firm and consistent. this is very encouraging. the single question which i asked of some of the plantation superintendents, on the voyage, was, "do these people appreciate _justice_?" if they did it was evident that all the rest would be easy. when a race is degraded beyond that point it must be very hard to deal with them; they must mistake all kindness for indulgence, all strictness for cruelty. with these freed slaves there is no such trouble, not a particle: let an officer be only just and firm, with a cordial, kindly nature, and he has no sort of difficulty. the plantation superintendents and teachers have the same experience, they say; but we have an immense advantage in the military organization, which helps in two ways: it increases their self-respect, and it gives us an admirable machinery for discipline, thus improving both the fulcrum and the lever. the wounded man died in the hospital, and the general verdict seemed to be, "him brought it on heself." another soldier died of pneumonia on the same day, and we had the funerals in the evening. it was very impressive. a dense mist came up, with a moon behind it, and we had only the light of pine-splinters, as the procession wound along beneath the mighty, moss-hung branches of the ancient grove. the groups around the grave, the dark faces, the red garments, the scattered lights, the misty boughs, were weird and strange. the men sang one of their own wild chants. two crickets sang also, one on either side, and did not cease their little monotone, even when the three volleys were fired above the graves. just before the coffins were lowered, an old man whispered to me that i must have their position altered,--the heads must be towards the west; so it was done,--though they are in a place so veiled in woods that either rising or setting sun will find it hard to spy them. we have now a good regimental hospital, admirably arranged in a deserted gin-house,--a fine well of our own digging, within the camp lines,--a full allowance of tents, all floored,--a wooden cook-house to every company, with sometimes a palmetto mess-house beside,--a substantial wooden guard-house, with a fireplace five feet "in de clar," where the men off duty can dry themselves and sleep comfortably in bunks afterwards. we have also a great circular school-tent, made of condemned canvas, thirty feet in diameter, and looking like some of the indian lodges i saw in kansas. we now meditate a regimental bakery. our aggregate has increased from four hundred and ninety to seven hundred and forty, besides a hundred recruits now waiting at st. augustine, and we have practised through all the main movements in battalion drill. affairs being thus prosperous, and yesterday having been six weeks since my last and only visit to beaufort, i rode in, glanced at several camps, and dined with the general. it seemed absolutely like re-entering the world; and i did not fully estimate my past seclusion till it occurred to me, as a strange and novel phenomenon, that the soldiers at the other camps were white. january . this morning i went to beaufort again, on necessary business, and by good luck happened upon a review and drill of the white regiments. the thing that struck me most was that same absence of uniformity, in minor points, that i noticed at first in my own officers. the best regiments in the department are represented among my captains and lieutenants, and very well represented too; yet it has cost much labor to bring them to any uniformity in their drill. there is no need of this; for the prescribed "tactics" approach perfection; it is never left discretionary in what place an officer shall stand, or in what words he shall give his order. all variation would seem to imply negligence. yet even west point occasionally varies from the "tactics,"--as, for instance, in requiring the line officers to face down the line, when each is giving the order to his company. in our strictest massachusetts regiments this is not done. it needs an artist's eye to make a perfect drill-master. yet the small points are not merely a matter of punctilio; for, the more perfectly a battalion is drilled on the parade-ground the more quietly it can be handled in action. moreover, the great need of uniformity is this: that, in the field, soldiers of different companies, and even of different regiments, are liable to be intermingled, and a diversity of orders may throw everything into confusion. confusion means bull run. i wished my men at the review to-day; for, amidst all the rattling and noise of artillery and the galloping of cavalry, there was only one infantry movement that we have not practised, and that was done by only one regiment, and apparently considered quite a novelty, though it is easily taught, --forming square by casey's method: forward on centre. it is really just as easy to drill a regiment as a company, --perhaps easier, because one has more time to think; but it is just as essential to be sharp and decisive, perfectly clearheaded, and to put life into the men. a regiment seems small when one has learned how to handle it, a mere handful of men; and i have no doubt that a brigade or a division would soon appear equally small. but to handle either _judiciously_, ah, that is another affair! so of governing; it is as easy to govern a regiment as a school or a factory, and needs like qualities, system, promptness, patience, tact; moreover, in a regiment one has the aid of the admirable machinery of the army, so that i see very ordinary men who succeed very tolerably. reports of a six months' armistice are rife here, and the thought is deplored by all. i cannot believe it; yet sometimes one feels very anxious about the ultimate fate of these poor people. after the experience of hungary, one sees that revolutions may go backward; and the habit of injustice seems so deeply impressed upon the whites, that it is hard to believe in the possibility of anything better. i dare not yet hope that the promise of the president's proclamation will be kept. for myself i can be indifferent, for the experience here has been its own daily and hourly reward; and the adaptedness of the freed slaves for drill and discipline is now thoroughly demonstrated, and must soon be universally acknowledged. but it would be terrible to see this regiment disbanded or defrauded. january . many things glide by without time to narrate them. on saturday we had a mail with the president's second message of emancipation, and the next day it was read to the men. the words themselves did not stir them very much, because they have been often told that they were free, especially on new year's day, and, being unversed in politics, they do not understand, as well as we do, the importance of each additional guaranty. but the chaplain spoke to them afterwards very effectively, as usual; and then i proposed to them to hold up their hands and pledge themselves to be faithful to those still in bondage. they entered heartily into this, and the scene was quite impressive, beneath the great oak-branches. i heard afterwards that only one man refused to raise his hand, saying bluntly that his wife was out of slavery with him, and he did not care to fight. the other soldiers of his company were very indignant, and shoved him about among them while marching back to their quarters, calling him "coward." i was glad of their exhibition of feeling, though it is very possible that the one who had thus the moral courage to stand alone among his comrades might be more reliable, on a pinch, than some who yielded a more ready assent. but the whole response, on their part, was very hearty, and will be a good thing to which to hold them hereafter, at any time of discouragement or demoralization,--which was my chief reason for proposing it. with their simple natures it is a great thing to tie them to some definite committal; they never forget a marked occurrence, and never seem disposed to evade a pledge. it is this capacity of honor and fidelity which gives me such entire faith in them as soldiers. without it all their religious demonstration would be mere sentimentality. for instance, every one who visits the camp is struck with their bearing as sentinels. they exhibit, in this capacity, not an upstart conceit, but a steady, conscientious devotion to duty. they would stop their idolized general saxton, if he attempted to cross their beat contrary to orders: i have seen them. no feeble or incompetent race could do this. the officers tell many amusing instances of this fidelity, but i think mine the best. it was very dark the other night, an unusual thing here, and the rain fell in torrents; so i put on my india-rubber suit, and went the rounds of the sentinels, incognito, to test them. i can only say that i shall never try such an experiment again and have cautioned my officers against it. tis a wonder i escaped with life and limb,--such a charging of bayonets and clicking of gun-locks. sometimes i tempted them by refusing to give any countersign, but offering them a piece of tobacco, which they could not accept without allowing me nearer than the prescribed bayonet's distance. tobacco is more than gold to them, and it was touching to watch the struggle in their minds; but they always did their duty at last, and i never could persuade them. one man, as if wishing to crush all his inward vacillation at one fell stroke, told me stoutly that he never used tobacco, though i found next day that he loved it as much as any one of them. it seemed wrong thus to tamper with their fidelity; yet it was a vital matter to me to know how far it could be trusted, out of my sight. it was so intensely dark that not more than one or two knew me, even after i had talked with the very next sentinel, especially as they had never seen me in india-rubber clothing, and i can always disguise my voice. it was easy to distinguish those who did make the discovery; they were always conscious and simpering when their turn came; while the others were stout and irreverent till i revealed myself, and then rather cowed and anxious, fearing to have offended. it rained harder and harder, and when i had nearly made the rounds i had had enough of it, and, simply giving the countersign to the challenging sentinel, undertook to pass within the lines. "halt!" exclaimed this dusky man and brother, bringing down his bayonet, "de countersign not correck." now the magic word, in this case, was "vicksburg," in honor of a rumored victory. but as i knew that these hard names became quite transformed upon their lips, "carthage" being familiarized into cartridge, and "concord" into corn-cob, how could i possibly tell what shade of pronunciation my friend might prefer for this particular proper name? "vicksburg," i repeated, blandly, but authoritatively, endeavoring, as zealously as one of christy's minstrels, to assimilate my speech to any supposed predilection of the ethiop vocal organs. "halt dar! countersign not correck," was the only answer. the bayonet still maintained a position which, in a military point of view, was impressive. i tried persuasion, orthography, threats, tobacco, all in vain. i could not pass in. of course my pride was up; for was i to defer to an untutored african on a point of pronunciation? classic shades of harvard, forbid! affecting scornful indifference, i tried to edge away, proposing to myself to enter the camp at some other point, where my elocution would be better appreciated. not a step could i stir. "halt!" shouted my gentleman again, still holding me at his bayonet's point, and i wincing and halting. i explained to him the extreme absurdity of this proceeding, called his attention to the state of the weather, which, indeed, spoke for itself so loudly that we could hardly hear each other speak, and requested permission to withdraw. the bayonet, with mute eloquence, refused the application. there flashed into my mind, with more enjoyment in the retrospect than i had experienced at the time, an adventure on a lecturing tour in other years, when i had spent an hour in trying to scramble into a country tavern, after bed-time, on the coldest night of winter. on that occasion i ultimately found myself stuck midway in the window, with my head in a temperature of degrees, and my heels in a temperature of - degrees, with a heavy windowsash pinioning the small of my back. however, i had got safe out of that dilemma, and it was time to put an end to this one, "call the corporal of the guard," said i at last, with dignity, unwilling to make a night of it or to yield my incognito. "corporal ob de guard!" he shouted, lustily,--"post number two!" while i could hear another sentinel chuckling with laughter. this last was a special guard, placed over a tent, with a prisoner in charge. presently he broke silence. "who am dat?" he asked, in a stage whisper. "am he a buckra [white man]?" "dunno whether he been a buckra or not," responded, doggedly, my cerberus in uniform; "but i's bound to keep him here till de corporal ob de guard come." yet, when that dignitary arrived, and i revealed myself, poor number two appeared utterly transfixed with terror, and seemed to look for nothing less than immediate execution. of course i praised his fidelity, and the next day complimented him before the guard, and mentioned him to his captain; and the whole affair was very good for them all. hereafter, if satan himself should approach them in darkness and storm, they will take _him_ for "de cunnel," and treat him with special severity. january . in many ways the childish nature of this people shows itself. i have just had to make a change of officers in a company which has constantly complained, and with good reason, of neglect and improper treatment. two excellent officers have been assigned to them; and yet they sent a deputation to me in the evening, in a state of utter wretchedness. "we's bery grieved dis evening, cunnel; 'pears like we couldn't bear it, to lose de cap'n and de lieutenant, all two togeder." argument was useless; and i could only fall back on the general theory, that i knew what was best for them, which had much more effect; and i also could cite the instance of another company, which had been much improved by a new captain, as they readily admitted. so with the promise that the new officers should not be "savage to we," which was the one thing they deprecated, i assuaged their woes. twenty-four hours have passed, and i hear them singing most merrily all down that company street. i often notice how their griefs may be dispelled, like those of children, merely by permission to utter them: if they can tell their sorrows, they go away happy, even without asking to have anything done about them. i observe also a peculiar dislike of all _intermediate_ control: they always wish to pass by the company officer, and deal with me personally for everything. general saxton notices the same thing with the people on the plantations as regards himself. i suppose this proceeds partly from the old habit of appealing to the master against the overseer. kind words would cost the master nothing, and he could easily put off any non-fulfilment upon the overseer. moreover, the negroes have acquired such constitutional distrust of white people, that it is perhaps as much as they can do to trust more than one person at a tune. meanwhile this constant personal intercourse is out of the question in a well-ordered regiment; and the remedy for it is to introduce by degrees more and more of system, so that their immediate officers will become all-sufficient for the daily routine. it is perfectly true (as i find everybody takes for granted) that the first essential for an officer of colored troops is to gain their confidence. but it is equally true, though many persons do not appreciate it, that the admirable methods and proprieties of the regular army are equally available for all troops, and that the sublimest philanthropist, if he does not appreciate this, is unfit to command them. another childlike attribute in these men, which is less agreeable, is a sort of blunt insensibility to giving physical pain. if they are cruel to animals, for instance, it always reminds me of children pulling off flies' legs, in a sort of pitiless, untaught, experimental way. yet i should not fear any wanton outrage from them. after all their wrongs, they are not really revengeful; and i would far rather enter a captured city with them than with white troops, for they would be more subordinate. but for mere physical suffering they would have no fine sympathies. the cruel things they have seen and undergone have helped to blunt them; and if i ordered them to put to death a dozen prisoners, i think they would do it without remonstrance. yet their religious spirit grows more beautiful to me in living longer with them; it is certainly far more so than at first, when it seemed rather a matter of phrase and habit. it influences them both on the negative and the positive side. that is, it cultivates the feminine virtues first,--makes them patient, meek, resigned. this is very evident in the hospital; there is nothing of the restless, defiant habit of white invalids. perhaps, if they had more of this, they would resist disease better. imbued from childhood with the habit of submission, drinking in through every pore that other-world trust which is the one spirit of their songs, they can endure everything. this i expected; but i am relieved to find that their religion strengthens them on the positive side also,--gives zeal, energy, daring. they could easily be made fanatics, if i chose; but i do not choose. their whole mood is essentially mohammedan, perhaps, in its strength and its weakness; and i feel the same degree of sympathy that i should if i had a turkish command,--that is, a sort of sympathetic admiration, not tending towards agreement, but towards co-operation. their philosophizing is often the highest form of mysticism; and our dear surgeon declares that they are all natural transcendentalists. the white camps seem rough and secular, after this; and i hear our men talk about "a religious army," "a gospel army," in their prayer-meetings. they are certainly evangelizing the chaplain, who was rather a heretic at the beginning; at least, this is his own admission. we have recruits on their way from st. augustine, where the negroes are chiefly roman catholics; and it will be interesting to see how their type of character combines with that elder creed. it is time for rest; and i have just looked out into the night, where the eternal stars shut down, in concave protection, over the yet glimmering camp, and orion hangs above my tent-door, giving to me the sense of strength and assurance which these simple children obtain from their moses and the prophets. yet external nature does its share in their training; witness that most poetic of all their songs, which always reminds me of the "lyke-wake dirge" in the "scottish border minstrelsy,"-- "i know moon-rise, i know star-rise; lay dis body down. i walk in de moonlight, i walk in de starlight, to lay dis body down. i'll walk in de graveyard, i'll walk through de graveyard, to lay dis body down. i'll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms; lay dis body down. i go to de judgment in de evening ob de day when i lay dis body down; and my soul and your soul will meet in de day when i lay dis body down." january . in speaking of the military qualities of the blacks, i should add, that the only point where i am disappointed is one i have never seen raised by the most incredulous newspaper critics,--namely, their physical condition. to be sure they often look magnificently to my gymnasium-trained eye; and i always like to observe them when bathing,--such splendid muscular development, set off by that smooth coating of adipose tissue which makes them, like the south-sea islanders appear even more muscular than they are. their skins are also of finer grain than those of whites, the surgeons say, and certainly are smoother and far more free from hair. but their weakness is pulmonary; pneumonia and pleurisy are their besetting ailments; they are easily made ill,--and easily cured, if promptly treated: childish organizations again. guard-duty injures them more than whites, apparently; and double-quick movements, in choking dust, set them coughing badly. but then it is to be remembered that this is their sickly season, from january to march, and that their healthy season will come in summer, when the whites break down. still my conviction of the physical superiority of more highly civilized races is strengthened on the whole, not weakened, by observing them. as to availability for military drill and duty in other respects, the only question i ever hear debated among the officers is, whether they are equal or superior to whites. i have never heard it suggested that they were inferior, although i expected frequently to hear such complaints from hasty or unsuccessful officers. of one thing i am sure, that their best qualities will be wasted by merely keeping them for garrison duty. they seem peculiarly fitted for offensive operations, and especially for partisan warfare; they have so much dash and such abundant resources, combined with such an indian-like knowledge of the country and its ways. these traits have been often illustrated in expeditions sent after deserters. for instance, i despatched one of my best lieutenants and my best sergeant with a squad of men to search a certain plantation, where there were two separate negro villages. they went by night, and the force was divided. the lieutenant took one set of huts, the sergeant the other. before the lieutenant had reached his first house, every man in the village was in the woods, innocent and guilty alike. but the sergeant's mode of operation was thus described by a corporal from a white regiment who happened to be in one of the negro houses. he said that not a sound was heard until suddenly a red leg appeared in the open doorway, and a voice outside said, "rally." going to the door, he observed a similar pair of red legs before every hut, and not a person was allowed to go out, until the quarters had been thoroughly searched, and the three deserters found. this was managed by sergeant prince rivers, our color-sergeant, who is provost-sergeant also, and has entire charge of the prisoners and of the daily policing of the camp. he is a man of distinguished appearance, and in old times was the crack coachman of beaufort, in which capacity he once drove beauregard from this plantation to charleston, i believe. they tell me that he was once allowed to present a petition to the governor of south carolina in behalf of slaves, for the redress of certain grievances; and that a placard, offering two thousand dollars for his recapture, is still to be seen by the wayside between here and charleston. he was a sergeant in the old "hunter regiment," and was taken by general hunter to new york last spring, where the _chevrons_ on his arm brought a mob upon him in broadway, whom he kept off till the police interfered. there is not a white officer in this regiment who has more administrative ability, or more absolute authority over the men; they do not love him, but his mere presence has controlling power over them. he writes well enough to prepare for me a daily report of his duties in the camp; if his education reached a higher point, i see no reason why he should not command the army of the potomac. he is jet-black, or rather, i should say, _wine-black_; his complexion, like that of others of my darkest men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness, and to my eye very handsome. his features are tolerably regular, and full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white officers,--being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of apparently inexhaustible strength and activity. his gait is like a panther's; i never saw such a tread. no anti-slavery novel has described a man of such marked ability. he makes toussaint perfectly intelligible; and if there should ever be a black monarchy in south carolina, he will be its king. january . this morning is like may. yesterday i saw bluebirds and a butterfly; so this whiter of a fortnight is over. i fancy there is a trifle less coughing in the camp. we hear of other stations in the department where the mortality, chiefly from yellow fever, has been frightful. dr. ---- is rubbing his hands professionally over the fearful tales of the surgeon of a new york regiment, just from key west, who has had two hundred cases of the fever. "i suppose he is a skilful, highly educated man," said i. "yes," he responded with enthusiasm. "why, he had seventy deaths!"--as if that proved his superiority past question. january . "and first, sitting proud as a lung on his throne, at the head of them all rode sir richard tyrone." but i fancy that sir richard felt not much better satisfied with his following than i to-day. j. r. l. said once that nothing was quite so good as turtle-soup, except mock-turtle; and i have heard officers declare that nothing was so stirring as real war, except some exciting parade. to-day, for the first time, i marched the whole regiment through beaufort and back,--the first appearance of such a novelty on any stage. they did march splendidly; this all admit. m----'s prediction was fulfilled: "will not ---- be in bliss? a thousand men, every one as black as a coal!" i confess it. to look back on twenty broad double-ranks of men (for they marched by platoons),--every polished musket having a black face beside it, and every face set steadily to the front,--a regiment of freed slaves marching on into the future,--it was something to remember; and when they returned through the same streets, marching by the flank, with guns at a "support," and each man covering his file-leader handsomely, the effect on the eye was almost as fine. the band of the eighth maine joined us at the entrance of the town, and escorted us in. sergeant rivers said ecstatically afterwards, in describing the affair, "and when dat band wheel in before us, and march on,--my god! i quit dis world altogeder." i wonder if he pictured to himself the many dusky regiments, now unformed, which i seemed to see marching up behind us, gathering shape out of the dim air. i had cautioned the men, before leaving camp, not to be staring about them as they marched, but to look straight to the front, every man; and they did it with their accustomed fidelity, aided by the sort of spontaneous eye-for-effect which is in all their melodramatic natures. one of them was heard to say exultingly afterwards, "we didn't look to de right nor to de leff. i didn't see notin' in beaufort. eb'ry step was worth a half a dollar." and they all marched as if it were so. they knew well that they were marching through throngs of officers and soldiers who had drilled as many months as we had drilled weeks, and whose eyes would readily spy out every defect. and i must say, that, on the whole, with a few trivial exceptions, those spectators behaved in a manly and courteous manner, and i do not care to write down all the handsome things that were said. whether said or not, they were deserved; and there is no danger that our men will not take sufficient satisfaction in their good appearance. i was especially amused at one of our recruits, who did not march in the ranks, and who said, after watching the astonishment of some white soldiers, "de buckra sojers look like a man who been-a-steal a sheep,"--that is, i suppose, sheepish. after passing and repassing through the town, we marched to the parade-ground, and went through an hour's drill, forming squares and reducing them, and doing other things which look hard on paper, and are perfectly easy in fact; and we were to have been reviewed by general saxton, but he had been unexpectedly called to ladies island, and did not see us at all, which was the only thing to mar the men's enjoyment. then we marched back to camp (three miles), the men singing the "john brown song," and all manner of things,--as happy creatures as one can well conceive. it is worth mentioning, before i close, that we have just received an article about "negro troops," from the _london spectator_, which is so admirably true to our experience that it seems as if written by one of us. i am confident that there never has been, in any american newspaper, a treatment of the subject so discriminating and so wise. january . to-day brought a visit from major-general hunter and his staff, by general saxton's invitation,--the former having just arrived in the department. i expected them at dress-parade, but they came during battalion drill, rather to my dismay, and we were caught in our old clothes. it was our first review, and i dare say we did tolerably; but of course it seemed to me that the men never appeared so ill before,--just as one always thinks a party at one's own house a failure, even if the guests seem to enjoy it, because one is so keenly sensitive to every little thing that goes wrong. after review and drill, general hunter made the men a little speech, at my request, and told them that he wished there were fifty thousand of them. general saxton spoke to them afterwards, and said that fifty thousand muskets were on their way for colored troops. the men cheered both the generals lustily; and they were complimentary afterwards, though i knew that the regiment could not have appeared nearly so well as on its visit to beaufort. i suppose i felt like some anxious mamma whose children have accidentally appeared at dancing-school in their old clothes. general hunter promises us all we want,--pay when the funds arrive, springfield rifled muskets, and blue trousers. moreover, he has graciously consented that we should go on an expedition along the coast, to pick up cotton, lumber, and, above all, recruits. i declined an offer like this just after my arrival, because the regiment was not drilled or disciplined, not even the officers; but it is all we wish for now. "what care i how black i be? forty pounds will marry me," quoth mother goose. _forty rounds_ will marry us to the american army, past divorcing, if we can only use them well. our success or failure may make or mar the prospects of colored troops. but it is well to remember in advance that military success is really less satisfactory than any other, because it may depend on a moment's turn of events, and that may be determined by some trivial thing, neither to be anticipated nor controlled. napoleon ought to have won at waterloo by all reasonable calculations; but who cares? all that one can expect is, to do one's best, and to take with equanimity the fortune of war. chapter . up the st. mary's if sergeant rivers was a natural king among my dusky soldiers, corporal robert sutton was the natural prime-minister. if not in all respects the ablest, he was the wisest man in our ranks. as large, as powerful, and as black as our good-looking color-sergeant, but more heavily built and with less personal beauty, he had a more massive brain and a far more meditative and systematic intellect. not yet grounded even in the spelling-book, his modes of thought were nevertheless strong, lucid, and accurate; and he yearned and pined for intellectual companionship beyond all ignorant men whom i have ever met. i believe that he would have talked all day and all night, for days together, to any officer who could instruct him, until his companions, at least, fell asleep exhausted. his comprehension of the whole problem of slavery was more thorough and far-reaching than that of any abolitionist, so far as its social and military aspects went; in that direction i could teach him nothing, and he taught me much. but it was his methods of thought which always impressed me chiefly: superficial brilliancy he left to others, and grasped at the solid truth. of course his interest in the war and in the regiment was unbounded; he did not take to drill with especial readiness, but he was insatiable of it, and grudged every moment of relaxation. indeed, he never had any such moments; his mind was at work all the time, even when he was singing hymns, of which he had endless store. he was not, however, one of our leading religionists, but his moral code was solid and reliable, like his mental processes. ignorant as he was, the "years that bring the philosophic mind" had yet been his, and most of my young officers seemed boys beside him. he was a florida man, and had been chiefly employed in lumbering and piloting on the st. mary's river, which divides florida from georgia. down this stream he had escaped in a "dug-out," and after thus finding the way, had returned (as had not a few of my men in other cases) to bring away wife and child. "i wouldn't have left my child, cunnel," he said, with an emphasis that sounded the depths of his strong nature. and up this same river he was always imploring to be allowed to guide an expedition. many other men had rival propositions to urge, for they gained self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of inaction. "ought to go to work, sa,--don't believe in we lyin' in camp eatin' up de perwisions." such were the quaint complaints, which i heard with joy. looking over my note-books of that period, i find them filled with topographical memoranda, jotted down by a flickering candle, from the evening talk of the men,--notes of vulnerable points along the coast, charts of rivers, locations of pickets. i prized these conversations not more for what i thus learned of the country than for what i learned of the men. one could thus measure their various degrees of accuracy and their average military instinct; and i must say that in every respect, save the accurate estimate of distances, they stood the test well. but no project took my fancy so much, after all, as that of the delegate from the st. mary's river. the best peg on which to hang an expedition in the department of the south, in those days, was the promise of lumber. dwelling in the very land of southern pine, the department authorities had to send north for it, at a vast expense. there was reported to be plenty in the enemy's country, but somehow the colored soldiers were the only ones who had been lucky enough to obtain any, thus far, and the supply brought in by our men, after flooring the tents of the white regiments and our own, was running low. an expedition of white troops, four companies, with two steamers and two schooners, had lately returned empty-handed, after a week's foraging; and now it was our turn. they said the mills were all burned; but should we go up the st. mary's, corporal sutton was prepared to offer more lumber than we had transportation to carry. this made the crowning charm of his suggestion. but there is never any danger of erring on the side of secrecy, in a military department; and i resolved to avoid all undue publicity for our plans, by not finally deciding on any until we should get outside the bar. this was happily approved by my superior officers, major-general hunter and brigadier-general saxton; and i was accordingly permitted to take three steamers, with four hundred and sixty-two officers and men, and two or three invited guests, and go down the coast on my own responsibility. we were, in short, to win our spurs; and if, as among the araucanians, our spurs were made of lumber, so much the better. the whole history of the department of the south had been defined as "a military picnic," and now we were to take our share of the entertainment. it seemed a pleasant share, when, after the usual vexations and delays, we found ourselves (january , ) gliding down the full waters of beaufort river, the three vessels having sailed at different hours, with orders to rendezvous at st. simon's island, on the coast of georgia. until then, the flagship, so to speak, was to be the "ben de ford," captain hallet,--this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the men. major strong was in command upon the "john adams," an army gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound parrott gun, two ten-pound parrotts, and an eight-inch howitzer. captain trowbridge (since promoted lieutenant-colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "planter," brought away from the rebels by robert small; she carried a ten-pound parrott gun, and two howitzers. the john adams was our main reliance. she was an old east boston ferry-boat, a "double-ender," admirable for river-work, but unfit for sea-service. she drew seven feet of water; the planter drew only four; but the latter was very slow, and being obliged to go to st. simon's by an inner passage, would delay us from the beginning. she delayed us so much, before the end, that we virtually parted company, and her career was almost entirely separated from our own. from boyhood i have had a fancy for boats, and have seldom been without a share, usually more or less fractional, in a rather indeterminate number of punts and wherries. but when, for the first time, i found myself at sea as commodore of a fleet of armed steamers,--for even the ben de ford boasted a six-pounder or so,--it seemed rather an unexpected promotion. but it is a characteristic of army life, that one adapts one's self, as coolly as in a dream, to the most novel responsibilities. one sits on court-martial, for instance, and decides on the life of a fellow-creature, without being asked any inconvenient questions as to previous knowledge of blackstone; and after such an experience, shall one shrink from wrecking a steamer or two in the cause of the nation? so i placidly accepted my naval establishment, as if it were a new form of boat-club, and looked over the charts, balancing between one river and another, as if deciding whether to pull up or down lake quinsigamond. if military life ever contemplated the exercise of the virtue of humility under any circumstances this would perhaps have been a good opportunity to begin its practice. but as the "regulations" clearly contemplated nothing of the kind, and as i had never met with any precedent which looked in that direction, i had learned to check promptly all such weak proclivities. captain hallett proved the most frank and manly of sailors, and did everything for our comfort. he was soon warm in his praises of the demeanor of our men, which was very pleasant to hear, as this was the first time that colored soldiers in any number had been conveyed on board a transport, and i know of no place where a white volunteer appears to so much disadvantage. his mind craves occupation, his body is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, and impatient even of sanitary rules. the southern black soldier, on the other hand, is seldom sea-sick (at least, such is my experience), and, if properly managed, is equally contented, whether idle or busy; he is, moreover, so docile that all needful rules are executed with cheerful acquiescence, and the quarters can therefore be kept clean and wholesome. very forlorn faces were soon visible among the officers in the cabin, but i rarely saw such among the men. pleasant still seemed our enterprise, as we anchored at early morning in the quiet waters of st. simon's sound, and saw the light fall softly on the beach and the low bluffs, on the picturesque plantation-houses which nestled there, and the graceful naval vessels that lay at anchor before us. when we afterwards landed the air had that peculiar mediterranean translucency which southern islands wear; and the plantation we visited had the loveliest tropical garden, though tangled and desolate, which i have ever seen in the south. the deserted house was embowered in great blossoming shrubs, and filled with hyacinthine odors, among which predominated that of the little chickasaw roses which everywhere bloomed and trailed around. there were fig-trees and date-palms, crape-myrtles and wax-myrtles, mexican agaves and english ivies, japonicas, bananas, oranges, lemons, oleanders, jonquils, great cactuses, and wild florida lilies. this was not the plantation which mrs. kemble has since made historic, although that was on the same island; and i could not waste much sentiment over it, for it had belonged to a northern renegade, thomas butler king. yet i felt then, as i have felt a hundred times since, an emotion of heart-sickness at this desecration of a homestead,--and especially when, looking from a bare upper window of the empty house upon a range of broad, flat, sunny roofs, such as children love to play on, i thought how that place might have been loved by yet innocent hearts, and i mourned anew the sacrilege of war. i had visited the flag-ship wabash ere we left port royal harbor, and had obtained a very kind letter of introduction from admiral dupont, that stately and courtly potentate, elegant as one's ideal french marquis; and under these credentials i received polite attention from the naval officers at st. simon's,--acting volunteer lieutenant budd, of the gunboat potomska, and acting master moses, of the barque fernandina. they made valuable suggestions in regard to the different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the last previous trip up the st. mary's undertaken by captain stevens, u.s.n., in the gunboat ottawa, when he had to fight his way past batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. i was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then common, of underrating the courage of the rebels. "it proved impossible to dislodge those fellows from the banks," my informant said; "they had dug rifle-pits, and swarmed like hornets, and when fairly silenced in one direction they were sure to open upon us from another." all this sounded alarming, but it was nine months since the event had happened; and although nothing had gone up the river meanwhile, i counted on less resistance now. and something must be risked anywhere. we were delayed all that day in waiting for our consort, and improved our time by verifying certain rumors about a quantity of new railroad-iron which was said to be concealed in the abandoned rebel forts on st. simon's and jekyll islands, and which would have much value at port royal, if we could unearth it. some of our men had worked upon these very batteries, so that they could easily guide us; and by the additional discovery of a large flat-boat we were enabled to go to work in earnest upon the removal of the treasure. these iron bars, surmounted by a dozen feet of sand, formed an invulnerable roof for the magazines and bomb-proofs of the fort, and the men enjoyed demolishing them far more than they had relished their construction. though the day was the th of january, , the sun was very oppressive upon the sands; but all were in the highest spirits, and worked with the greatest zeal. the men seemed to regard these massive bars as their first trophies; and if the rails had been wreathed with roses, they could not have been got out in more holiday style. nearly a hundred were obtained that day, besides a quantity of five-inch plank with which to barricade the very conspicuous pilot-houses of the john adams. still another day we were delayed, and could still keep at this work, not neglecting some foraging on the island from which horses, cattle, and agricultural implements were to be removed, and the few remaining colored families transferred to fernandina. i had now become quite anxious about the missing steamboat, as the inner passage, by which alone she could arrive, was exposed at certain points to fire from rebel batteries, and it would have been unpleasant to begin with a disaster. i remember that, as i stood on deck, in the still and misty evening, listening with strained senses for some sound of approach, i heard a low continuous noise from the distance, more wild and desolate than anything in my memory can parallel. it came from within the vast girdle of mist, and seemed like the cry of a myriad of lost souls upon the horizon's verge; it was dante become audible: and yet it was but the accumulated cries of innumerable seafowl at the entrance of the outer bay. late that night the planter arrived. we left st. simon's on the following morning, reached fort clinch by four o'clock, and there transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the john adams, allowed the larger transport to go into fernandina, while the two other vessels were to ascend the st. mary's river, unless (as proved inevitable in the end) the defects in the boiler of the planter should oblige her to remain behind. that night i proposed to make a sort of trial-trip up stream, as far as township landing, some fifteen miles, there to pay our respects to captain clark's company of cavalry, whose camp was reported to lie near by. this was included in corporal sutton's programme, and seemed to me more inviting, and far more useful to the men, than any amount of mere foraging. the thing really desirable appeared to be to get them under fire as soon as possible, and to teach them, by a few small successes, the application of what they had learned in camp-. i had ascertained that the camp of this company lay five miles from the landing, and was accessible by two roads, one of which was a lumber-path, not commonly used, but which corporal sutton had helped to construct, and along which he could easily guide us. the plan was to go by night, surround the house and negro cabins at the landing (to prevent an alarm from being given), then to take the side path, and if all went well, to surprise the camp; but if they got notice of our approach, through their pickets, we should, at worst, have a fight, in which the best man must win. the moon was bright, and the river swift, but easy of navigation thus far. just below township i landed a small advance force, to surround the houses silently. with them went corporal sutton; and when, after rounding the point, i went on shore with a larger body of men, he met me with a silent chuckle of delight, and with the information that there was a negro in a neighboring cabin who had just come from the rebel camp, and could give the latest information. while he hunted up this valuable auxiliary, i mustered my detachment, winnowing out the men who had coughs (not a few), and sending them ignominiously on board again: a process i had regularly to perform, during this first season of catarrh, on all occasions where quiet was needed. the only exception tolerated at this time was in the case of one man who offered a solemn pledge, that, if unable to restrain his cough, he would lie down on the ground, scrape a little hole, and cough into it unheard. the ingenuity of this proposition was irresistible, and the eager patient was allowed to pass muster. it was after midnight when we set off upon our excursion. i had about a hundred men, marching by the flank, with a small advanced guard, and also a few flankers, where the ground permitted. i put my florida company at the head of the column, and had by my side captain metcalf, an excellent officer, and sergeant mclntyre, his first sergeant. we plunged presently in pine woods, whose resinous smell i can still remember. corporal sutton marched near me, with his captured negro guide, whose first fear and sullenness had yielded to the magic news of the president's proclamation, then just issued, of which governor andrew had sent me a large printed supply;--we seldom found men who could read it, but they all seemed to feel more secure when they held it in their hands. we marched on through the woods, with no sound but the peeping of the frogs in a neighboring marsh, and the occasional yelping of a dog, as we passed the hut of some "cracker." this yelping always made corporal sutton uneasy; dogs are the detective officers of slavery's police. we had halted once or twice to close up the ranks, and had marched some two miles, seeing and hearing nothing more. i had got all i could out of our new guide, and was striding on, rapt in pleasing contemplation. all had gone so smoothly that i had merely to fancy the rest as being equally smooth. already i fancied our little detachment bursting out of the woods, in swift surprise, upon the rebel quarters,--already the opposing commander, after hastily firing a charge or two from his revolver (of course above my head), had yielded at discretion, and was gracefully tendering, in a stage attitude, his unavailing sword,--when suddenly-- there was a trampling of feet among the advanced guard as they came confusedly to a halt, and almost at the same instant a more ominous sound, as of galloping horses in the path before us. the moonlight outside the woods gave that dimness of atmosphere within which is more bewildering than darkness, because the eyes cannot adapt themselves to it so well. yet i fancied, and others aver, that they saw the leader of an approaching party mounted on a white horse and reining up in the pathway; others, again, declare that he drew a pistol from the holster and took aim; others heard the words, "charge in upon them! surround them!" but all this was confused by the opening rifle-shots of our advanced guard, and, as clear observation was impossible, i made the men fix their bayonets and kneel in the cover on each side the pathway, and i saw with delight the brave fellows, with sergeant mclntyre at their head, settling down in the grass as coolly and warily as if wild turkeys were the only game. perhaps at the first shot a man fell at my elbow. i felt it no more than if a tree had fallen,--i was so busy watching my own men and the enemy, and planning what to do next. some of our soldiers, misunderstanding the order, "fix bayonets," were actually _charging_ with them, dashing off into the dim woods, with nothing to charge at but the vanishing tail of an imaginary horse,--for we could really see nothing. this zeal i noted with pleasure, and also with anxiety, as our greatest danger was from confusion and scattering; and for infantry to pursue cavalry would be a novel enterprise. captain metcalf stood by me well in keeping the men steady, as did assistant surgeon minor, and lieutenant, now captain, jackson. how the men in the rear were behaving i could not tell,--not so coolly, i afterwards found, because they were more entirely bewildered, supposing, until the shots came, that the column had simply halted for a moment's rest, as had been done once or twice before. they did not know who or where their assailants might be, and the fall of the man beside me created a hasty rumor that i was killed, so that it was on the whole an alarming experience for them. they kept together very tolerably, however, while our assailants, dividing, rode along on each side through the open pine-barren, firing into our ranks, but mostly over the heads of the men. my soldiers in turn fired rapidly,--too rapidly, being yet beginners,--and it was evident that, dim as it was, both sides had opportunity to do some execution. i could hardly tell whether the fight had lasted ten minutes or an hour, when, as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, i gave the order to cease firing. but it was very difficult at first to make them desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. one of them was heard to mutter, indignantly, "why de cunnel order _cease firing_, when de secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" every incidental occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without interrupting the main course of thought. thus i know, that, in one of the pauses of the affair, there came wailing through the woods a cracked female voice, as if calling back some stray husband who had run out to join in the affray, "john, john, are you going to leave me, john? are you going to let me and the children be killed, john?" i suppose the poor thing's fears of gunpowder were very genuine; but it was such a wailing squeak, and so infinitely ludicrous, and john was probably ensconced so very safely in some hollow tree, that i could see some of the men showing all their white teeth in the very midst of the fight. but soon this sound, with all others, had ceased, and left us in peaceful possession of the field. i have made the more of this little affair because it was the first stand-up fight in which my men had been engaged, though they had been under fire, in an irregular way, in their small early expeditions. to me personally the event was of the greatest value: it had given us all an opportunity to test each other, and our abstract surmises were changed into positive knowledge. hereafter it was of small importance what nonsense might be talked or written about colored troops; so long as mine did not flinch, it made no difference to me. my brave young officers, themselves mostly new to danger, viewed the matter much as i did; and yet we were under bonds of life and death to form a correct opinion, which was more than could be said of the northern editors, and our verdict was proportionately of greater value. i was convinced from appearances that we had been victorious, so far, though i could not suppose that this would be the last of it. we knew neither the numbers of the enemy, nor their plans, nor their present condition: whether they had surprised us or whether we had surprised them was all a mystery. corporal sutton was urgent to go on and complete the enterprise. all my impulses said the same thing; but then i had the most explicit injunctions from general saxton to risk as little as possible in this first enterprise, because of the fatal effect on public sentiment of even an honorable defeat. we had now an honorable victory, so far as it went; the officers and men around me were in good spirits, but the rest of the column might be nervous; and it seemed so important to make the first fight an entire success, that i thought it wiser to let well alone; nor have i ever changed this opinion. for one's self, montrose's verse may be well applied, "to win or lose it all." but one has no right to deal thus lightly with the fortunes of a race, and that was the weight which i always felt as resting on our action. if my raw infantry force had stood unflinchingly a night-surprise from "de boss cavalry," as they reverentially termed them, i felt that a good beginning had been made. all hope of surprising the enemy's camp was now at an end; i was willing and ready to fight the cavalry over again, but it seemed wiser that we, not they, should select the ground. attending to the wounded, therefore, and making as we best could stretchers for those who were to be carried, including the remains of the man killed at the first discharge (private william parsons of company g), and others who seemed at the point of death, we marched through the woods to the landing,--expecting at every moment to be involved in another fight. this not occurring, i was more than ever satisfied that we had won a victory; for it was obvious that a mounted force would not allow a detachment of infantry to march two miles through open woods by night without renewing the fight, unless they themselves had suffered a good deal. on arrival at the landing, seeing that there was to be no immediate affray, i sent most of the men on board, and called for volunteers to remain on shore with me and hold the plantation-house till morning. they eagerly offered; and i was glad to see them, when posted as sentinels by lieutenants hyde and jackson, who stayed with me, pace their beats as steadily and challenge as coolly as veterans, though of course there was some powder wasted on imaginary foes. greatly to my surprise, however, we had no other enemies to encounter. we did not yet know that we had killed the first lieutenant of the cavalry, and that our opponents had retreated to the woods in dismay, without daring to return to their camp. this at least was the account we heard from prisoners afterwards, and was evidently the tale current in the neighborhood, though the statements published in southern newspapers did not correspond. admitting the death of lieutenant jones, the tallahassee floridian of february th stated that "captain clark, finding the enemy in strong force, fell back with his command to camp, and removed his ordnance and commissary and other stores, with twelve negroes on their way to the enemy, captured on that day." in the morning, my invaluable surgeon, dr. rogers, sent me his report of killed and wounded; and i have been since permitted to make the following extracts from his notes: "one man killed instantly by ball through the heart, and seven wounded, one of whom will die. braver men never lived. one man with two bullet-holes through the large muscles of the shoulders and neck brought off from the scene of action, two miles distant, two muskets; and not a murmur has escaped his lips. another, robert sutton, with three wounds,--one of which, being on the skull, may cost him his life,--would not report himself till compelled to do so by his officers. while dressing his wounds, he quietly talked of what they had done, and of what they yet could do. to-day i have had the colonel _order_ him to obey me. he is perfectly quiet and cool, but takes this whole affair with the religious bearing of a man who realizes that freedom is sweeter than life. yet another soldier did not report himself at all, but remained all night on guard, and possibly i should not have known of his having had a buck-shot in his shoulder, if some duty requiring a sound shoulder had not been required of him to-day." this last, it may be added, had persuaded a comrade to dig out the buck-shot, for fear of being ordered on the sick-list. and one of those who were carried to the vessel--a man wounded through the lungs--asked only if i were safe, the contrary having been reported. an officer may be pardoned some enthusiasm for such men as these. the anxious night having passed away without an attack, another problem opened with the morning. for the first time, my officers and men found themselves in possession of an enemy's abode; and though there was but little temptation to plunder, i knew that i must here begin to draw the line. i had long since resolved to prohibit absolutely all indiscriminate pilfering and wanton outrage, and to allow nothing to be taken or destroyed but by proper authority. the men, to my great satisfaction, entered into this view at once, and so did (perhaps a shade less readily, in some cases) the officers. the greatest trouble was with the steamboat hands, and i resolved to let them go ashore as little as possible. most articles of furniture were already, however, before our visit, gone from the plantation-house, which was now used only as a picket-station. the only valuable article was a pianoforte, for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready outside. i had made up my mind, in accordance with the orders given to naval commanders in that department,* to burn all picket-stations, and all villages from which i should be covertly attacked, and nothing else; and as this house was destined to the flames, i should have left the piano in it, but for the seductions of that box. with such a receptacle all ready, even to the cover, it would have seemed like flying in the face of providence not to put the piano in. i ordered it removed, therefore, and afterwards presented it to the school for colored children at fernandina. this i mention because it was the only article of property i ever took, or knowingly suffered to be taken, in the enemy's country, save for legitimate military uses, from first to last; nor would i have taken this, but for the thought of the school, and, as aforesaid, the temptation of the box. if any other officer has been more rigid, with equal opportunities, let him cast the first stone. * "it is my desire to avoid the destruction of private property, unless used for picket or guard-stations, or for other military purposes, by the enemy.... of course, if fired upon from any place, it is your duty, if possible, to destroy it." letter of admiral dupont, commanding south atlantic squadron, to lieutenant-commander hughes of united states gunboat mohawk, fernandina harbor. i think the zest with which the men finally set fire to the house at my order was enhanced by this previous abstemiousness; but there is a fearful fascination in the use of fire, which every child knows in the abstract, and which i found to hold true in the practice. on our way down river we had opportunity to test this again. the ruined town of st. mary's had at that time a bad reputation, among both naval and military men. lying but a short distance above fernandina, on the georgia side, it was occasionally visited by our gunboats. i was informed that the only residents of the town were three old women, who were apparently kept there as spies,--that, on our approach, the aged crones would come out and wave white handkerchiefs,--that they would receive us hospitably, profess to be profoundly loyal, and exhibit a portrait of washington,--that they would solemnly assure us that no rebel pickets had been there for many weeks,--but that in the adjoining yard we should find fresh horse-tracks, and that we should be fired upon by guerillas the moment we left the wharf. my officers had been much excited by these tales; and i had assured them that, if this programme were literally carried out, we would straightway return and burn the town, or what was left of it, for our share. it was essential to show my officers and men that, while rigid against irregular outrage, we could still be inexorable against the enemy. we had previously planned to stop at this town, on our way down river, for some valuable lumber which we had espied on a wharf; and gliding down the swift current, shelling a few bluffs as we passed, we soon reached it. punctual as the figures in a panorama appeared the old ladies with their white handkerchiefs. taking possession of the town, much of which had previously been destroyed by the gunboats, and stationing the color-guard, to their infinite delight, in the cupola of the most conspicuous house, i deployed skirmishers along the exposed suburb, and set a detail of men at work on the lumber. after a stately and decorous interview with the queens of society of st. mary's,--is it scott who says that nothing improves the manners like piracy?--i peacefully withdrew the men when the work was done. there were faces of disappointment among the officers,--for all felt a spirit of mischief after the last night's adventure,--when, just as we had fairly swung out into the stream and were under way, there came, like the sudden burst of a tropical tornado, a regular little hail-storm of bullets into the open end of the boat, driving every gunner in an instant from his post, and surprising even those who were looking to be surprised. the shock was but for a second; and though the bullets had pattered precisely like the sound of hail upon the iron cannon, yet nobody was hurt. with very respectable promptness, order was restored, our own shells were flying into the woods from which the attack proceeded, and we were steaming up to the wharf again, according to promise. who shall describe the theatrical attitudes assumed by the old ladies as they reappeared at the front-door,--being luckily out of direct range,--and set the handkerchiefs in wilder motion than ever? they brandished them, they twirled them after the manner of the domestic mop, they clasped their hands, handkerchiefs included. meanwhile their friends in the wood popped away steadily at us, with small effect; and occasionally an invisible field-piece thundered feebly from another quarter, with equally invisible results. reaching the wharf, one company, under lieutenant (now captain) danil-son, was promptly deployed in search of our assailants, who soon grew silent. not so the old ladies, when i announced to them my purpose, and added, with extreme regret, that, as the wind was high, i should burn only that half of the town which lay to leeward of their house, which did not, after all, amount to much. between gratitude for this degree of mercy, and imploring appeals for greater, the treacherous old ladies manoeuvred with clasped hands and demonstrative handkerchiefs around me, impairing the effect of their eloquence by constantly addressing me as "mr. captain"; for i have observed, that, while the sternest officer is greatly propitiated by attributing to him a rank a little higher than his own, yet no one is ever mollified by an error in the opposite direction. i tried, however, to disregard such low considerations, and to strike the correct mean between the sublime patriot and the unsanctified incendiary, while i could find no refuge from weak contrition save in greater and greater depths of courtesy; and so melodramatic became our interview that some of the soldiers still maintain that "dem dar ole secesh women been a-gwine for kiss de cunnel," before we ended. but of this monstrous accusation i wish to register an explicit denial, once for all. dropping down to fernandina unmolested after this affair, we were kindly received by the military and naval commanders,--colonel hawley, of the seventh connecticut (now brigadier-general hawley), and lieutenant-commander hughes, of the gunboat mohawk. it turned out very opportunely that both of these officers had special errands to suggest still farther up the st. mary's, and precisely in the region where i wished to go. colonel hawley showed me a letter from the war department, requesting him to ascertain the possibility of obtaining a supply of brick for fort clinch from the brickyard which had furnished the original materials, but which had not been visited since the perilous river-trip of the ottawa. lieutenant hughes wished to obtain information for the admiral respecting a rebel steamer,--the berosa,--said to be lying somewhere up the river, and awaiting her chance to run the blockade. i jumped at the opportunity. berosa and brickyard,--both were near wood-stock, the former home of corporal sutton; he was ready and eager to pilot us up the river; the moon would be just right that evening, setting at h. m. a.m.; and our boat was precisely the one to undertake the expedition. its double-headed shape was just what was needed in that swift and crooked stream; the exposed pilot-houses had been tolerably barricaded with the thick planks from st. simon's; and we further obtained some sand-bags from fort clinch, through the aid of captain sears, the officer in charge, who had originally suggested the expedition after brick. in return for this aid, the planter was sent back to the wharf at st. mary's, to bring away a considerable supply of the same precious article, which we had observed near the wharf. meanwhile the john adams was coaling from naval supplies, through the kindness of lieutenant hughes; and the ben de ford was taking in the lumber which we had yesterday brought down. it was a great disappointment to be unable to take the latter vessel up the river; but i was unwillingly convinced that, though the depth of water might be sufficient, yet her length would be unmanageable in the swift current and sharp turns. the planter must also be sent on a separate cruise, as her weak and disabled machinery made her useless for my purpose. two hundred men were therefore transferred, as before, to the narrow hold of the john adams, in addition to the company permanently stationed on board to work the guns. at seven o'clock on the evening of january th, beneath a lovely moon, we steamed up the river. never shall i forget the mystery and excitement of that night. i know nothing in life more fascinating than the nocturnal ascent of an unknown river, leading far into an enemy's country, where one glides in the dim moonlight between dark hills and meadows, each turn of the channel making it seem like an inland lake, and cutting you off as by a barrier from all behind,--with no sign of human life, but an occasional picket-fire left glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp of a dog from some low-lying plantation. on such occasions every nerve is strained to its utmost tension; all dreams of romance appear to promise immediate fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are obscured, loud voices are hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore, and yet see nothing; the lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing keels, lapses by the vessel with a treacherous sound; and all the senses are merged in a sort of anxious trance. three tunes i have had in full perfection this fascinating experience; but that night was the first, and its zest was the keenest. it will come back to me in dreams, if i live a thousand years. i feared no attack during our ascent,--that danger was for our return; but i feared the intricate navigation of the river, though i did not fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. we passed without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,--the battle of the hundred pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more tortuous and more encumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. no piloting less skilful than that of corporal sutton and his mate, james bezzard, could have carried us through, i thought; and no side-wheel steamer less strong than a ferry-boat could have borne the crash and force with which we struck the wooded banks of the river. but the powerful paddles, built to break the northern ice, could crush the southern pine as well; and we came safely out of entanglements that at first seemed formidable. we had the tide with us, which makes steering far more difficult; and, in the sharp angles of the river, there was often no resource but to run the bow boldly on shore, let the stern swing round, and then reverse the motion. as the reversing machinery was generally out of order, the engineer stupid or frightened, and the captain excited, this involved moments of tolerably concentrated anxiety. eight times we grounded in the upper waters, and once lay aground for half an hour; but at last we dropped anchor before the little town of woodstock, after moonset and an hour before daybreak, just as i had planned, and so quietly that scarcely a dog barked, and not a soul in the town, as we afterwards found, knew of our arrival. as silently as possible, the great flat-boat which we had brought from st. simon's was filled with men. major strong was sent on shore with two companies,--those of captain james and captain metcalf,--with instructions to surround the town quietly, allow no one to leave it, molest no one, and hold as temporary prisoners every man whom he found. i watched them push off into the darkness, got the remaining force ready to land, and then paced the deck for an hour in silent watchfulness, waiting for rifle-shots. not a sound came from the shore, save the barking of dogs and the morning crow of cocks; the time seemed interminable; but when daylight came, i landed, and found a pair of scarlet trousers pacing on their beat before every house in the village, and a small squad of prisoners, stunted and forlorn as falstaff's ragged regiment, already hi hand. i observed with delight the good demeanor of my men towards these forlorn anglo-saxons, and towards the more tumultuous women. even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old termagant into the river, took care to append the courteous epithet "madam." i took a survey of the premises. the chief house, a pretty one with picturesque outbuildings, was that of mrs. a., who owned the mills and lumber-wharves adjoining. the wealth of these wharves had not been exaggerated. there was lumber enough to freight half a dozen steamers, and i half regretted that i had agreed to take down a freight of bricks instead. further researches made me grateful that i had already explained to my men the difference between public foraging and private plunder. along the river-bank i found building after building crowded with costly furniture, all neatly packed, just as it was sent up from st. mary's when that town was abandoned. pianos were a drug; china, glass-ware, mahogany, pictures, all were here. and here were my men, who knew that their own labor had earned for their masters these luxuries, or such as these; their own wives and children were still sleeping on the floor, perhaps, at beaufort or fernandina; and yet they submitted, almost without a murmur, to the enforced abstinence. bed and bedding for our hospitals they might take from those store-rooms,--such as the surgeon selected,--also an old flag which we found in a corner, and an old field-piece (which the regiment still possesses),--but after this the doors were closed and left unmolested. it cost a struggle to some of the men, whose wives were destitute, i know; but their pride was very easily touched, and when this abstinence was once recognized as a rule, they claimed it as an honor, in this and all succeeding expeditions. i flatter myself that, if they had once been set upon wholesale plundering, they would have done it as thoroughly as their betters; but i have always been infinitely grateful, both for the credit and for the discipline of the regiment,--as well as for the men's subsequent lives,--that the opposite method was adopted. when the morning was a little advanced, i called on mrs. a., who received me in quite a stately way at her own door with "to what am i indebted for the honor of this visit, sir?" the foreign name of the family, and the tropical look of the buildings, made it seem (as, indeed, did all the rest of the adventure) like a chapter out of "amyas leigh"; but as i had happened to hear that the lady herself was a philadelphian, and her deceased husband a new-yorker, i could not feel even that modicum of reverence due to sincere southerners. however, i wished to present my credentials; so, calling up my companion, i said that i believed she had been previously acquainted with corporal robert sutton? i never saw a finer bit of unutterable indignation than came over the face of my hostess, as she slowly recognized him. she drew herself up, and dropped out the monosyllables of her answer as if they were so many drops of nitric acid. "ah," quoth my lady, "we called him bob!" it was a group for a painter. the whole drama of the war seemed to reverse itself in an instant, and my tall, well-dressed, imposing, philosophic corporal dropped down the immeasurable depth into a mere plantation "bob" again. so at least in my imagination; not to that person himself. too essentially dignified in his nature to be moved by words where substantial realities were in question, he simply turned from the lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if i would wish to see the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession. if he fancied that i was in danger of being overcome by blandishments, and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a master-stroke. i must say that, when the door of that villanous edifice was thrown open before me, i felt glad that my main interview with its lady proprietor had passed before i saw it. it was a small building, like a northern corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a place among the outbuildings of the establishment. in the middle of the door was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for fastening a victim down. when the door had been opened after the death of the late proprietor, my informant said, a man was found padlocked in that chain. we found also three pairs of stocks of various construction, two of which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet of women or children. in a building near by we found something far more complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body half raised, in a position scarcely endurable. i have since bitterly reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it would have cost much labor to remove it, and to bring away the other trophies seemed then enough. i remember the unutterable loathing with which i leaned against the door of that prison-house; i had thought myself seasoned to any conceivable horrors of slavery, but it seemed as if the visible presence of that den of sin would choke me. of course it would have been burned to the ground by us, but that this would have involved the sacrifice of every other building and all the piles of lumber, and for the moment it seemed as if the sacrifice would be righteous. but i forbore, and only took as trophies the instruments of torture and the keys of the jail. we found but few colored people in this vicinity; some we brought away with us, and an old man and woman preferred to remain. all the white males whom we found i took as hostages, in order to shield us, if possible, from attack on our way down river, explaining to them that they would be put on shore when the dangerous points were passed. i knew that their wives could easily send notice of this fact to the rebel forces along the river. my hostages were a forlorn-looking set of "crackers," far inferior to our soldiers in _physique_, and yet quite equal, the latter declared, to the average material of the southern armies. none were in uniform, but this proved nothing as to their being soldiers. one of them, a mere boy, was captured at his own door, with gun in hand. it was a fowling-piece, which he used only, as his mother plaintively assured me, "to shoot little birds with." as the guileless youth had for this purpose loaded the gun with eighteen buck-shot, we thought it justifiable to confiscate both the weapon and the owner, in mercy to the birds. we took from this place, for the use of the army, a flock of some thirty sheep, forty bushels of rice, some other provisions, tools, oars, and a little lumber, leaving all possible space for the bricks which we expected to obtain just below. i should have gone farther up the river, but for a dangerous boom which kept back a great number of logs in a large brook that here fell into the st. mary's; the stream ran with force, and if the rebels had wit enough to do it, they might in ten minutes so choke the river with drift-wood as infinitely to enhance our troubles. so we dropped down stream a mile or two, found the very brickyard from which fort clinch had been constructed,--still stored with bricks, and seemingly unprotected. here sergeant rivers again planted his standard, and the men toiled eagerly, for several hours, in loading our boat to the utmost with the bricks. meanwhile we questioned black and white witnesses, and learned for the first tune that the rebels admitted a repulse at township landing, and that lieutenant jones and ten of their number were killed,--though this i fancy to have been an exaggeration. they also declared that the mysterious steamer berosa was lying at the head of the river, but was a broken-down and worthless affair, and would never get to sea. the result has since proved this; for the vessel subsequently ran the blockade and foundered near shore, the crew barely escaping with their lives. i had the pleasure, as it happened, of being the first person to forward this information to admiral dupont, when it came through the pickets, many months after,--thus concluding my report on the berosa. before the work at the yard was over the pickets reported mounted men in the woods near by, as had previously been the report at woodstock. this admonished us to lose no time; and as we left the wharf, immediate arrangements were made to have the gun crews all in readiness, and to keep the rest of the men below, since their musketry would be of little use now, and i did not propose to risk a life unnecessarily. the chief obstacle to this was their own eagerness; penned down on one side, they popped up on the other; their officers, too, were eager to see what was going on, and were almost as hard to cork down as the men. add to this, that the vessel was now very crowded, and that i had to be chiefly on the hurricane-deck with the pilots. captain clifton, master of the vessel, was brave to excess, and as much excited as the men; he could no more be kept in the little pilot-house than they below; and when we had passed one or two bluffs, with no sign of an enemy, he grew more and more irrepressible, and exposed himself conspicuously on the upper deck. perhaps we all were a little lulled by apparent safety; for myself, i lay down for a moment on a settee in a state-room, having been on my feet, almost without cessation, for twenty-four hours. suddenly there swept down from a bluff above us, on the georgia side, a mingling of shout and roar and rattle as of a tornado let loose; and as a storm of bullets came pelting against the sides of the vessel, and through a window, there went up a shrill answering shout from our own men. it took but an instant for me to reach the gun-deck. after all my efforts the men had swarmed once more from below, and already, crowding at both ends of the boat, were loading and firing with inconceivable rapidity, shouting to each other, "nebber gib it up!" and of course having no steady aim, as the vessel glided and whirled in the swift current. meanwhile the officers in charge of the large guns had their crews in order, and our shells began to fly over the bluffs, which, as we now saw, should have been shelled in advance, only that we had to economize ammunition. the other soldiers i drove below, almost by main force, with the aid of their officers, who behaved exceedingly well, giving the men leave to fire from the open port-holes which lined the lower deck, almost at the water's level. in the very midst of the _melee_ major strong came from the upper deck, with a face of horror, and whispered to me, "captain clifton was killed at the first shot by my side." if he had said that the vessel was on fire the shock would hardly have been greater. of course, the military commander on board a steamer is almost as helpless as an unarmed man, so far as the risks of water go. a seaman must command there. in the hazardous voyage of last night, i had learned, though unjustly, to distrust every official on board the steamboat except this excitable, brave, warm-hearted sailor; and now, among these added dangers, to lose him! the responsibility for his life also thrilled me; he was not among my soldiers, and yet he was killed. i thought of his wife and children, of whom he had spoken; but one learns to think rapidly in war, and, cautioning the major to silence, i went up to the hurricane-deck and drew in the helpless body, that it should be safe from further desecration, and then looked to see where we were. we were now gliding past a safe reach of marsh, while our assailants were riding by cross-paths to attack us at the next bluff. it was reed's bluff where we were first attacked, and scrubby bluff, i think, was next. they were shelled in advance, but swarmed manfully to the banks again as we swept round one of the sharp angles of the stream beneath their fire. my men were now pretty well imprisoned below in the hot and crowded hold, and actually fought each other, the officers afterwards said, for places at the open port-holes, from which to aim. others implored to be landed, exclaiming that they "supposed de cunnel knew best," but it was "mighty mean" to be shut up down below, when they might be "fightin' de secesh _in de clar field_." this clear field, and no favor, was what they thenceforward sighed for. but in such difficult navigation it would have been madness to think of landing, although one daring rebel actually sprang upon the large boat which we towed astern, where he was shot down by one of our sergeants. this boat was soon after swamped and abandoned, then taken and repaired by the rebels at a later date, and finally, by a piece of dramatic completeness, was seized by a party of fugitive slaves, who escaped in it to our lines, and some of whom enlisted in my own regiment. it has always been rather a mystery to me why the rebels did not fell a few trees across the stream at some of the many sharp angles where we might so easily have been thus imprisoned. this, however, they did not attempt, and with the skilful pilotage of our trusty corporal,--philosophic as socrates through all the din, and occasionally relieving his mind by taking a shot with his rifle through the high portholes of the pilot-house,--we glided safely on. the steamer did not ground once on the descent, and the mate in command, mr. smith, did his duty very well. the plank sheathing of the pilot-house was penetrated by few bullets, though struck by so many outside that it was visited as a curiosity after our return; and even among the gun-crews, though they had no protection, not a man was hurt. as we approached some wooded bluff, usually on the georgia side, we could see galloping along the hillside what seemed a regiment of mounted riflemen, and could see our shell scatter them ere we approached. shelling did not, however, prevent a rather fierce fusilade from our old friends of captain dark's company at waterman's bluff, near township landing; but even this did no serious damage, and this was the last. it was of course impossible, while thus running the gauntlet, to put our hostages ashore, and i could only explain to them that they must thank their own friends for their inevitable detention. i was by no means proud of their forlorn appearance, and besought colonel hawley to take them off my hands; but he was sending no flags of truce at that time, and liked their looks no better than i did. so i took them to port royal, where they were afterwards sent safely across the lines. our men were pleased at taking them back with us, as they had already said, regretfully, "s'pose we leave dem secesh at fernandina, general saxby won't see 'em,"--as if they were some new natural curiosity, which indeed they were. one soldier further suggested the expediency of keeping them permanently in camp, to be used as marks for the guns of the relieved guard every morning. but this was rather an ebullition of fancy than a sober proposition. against these levities i must put a piece of more tragic eloquence, which i took down by night on the steamer's deck from the thrilling harangue of corporal adam allston, one of our most gifted prophets, whose influence over the men was unbounded. "when i heard," he said, "de bombshell a-screamin' troo de woods like de judgment day, i said to myself, 'if my head was took off to-night, dey couldn't put my soul in de torments, perceps [except] god was my enemy!' and when de rifle-bullets came whizzin' across de deck, i cried aloud, 'god help my congregation! boys, load and fire!'" i must pass briefly over the few remaining days of our cruise. at fernandina we met the planter, which had been successful on her separate expedition, and had destroyed extensive salt-works at crooked river, under charge of the energetic captain trowbridge, efficiently aided by captain rogers. our commodities being in part delivered at fernandina, our decks being full, coal nearly out, and time up, we called once more at st. simon's sound, bringing away the remainder of our railroad-iron, with some which the naval officers had previously disinterred, and then steamed back to beaufort. arriving there at sunrise (february , ), i made my way with dr. rogers to general saxton's bedroom, and laid before him the keys and shackles of the slave-prison, with my report of the good conduct of the men,--as dr. rogers remarked, a message from heaven and another from hell. slight as this expedition now seems among the vast events of the war, the future student of the newspapers of that day will find that it occupied no little space in their columns, so intense was the interest which then attached to the novel experiment of employing black troops. so obvious, too, was the value, during this raid, of their local knowledge and their enthusiasm, that it was impossible not to find in its successes new suggestions for the war. certainly i would not have consented to repeat the enterprise with the bravest white troops, leaving corporal sutton and his mates behind, for i should have expected to fail. for a year after our raid the upper st. mary's remained unvisited, till in the large force with which we held florida secured peace upon its banks; then mrs. a. took the oath of allegiance, the government bought her remaining lumber, and the john adams again ascended with a detachment of my men under lieutenant parker, and brought a portion of it to fernandina. by a strange turn of fortune, corporal sutton (now sergeant) was at this time in jail at hilton head, under sentence of court-martial for an alleged act of mutiny,--an affair in which the general voice of our officers sustained him and condemned his accusers, so that he soon received a full pardon, and was restored in honor to his place in the regiment, which he has ever since held. nothing can ever exaggerate the fascinations of war, whether on the largest or smallest scale. when we settled down into camp-life again, it seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the chrysalis. none of us could listen to the crack of a gun without recalling instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs of the st. mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night without recalling the sounds which startled us on the field of the hundred pines. the memory of our raid was preserved in the camp by many legends of adventure, growing vaster and more incredible as time wore on,--and by the morning appeals to the surgeon of some veteran invalids, who could now cut off all reproofs and suspicions with "doctor, i's been a sickly pusson eber since de _expeditious_." but to me the most vivid remembrancer was the flock of sheep which we had "lifted." the post quartermaster discreetly gave us the charge of them, and they rilled a gap in the landscape and in the larder,--which last had before presented one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. mr. obabiah oldbuck, when he decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed contentment than i upon that fleecy family. i had been familiar, in kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were credited to his property, and had heard of a proslavery colt and an antislavery cow. the fact that these sheep were but recently converted from "se-cesh" sentiments was their crowning charm. methought they frisked and fattened in the joy of their deliverance from the shadow of mrs. a.'s slave-jail, and gladly contemplated translation into mutton-broth for sick or wounded soldiers. the very slaves who once, perchance, were sold at auction with yon aged patriarch of the flock, had now asserted their humanity, and would devour him as hospital rations. meanwhile our shepherd bore a sharp bayonet without a crook, and i felt myself a peer of ulysses and rob roy,--those sheep-stealers of less elevated aims,--when i met in my daily rides these wandering trophies of our wider wanderings. chapter . up the st. john's there was not much stirring in the department of the south early in , and the st. mary's expedition had afforded a new sensation. of course the few officers of colored troops, and a larger number who wished to become such, were urgent for further experiments in the same line; and the florida tax-commissioners were urgent likewise. i well remember the morning when, after some preliminary correspondence, i steamed down from beaufort, s. c., to hilton head, with general saxton, judge s., and one or two others, to have an interview on the matter with major-general hunter, then commanding the department. hilton head, in those days, seemed always like some foreign military station in the tropics. the long, low, white buildings, with piazzas and verandas on the water-side; the general impression of heat and lassitude, existence appearing to pulsate only with the sea-breeze; the sandy, almost impassable streets; and the firm, level beach, on which everybody walked who could get there: all these suggested jamaica or the east indies. then the head-quarters at the end of the beach, the zouave sentinels, the successive anterooms, the lounging aids, the good-natured and easy general,--easy by habit and energetic by impulse,--all had a certain air of southern languor, rather picturesque, but perhaps not altogether bracing. general hunter received us, that day, with his usual kindliness; there was a good deal of pleasant chat; miles o'reilly was called in to read his latest verses; and then we came to the matter in hand. jacksonville, on the st. john's river, in florida, had been already twice taken and twice evacuated; having been occupied by brigadier-general wright, in march, , and by brigadier-general brannan, in october of the same year. the second evacuation was by major-general hunter's own order, on the avowed ground that a garrison of five thousand was needed to hold the place, and that this force could not be spared. the present proposition was to take and hold it with a brigade of less than a thousand men, carrying, however, arms and uniforms for twice that number, and a month's rations. the claim was, that there were fewer rebel troops in the department than formerly, and that the st. mary's expedition had shown the advantage possessed by colored troops, in local knowledge, and in the confidence of the loyal blacks. it was also urged, that it was worth while to risk something, in the effort to hold florida, and perhaps bring it back into the union. my chief aim in the negotiation was to get the men into action, and that of the florida commissioners to get them into florida. thus far coinciding, we could heartily co-operate; and though general hunter made some reasonable objections, they were yielded more readily than i had feared; and finally, before half our logical ammunition was exhausted, the desired permission was given, and the thing might be considered as done. we were now to leave, as we supposed forever, the camp which had thus far been our home. our vast amount of surplus baggage made a heavy job in the loading, inasmuch as we had no wharf, and everything had to be put on board by means of flat-boats. it was completed by twenty-four hours of steady work; and after some of the usual uncomfortable delays which wait on military expeditions, we were at last afloat. i had tried to keep the plan as secret as possible, and had requested to have no definite orders, until we should be on board ship. but this larger expedition was less within my own hands than was the st. mary's affair, and the great reliance for concealment was on certain counter reports, ingeniously set afloat by some of the florida men. these reports rapidly swelled into the most enormous tales, and by the time they reached the new york newspapers, the expedition was "a great volcano about bursting, whose lava will burn, flow, and destroy," "the sudden appearance in arms of no less than five thousand negroes," "a liberating host," "not the phantom, but the reality, of servile insurrection." what the undertaking actually was may be best seen in the instructions which guided it.* * head-quarters, beaufort, s. c., march , . colonel,--you will please proceed with your command, the first and second regiments south carolina volunteers, which are now embarked upon the steamers john adams, boston, and burn-side, to fernandina, florida. relying upon your military skill and judgment. i shall give you no special directions as to your procedure after you leave fernandina. i expect, however, that you will occupy jacksonville, florida, and intrench yourselves there. the main objects of your expedition are to carry the proclamation of freedom to the enslaved; to call all loyal men into the service of the united states; to occupy as much of the state of florida as possible with the forces under your command; and to neglect no means consistent with the usages of civilized warfare to weaken, harass, and annoy those who are in rebellion against the government of the united states. trusting that the blessing of our heavenly father will rest upon your noble enterprise, i am yours, sincerely, r. saxton, brig.-gen., mil. gov. dept. of the south. colonel higginson, comdg. expeditionary corps. in due time, after touching at fernandina, we reached the difficult bar of the st. john's, and were piloted safely over. admiral dupont had furnished a courteous letter of introduction.* and we were cordially received by commander duncan of the norwich, and lieutenant watson, commanding the uncas. like all officers on blockade duty, they were impatient of their enforced inaction, and gladly seized the opportunity for a different service. it was some time since they had ascended as high as jacksonville, for their orders were strict, one vessel's coal was low, the other was in infirm condition, and there were rumors of cotton-clads and torpedoes. but they gladly agreed to escort us up the river, so soon as our own armed gunboat, the john adams, should arrive,--she being unaccountably delayed. flag ship wabash, port royal harbor, s. c., march , . sir,--i am informed by major-general hunter that he is sending colonel higginson on an important mission in the southerly part of his department. i have not been made acquainted with the objects of this mission, but any assistance that you can offer colonel higginson, which will not interfere with your other duties, you are authorized to give. respectfully your obedient servant, s. f. dupont, rear-adm. comdg. s. atl. block. squad. to the senior officer at the different blockading stations on the coast of georgia and florida. we waited twenty-four hours for her, at the sultry mouth of that glassy river, watching the great pelicans which floated lazily on its tide, or sometimes shooting one, to admire the great pouch, into which one of the soldiers could insert his foot, as into a boot. "he hold one quart," said the admiring experimentalist. "hi! boy," retorted another quickly, "neber you bring dat quart measure in _my_ peck o' corn." the protest came very promptly, and was certainly fair; for the strange receptacle would have held nearly a gallon. we went on shore, too, and were shown a rather pathetic little garden, which the naval officers had laid out, indulging a dream of vegetables. they lingered over the little microscopic sprouts, pointing them out tenderly, as if they were cradled babies. i have often noticed this touching weakness, in gentlemen of that profession, on lonely stations. we wandered among the bluffs, too, in the little deserted hamlet called "pilot town." the ever-shifting sand had in some cases almost buried the small houses, and had swept around others a circular drift, at a few yards' distance, overtopping then: eaves, and leaving each the untouched citadel of this natural redoubt. there was also a dismantled lighthouse, an object which always seems the most dreary symbol of the barbarism of war, when one considers the national beneficence which reared and kindled it. despite the service rendered by this once brilliant light, there were many wrecks which had been strown upon the beach, victims of the most formidable of the southern river-bars. as i stood with my foot on the half-buried ribs of one of these vessels,--so distinctly traced that one might almost fancy them human,--the old pilot, my companion, told me the story of the wreck. the vessel had formerly been in the cuba trade; and her owner, an american merchant residing in havana, had christened her for his young daughter. i asked the name, and was startled to recognize that of a favorite young cousin of mine, besides the bones of whose representative i was thus strangely standing, upon this lonely shore. it was well to have something to relieve the anxiety naturally felt at the delay of the john adams,--anxiety both for her safety and for the success of our enterprise, the rebels had repeatedly threatened to burn the whole of jacksonville, in case of another attack, as they had previously burned its mills and its great hotel. it seemed as if the news of our arrival must surely have travelled thirty miles by this time. all day we watched every smoke that rose among the wooded hills, and consulted the compass and the map, to see if that sign announced the doom of our expected home. at the very last moment of the tide, just in time to cross the bar that day, the missing vessel arrived; all anxieties vanished; i transferred my quarters on board, and at two the next morning we steamed up the river. again there was the dreamy delight of ascending an unknown stream, beneath a sinking moon, into a region where peril made fascination. since the time of the first explorers, i suppose that those southern waters have known no sensations so dreamy and so bewitching as those which this war has brought forth. i recall, in this case, the faintest sensations of our voyage, as ponce de leon may have recalled those of his wandering search, in the same soft zone, for the secret of the mystic fountain. i remember how, during that night, i looked for the first time through a powerful night-glass. it had always seemed a thing wholly inconceivable, that a mere lens could change darkness into light; and as i turned the instrument on the preceding gunboat, and actually discerned the man at the wheel and the others standing about him,--all relapsing into vague gloom again at the withdrawal of the glass,--it gave a feeling of childish delight. yet it seemed only in keeping with the whole enchantment of the scene; and had i been some aladdin, convoyed by genii or giants, i could hardly have felt more wholly a denizen of some world of romance. but the river was of difficult navigation; and we began to feel sometimes, beneath the keel, that ominous, sliding, grating, treacherous arrest of motion which makes the heart shudder, as the vessel does. there was some solicitude about torpedoes, also,--a peril which became a formidable thing, one year later, in the very channel where we found none. soon one of our consorts grounded, then another, every vessel taking its turn, i believe, and then in turn getting off, until the norwich lay hopelessly stranded, for that tide at least, a few miles below jacksonville, and out of sight of the city, so that she could not even add to our dignity by her visible presence from afar. this was rather a serious matter, as the norwich was our main naval reliance, the uncas being a small steamer of less than two hundred tons, and in such poor condition that commander duncan, on finding himself aground, at first quite declined to trust his consort any farther alone. but, having got thus far, it was plainly my duty to risk the remainder with or without naval assistance; and this being so, the courageous officer did not long object, but allowed his dashing subordinate to steam up with us to the city. this left us one naval and one army gunboat; and, fortunately, the burn-side, being a black propeller, always passed for an armed vessel among the rebels, and we rather encouraged that pleasing illusion. we had aimed to reach jacksonville at daybreak; but these mishaps delayed us, and we had several hours of fresh, early sunshine, lighting up the green shores of that lovely river, wooded to the water's edge, with sometimes an emerald meadow, opening a vista to some picturesque house,--all utterly unlike anything we had yet seen in the south, and suggesting rather the penobscot or kennebec. here and there we glided by the ruins of some saw-mill burned by the rebels on general wright's approach; but nothing else spoke of war, except, perhaps, the silence. it was a delicious day, and a scene of fascination. our florida men were wild with delight; and when we rounded the point below the city, and saw from afar its long streets, its brick warehouses, its white cottages, and its overshadowing trees,--all peaceful and undisturbed by flames,--it seemed, in the men's favorite phrase, "too much good," and all discipline was merged, for the moment, in a buzz of ecstasy. the city was still there for us, at any rate; though none knew what perils might be concealed behind those quiet buildings. yet there were children playing on the wharves; careless men, here and there, lounged down to look at us, hands in pockets; a few women came to their doors, and gazed listlessly upon us, shading their eyes with their hands. we drew momently nearer, in silence and with breathless attention. the gunners were at their posts, and the men in line. it was eight o'clock. we were now directly opposite the town: yet no sign of danger was seen; not a rifle-shot was heard; not a shell rose hissing in the air. the uncas rounded to, and dropped anchor in the stream; by previous agreement, i steamed to an upper pier of the town, colonel montgomery to a lower one; the little boat-howitzers were run out upon the wharves, and presently to the angles of the chief streets; and the pretty town was our own without a shot. in spite of our detention, the surprise had been complete, and not a soul in jacksonville had dreamed of our coming. the day passed quickly, in eager preparations for defence; the people could or would give us no definite information about the rebel camp, which was, however, known to be near, and our force did not permit our going out to surprise it. the night following was the most anxious i ever spent. we were all tired out; the companies were under arms, in various parts of the town, to be ready for an attack at any moment. my temporary quarters were beneath the loveliest grove of linden-trees, and as i reclined, half-dozing, the mocking-birds sang all night like nightingales,--their notes seeming to trickle down through the sweet air from amid the blossoming boughs. day brought relief and the sense of due possession, and we could see what we had won. jacksonville was now a united states post again: the only post on the main-land in the department of the south. before the war it had three or four thousand inhabitants, and a rapidly growing lumber-trade, for which abundant facilities were evidently provided. the wharves were capacious, and the blocks of brick warehouses along the lower street were utterly unlike anything we had yet seen in that region, as were the neatness and thrift everywhere visible. it had been built up by northern enterprise, and much of the property was owned by loyal men. it had been a great resort for invalids, though the rebels had burned the large hotel which once accommodated them. mills had also been burned; but the dwelling-houses were almost all in good condition. the quarters for the men were admirable; and i took official possession of the handsome brick house of colonel sunder-land, the established head-quarters through every occupation, whose accommodating flag-staff had literally and repeatedly changed its colors. the seceded colonel, reputed author of the state ordinance of secession, was a new-yorker by birth, and we found his law-card, issued when in practice in easton, washington county, new york. he certainly had good taste in planning the inside of a house, though time had impaired its condition. there was a neat office with ample bookcases and no books, a billiard-table with no balls, gas-fixtures without gas, and a bathing-room without water. there was a separate building for servants' quarters, and a kitchen with every convenience, even to a few jars of lingering pickles. on the whole, there was an air of substance and comfort about the town, quite alien from the picturesque decadence of beaufort. the town rose gradually from the river, and was bounded on the rear by a long, sluggish creek, beyond which lay a stretch of woods, affording an excellent covert for the enemy, but without great facilities for attack, as there were but two or three fords and bridges. this brook could easily be held against a small force, but could at any time and at almost any point be readily crossed by a large one. north of the town the land rose a little, between the river and the sources of the brook, and then sank to a plain, which had been partially cleared by a previous garrison. for so small a force as ours, however, this clearing must be extended nearer to the town; otherwise our lines would be too long for our numbers. this deficiency in numbers at once became a source of serious anxiety. while planning the expedition, it had seemed so important to get the men a foothold in florida that i was willing to risk everything for it. but this important post once in our possession, it began to show some analogies to the proverbial elephant in the lottery. to hold it permanently with nine hundred men was not, perhaps, impossible, with the aid of a gunboat (i had left many of my own regiment sick and on duty in beaufort, and colonel montgomery had as yet less than one hundred and fifty); but to hold it, and also to make forays up the river, certainly required a larger number. we came in part to recruit, but had found scarcely an able-bodied negro in the city; all had been removed farther up, and we must certainly contrive to follow them. i was very unwilling to have, as yet, any white troops under my command, with the blacks. finally, however, being informed by judge s. of a conversation with colonel hawley, commanding at fernandina, in which the latter had offered to send four companies and a light battery to swell our force,--in view of the aid given to his position by this more advanced post, i decided to authorize the energetic judge to go back to fernandina and renew the negotiation, as the john adams must go thither at any rate for coal. meanwhile all definite display of our force was avoided; dress-parades were omitted; the companies were so distributed as to tell for the utmost; and judicious use was made, here and there, of empty tents. the gunboats and transports moved impressively up and down the river, from time to time. the disposition of pickets was varied each night to perplex the enemy, and some advantage taken of his distrust, which might be assumed as equalling our own. the citizens were duly impressed by our supply of ammunition, which was really enormous, and all these things soon took effect. a loyal woman, who came into town, said that the rebel scouts, stopping at her house, reported that there were "sixteen hundred negroes all over the woods, and the town full of them besides." "it was of no use to go in. general finnegan had driven them into a bad place once, and should not do it again." "they had lost their captain and their best surgeon in the first skirmish, and if the savannah people wanted the negroes driven away, they might come and do it themselves." unfortunately, we knew that they could easily come from savannah at any time, as there was railroad communication nearly all the way; and every time we heard the steam-whistle, the men were convinced of their arrival. thus we never could approach to any certainty as to their numbers, while they could observe, from the bluffs, every steamboat that ascended the river. to render our weak force still more available, we barricaded the approaches to the chief streets by constructing barriers or felling trees. it went to my heart to sacrifice, for this purpose, several of my beautiful lindens; but it was no time for aesthetics. as the giants lay on the ground, still scenting the air with their abundant bloom, i used to rein up my horse and watch the children playing hide-and-seek amongst their branches, or some quiet cow grazing at the foliage. nothing impresses the mind in war like some occasional object or association that belongs apparently to peace alone. among all these solicitudes, it was a great thing that one particular anxiety vanished in a day. on the former expedition the men were upon trial as to their courage; now they were to endure another test, as to their demeanor as victors. here were five hundred citizens, nearly all white, at the mercy of their former slaves. to some of these whites it was the last crowning humiliation, and they were, or professed to be, in perpetual fear. on the other hand, the most intelligent and lady-like woman i saw, the wife of a rebel captain, rather surprised me by saying that it seemed pleasanter to have these men stationed there, whom they had known all their lives, and who had generally borne a good character, than to be in the power of entire strangers. certainly the men deserved the confidence, for there was scarcely an exception to their good behavior. i think they thoroughly felt that their honor and dignity were concerned in the matter, and took too much pride in their character as soldiers,--to say nothing of higher motives,--to tarnish it by any misdeeds. they watched their officers vigilantly and even suspiciously, to detect any disposition towards compromise; and so long as we pursued a just course it was evident that they could be relied on. yet the spot was pointed out to me where two of our leading men had seen their brothers hanged by lynch law; many of them had private wrongs to avenge; and they all had utter disbelief in all pretended loyalty, especially on the part of the women. one citizen alone was brought to me in a sort of escort of honor by corporal prince lambkin,--one of the color-guard, and one of our ablest men,--the same who had once made a speech in camp, reminding his hearers that they had lived under the american flag for eighteen hundred and sixty-two years, and ought to live and die under it. corporal lambkin now introduced his man, a german, with the highest compliment in his power, "he hab true colored-man heart." surrounded by mean, cajoling, insinuating white men and women who were all that and worse, i was quite ready to appreciate the quality he thus proclaimed. a colored-man heart, in the rebel states, is a fair synonyme for a loyal heart, and it is about the only such synonyme. in this case, i found afterwards that the man in question, a small grocer, had been an object of suspicion to the whites from his readiness to lend money to the negroes, or sell to them on credit; in which, perhaps, there may have been some mixture of self-interest with benevolence. i resort to a note-book of that period, well thumbed and pocket-worn, which sometimes received a fragment of the day's experience. "march , . "of course, droll things are constantly occurring. every white man, woman, and child is flattering, seductive, and professes union sentiment; every black ditto believes that every white ditto is a scoundrel, and ought to be shot, but for good order and military discipline. the provost marshal and i steer between them as blandly as we can. such scenes as succeed each other! rush of indignant africans. a white man, in woman's clothes, has been seen to enter a certain house,--undoubtedly a spy. further evidence discloses the roman catholic priest, a peaceful little frenchman, in his professional apparel.--anxious female enters. some sentinel has shot her cow by mistake for a rebel. the united states cannot think of paying the desired thirty dollars. let her go to the post-quartermaster and select a cow from his herd. if there is none to suit her (and, indeed, not one of them gave a drop of milk,--neither did hers), let her wait till the next lot comes in,--that is all.--yesterday's operations gave the following total yield: thirty 'contrabands,' eighteen horses, eleven cattle, ten saddles and bridles, and one new army-wagon. at this rate we shall soon be self-supporting _cavalry_. "where complaints are made of the soldiers, it almost always turns out that the women have insulted them most grossly, swearing at them, and the like. one unpleasant old dutch woman came in, bursting with wrath, and told the whole narrative of her blameless life, diversified with sobs:-- "'last january i ran off two of my black people from st. mary's to fernandina,' (sob,)--'then i moved down there myself, and at lake city i lost six women and a boy,' (sob,)--'then i stopped at baldwin for one of the wenches to be confined,' (sob,)--'then i brought them all here to live in a christian country' (sob, sob). "then the blockheads' [blockades, that is, gunboats] 'came, and they all ran off with the blockheads,' (sob, sob, sob,) 'and left me, an old lady of forty-six, obliged to work for a living.' (chaos of sobs, without cessation.) "but when i found what the old sinner had said to the soldiers i rather wondered at their self-control in not throttling her." meanwhile skirmishing went on daily in the outskirts of the town. there was a fight on the very first day, when our men killed, as before hinted, a rebel surgeon, which was oddly metamorphosed in the southern newspapers into their killing one of ours, which certainly never happened. every day, after this, they appeared in small mounted squads in the neighborhood, and exchanged shots with our pickets, to which the gunboats would contribute their louder share, their aim being rather embarrassed by the woods and hills. we made reconnoissances, too, to learn the country in different directions, and were apt to be fired upon during these. along the farther side of what we called the "debatable land" there was a line of cottages, hardly superior to negro huts, and almost all empty, where the rebel pickets resorted, and from whose windows they fired. by degrees all these nests were broken up and destroyed, though it cost some trouble to do it, and the hottest skirmishing usually took place around them. among these little affairs was one which we called "company k's skirmish," because it brought out the fact that this company, which was composed entirely of south carolina men, and had never shone in drill or discipline, stood near the head of the regiment for coolness and courage,--the defect of discipline showing itself only in their extreme unwillingness to halt when once let loose. it was at this time that the small comedy of the goose occurred,--an anecdote which wendell phillips has since made his own. one of the advancing line of skirmishers, usually an active fellow enough, was observed to move clumsily and irregularly. it soon appeared that he had encountered a fine specimen of the domestic goose, which had surrendered at discretion. not wishing to lose it, he could yet find no way to hold it but between his legs; and so he went on, loading, firing, advancing, halting, always with the goose writhing and struggling and hissing in this natural pair of stocks. both happily came off unwounded, and retired in good order at the signal, or some time after it; but i have hardly a cooler thing to put on record. meanwhile, another fellow left the field less exultingly; for, after a thoroughly courageous share in the skirmish, he came blubbering to his captain, and said,--"cappen, make caesar gib me my cane." it seemed that, during some interval of the fighting, he had helped himself to an armful of rebel sugar-cane, such as they all delighted in chewing. the roman hero, during another pause, had confiscated the treasure; whence these tears of the returning warrior. i never could accustom myself to these extraordinary interminglings of manly and childish attributes. our most untiring scout during this period was the chaplain of my regiment,--the most restless and daring spirit we had, and now exulting in full liberty of action. he it was who was daily permitted to stray singly where no other officer would have been allowed to go, so irresistible was his appeal, "you know i am only a chaplain." methinks i see our regimental saint, with pistols in belt and a ballard rifle slung on shoulder, putting spurs to his steed, and cantering away down some questionable wood-path, or returning with some tale of rebel haunt discovered, or store of foraging. he would track an enemy like an indian, or exhort him, when apprehended, like an early christian. some of our devout soldiers shook their heads sometimes over the chaplain's little eccentricities. "woffor mr. chapman made a preacher for?" said one of them, as usual transforming his title into a patronymic. "he's _de fightingest more yankee_ i eber see in all my days." and the criticism was very natural, though they could not deny that, when the hour for sunday service came, mr. f. commanded the respect and attention of all. that hour never came, however, on our first sunday in jacksonville; we were too busy and the men too scattered; so the chaplain made his accustomed foray beyond the lines instead. "is it not sunday?" slyly asked an unregenerate lieutenant. "nay," quoth his reverence, waxing fervid; "it is the day of judgment" this reminds me of a raid up the river, conducted by one of our senior captains, an enthusiast whose gray beard and prophetic manner always took me back to the fifth-monarchy men. he was most successful that day, bringing back horses, cattle, provisions, and prisoners; and one of the latter complained bitterly to me of being held, stating that captain r. had promised him speedy liberty. but that doughty official spurned the imputation of such weak blandishments, in this day of triumphant retribution. "promise him!" said he, "i promised him nothing but the day of judgment and periods of damnation!" often since have i rolled beneath my tongue this savory and solemn sentence, and i do not believe that since the days of the long parliament there has been a more resounding anathema. in colonel montgomery's hands these up-river raids reached the dignity of a fine art. his conceptions of foraging were rather more western and liberal than mine, and on these excursions he fully indemnified himself for any undue abstinence demanded of him when in camp. i remember being on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. the steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck's wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers. the naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views of one's duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully, as who should say, "shall these things be?" in a moment or two the returning foragers had landed. "captain ----," said montgomery, courteously, "would you allow me to send a remarkably fine turkey for your use on board ship?" "lieutenant ----," said major corwin, "may i ask your acceptance of a pair of ducks for your mess?" never did i behold more cordial relations between army and navy than sprang into existence at those sentences. so true it is, as charles lamb says, that a single present of game may diffuse kindly sentiments through a whole community. these little trips were called "rest"; there was no other rest during those ten days. an immense amount of picket and fatigue duty had to be done. two redoubts were to be built to command the northern valley; all the intervening grove, which now afforded lurking-ground for a daring enemy, must be cleared away; and a few houses must be reluctantly razed for the same purpose. the fort on the left was named fort higginson, and that built by my own regiment, in return, fort montgomery. the former was necessarily a hasty work, and is now, i believe, in ruins; the latter was far more elaborately constructed, on lines well traced by the fourth new hampshire during the previous occupation. it did great credit to captain trowbridge, of my regiment (formerly of the new york volunteer engineers), who had charge of its construction. how like a dream seems now that period of daily skirmishes and nightly watchfulness! the fatigue was so constant that the days hurried by. i felt the need of some occasional change of ideas, and having just received from the north mr. brook's beautiful translation of jean paul's "titan," i used to retire to my bedroom for some ten minutes every afternoon, and read a chapter or two. it was more refreshing than a nap, and will always be to me one of the most fascinating books in the world, with this added association. after all, what concerned me was not so much the fear of an attempt to drive us out and retake the city,--for that would be against the whole policy of the rebels in that region,--as of an effort to fulfil their threats and burn it, by some nocturnal dash. the most valuable buildings belonged to union men, and the upper part of the town, built chiefly of resinous pine, was combustible to the last degree. in case of fire, if the wind blew towards the river, we might lose steamers and all. i remember regulating my degree of disrobing by the direction of the wind; if it blew from the river, it was safe to make one's self quite comfortable; if otherwise, it was best to conform to suwarrow's idea of luxury, and take off one spur. so passed our busy life for ten days. there were no tidings of reinforcements, and i hardly knew whether i wished for them,--or rather, i desired them as a choice of evils; for our men were giving out from overwork, and the recruiting excursions, for which we had mainly come, were hardly possible. at the utmost, i had asked for the addition of four companies and a light battery. judge of my surprise when two infantry regiments successively arrived! i must resort to a scrap from the diary. perhaps diaries are apt to be thought tedious; but i would rather read a page of one, whatever the events described, than any more deliberate narrative,--it gives glimpses so much more real and vivid. "head-quarters, jacksonville, "march , , midnight. "for the last twenty-four hours we have been sending women and children out of town, in answer to a demand by flag of truce, with a threat of bombardment. [n. b. i advised them not to go, and the majority declined doing so.] it was designed, no doubt, to intimidate; and in our ignorance of the force actually outside, we have had to recognize the possibility of danger, and work hard at our defences. at any time, by going into the outskirts, we can have a skirmish, which is nothing but fun; but when night closes in over a small and weary garrison, there sometimes steals into my mind, like a chill, that most sickening of all sensations, the anxiety of a commander. this was the night generally set for an attack, if any, though i am pretty well satisfied that they have not strength to dare it, and the worst they could probably do is to burn the town. but to-night, instead of enemies, appear friends,--our devoted civic ally, judge s., and a whole connecticut regiment, the sixth, under major meeker; and though the latter are aground, twelve miles below, yet they enable one to breathe more freely. i only wish they were black; but now i have to show, not only that blacks can fight, but that they and white soldiers can act in harmony together." that evening the enemy came up for a reconnoissance, in the deepest darkness, and there were alarms all night. the next day the sixth connecticut got afloat, and came up the river; and two days after, to my continued amazement, arrived a part of the eighth maine, under lieutenant-colonel twichell. this increased my command to four regiments, or parts of regiments, half white and half black. skirmishing had almost ceased,--our defences being tolerably complete, and looking from without much more effective than they really were. we were safe from any attack by a small force, and hoped that the enemy could not spare a large one from charleston or savannah. all looked bright without, and gave leisure for some small anxieties within. it was the first time in the war (so far as i know) that white and black soldiers had served together on regular duty. jealousy was still felt towards even the officers of colored regiments, and any difficult contingency would be apt to bring it out. the white soldiers, just from ship-board, felt a natural desire to stray about the town; and no attack from an enemy would be so disastrous as the slightest collision between them and the black provost-guard. i shudder, even now, to think of the train of consequences, bearing on the whole course of subsequent national events, which one such mishap might then have produced. it is almost impossible for us now to remember in what a delicate balance then hung the whole question of negro enlistments, and consequently of slavery. fortunately for my own serenity, i had great faith in the intrinsic power of military discipline, and also knew that a common service would soon produce mutual respect among good soldiers; and so it proved. but the first twelve hours of this mixed command were to me a more anxious period than any outward alarms had created. let us resort to the note-book again. "jacksonville, march , . "it is sunday; the bell is ringing for church, and rev. mr. f., from beaufort, is to preach. this afternoon our good quartermaster establishes a sunday-school for our little colony of 'contrabands,' now numbering seventy. "sunday afternoon. "the bewildering report is confirmed; and in addition to the sixth connecticut, which came yesterday, appears part of the eighth maine. the remainder, with its colonel, will be here to-morrow, and, report says, major-general hunter. now my hope is that we may go to some point higher up the river, which we can hold for ourselves. there are two other points [magnolia and pilatka], which, in themselves, are as favorable as this, and, for getting recruits, better. so i shall hope to be allowed to go. to take posts, and then let white troops garrison them,--that is my programme. "what makes the thing more puzzling is, that the eighth maine has only brought ten days' rations, so that they evidently are not to stay here; and yet where they go, or why they come, is a puzzle. meanwhile we can sleep sound o' nights; and if the black and white babies do not quarrel and pull hair, we shall do very well." colonel rust, on arriving, said frankly that he knew nothing of the plans prevailing in the department, but that general hunter was certainly coming soon to act for himself; that it had been reported at the north, and even at port royal, that we had all been captured and shot (and, indeed, i had afterwards the pleasure of reading my own obituary in a northern democratic journal), and that we certainly needed reinforcements; that he himself had been sent with orders to carry out, so far as possible, the original plans of the expedition; that he regarded himself as only a visitor, and should remain chiefly on shipboard,--which he did. he would relieve the black provost-guard by a white one, if i approved,--which i certainly did. but he said that he felt bound to give the chief opportunities of action to the colored troops,--which i also approved, and which he carried out, not quite to the satisfaction of his own eager and daring officers. i recall one of these enterprises, out of which we extracted a good deal of amusement; it was baptized the battle of the clothes-lines. a white company was out scouting in the woods behind the town, with one of my best florida men for a guide; and the captain sent back a message that he had discovered a rebel camp with twenty-two tents, beyond a creek, about four miles away; the officers and men had been distinctly seen, and it would be quite possible to capture it. colonel rust at once sent me out with two hundred men to do the work, recalling the original scouts, and disregarding the appeals of his own eager officers. we marched through the open pine woods, on a delightful afternoon, and met the returning party. poor fellows! i never shall forget the longing eyes they cast on us, as we marched forth to the field of glory, from which they were debarred. we went three or four miles out, sometimes halting to send forward a scout, while i made all the men lie down in the long, thin grass and beside the fallen trees, till one could not imagine that there was a person there. i remember how picturesque the effect was, when, at the signal, all rose again, like roderick dhu's men, and the green wood appeared suddenly populous with armed life. at a certain point forces were divided, and a detachment was sent round the head of the creek, to flank the unsuspecting enemy; while we of the main body, stealing with caution nearer and nearer, through ever denser woods, swooped down at last in triumph upon a solitary farmhouse,--where the family-washing had been hung out to dry! this was the "rebel camp"! it is due to sergeant greene, my invaluable guide, to say that he had from the beginning discouraged any high hopes of a crossing of bayonets. he had early explained that it was not he who claimed to have seen the tents and the rebel soldiers, but one of the officers,--and had pointed out that our undisturbed approach was hardly reconcilable with the existence of a hostile camp so near. this impression had also pressed more and more upon my own mind, but it was our business to put the thing beyond a doubt. probably the place may have been occasionally used for a picket-station, and we found fresh horse-tracks in the vicinity, and there was a quantity of iron bridle-bits in the house, of which no clear explanation could be given; so that the armed men may not have been wholly imaginary. but camp there was none. after enjoying to the utmost the fun of the thing, therefore, we borrowed the only horse on the premises, hung all the bits over his neck, and as i rode him back to camp, they clanked like broken chains. we were joined on the way by our dear and devoted surgeon, whom i had left behind as an invalid, but who had mounted his horse and ridden out alone to attend to our wounded, his green sash looking quite in harmony with the early spring verdure of those lovely woods. so came we back in triumph, enjoying the joke all the more because some one else was responsible. we mystified the little community at first, but soon let out the secret, and witticisms abounded for a day or two, the mildest of which was the assertion that the author of the alarm must have been "three sheets in the wind." another expedition was of more exciting character. for several days before the arrival of colonel rust a reconnaissance had been planned in the direction of the enemy's camp, and he finally consented to its being carried out. by the energy of major corwin, of the second south carolina volunteers, aided by mr. holden, then a gunner on the paul jones, and afterwards made captain of the same regiment, one of the ten-pound parrott guns had been mounted on a hand-car, for use on the railway. this it was now proposed to bring into service. i took a large detail of men from the two white regiments and from my own, and had instructions to march as far as the four-mile station on the railway, if possible, examine the country, and ascertain if the rebel camp had been removed, as was reported, beyond that distance. i was forbidden going any farther from camp, or attacking the rebel camp, as my force comprised half our garrison, and should the town meanwhile be attacked from some other direction, it would be in great danger. i never shall forget the delight of that march through the open pine barren, with occasional patches of uncertain swamp. the eighth maine, under lieutenant-colonel twichell, was on the right, the sixth connecticut, under major meeker, on the left, and my own men, under major strong, in the centre, having in charge the cannon, to which they had been trained. mr. heron, from the john adams, acted as gunner. the mounted rebel pickets retired before us through the woods, keeping usually beyond range of the skirmishers, who in a long line--white, black, white--were deployed transversely. for the first time i saw the two colors fairly alternate on the military chessboard; it had been the object of much labor and many dreams, and i liked the pattern at last. nothing was said about the novel fact by anybody,--it all seemed to come as matter-of-course; there appeared to be no mutual distrust among the men, and as for the officers, doubtless "each crow thought its own young the whitest,"--i certainly did, although doing full justice to the eager courage of the northern portion of my command. especially i watched with pleasure the fresh delight of the maine men, who had not, like the rest, been previously in action, and who strode rapidly on with their long legs, irresistibly recalling, as their gaunt, athletic frames and sunburnt faces appeared here and there among the pines, the lumber regions of their native state, with which i was not unfamiliar. we passed through a former camp of the rebels, from which everything had been lately removed; but when the utmost permitted limits of our reconnoissance were reached, there were still no signs of any other camp, and the rebel cavalry still kept provokingly before us. their evident object was to lure us on to their own stronghold, and had we fallen into the trap, it would perhaps have resembled, on a smaller scale, the olustee of the following year. with a good deal of reluctance, however, i caused the recall to be sounded, and, after a slight halt, we began to retrace our steps. straining our eyes to look along the reach of level railway which stretched away through the pine barren, we began to see certain ominous puffs of smoke, which might indeed proceed from some fire in the woods, but were at once set down by the men as coming from the mysterious locomotive battery which the rebels were said to have constructed. gradually the smoke grew denser, and appeared to be moving up along the track, keeping pace with our motion, and about two miles distant. i watched it steadily through a field-glass from our own slowly moving battery: it seemed to move when we moved and to halt when we halted. sometimes in the dun smoke i caught a glimpse of something blacker, raised high in the air like the threatening head of some great gliding serpent. suddenly there came a sharp puff of lighter smoke that seemed like a forked tongue, and then a hollow report, and we could see a great black projectile hurled into the air, and falling a quarter of a mile away from us, in the woods. i did not at once learn that this first shot killed two of the maine men, and wounded two more. this was fired wide, but the numerous shots which followed were admirably aimed, and seldom failed to fall or explode close to our own smaller battery. it was the first time that the men had been seriously exposed to artillery fire,--a danger more exciting to the ignorant mind than any other, as this very war has shown.* so i watched them anxiously. fortunately there were deep trenches on each side the railway, with many stout, projecting roots, forming very tolerable bomb-proofs for those who happened to be near them. the enemy's gun was a sixty-four-pound blakely, as we afterward found, whose enormous projectile moved very slowly and gave ample time to cover,--insomuch, that, while the fragments of shell fell all around and amongst us, not a man was hurt. this soon gave the men the most buoyant confidence, and they shouted with childish delight over every explosion. *take this for example: "the effect was electrical. the rebels were the best men in ford's command, being lieutenant-colonel showalter's californians, and they are brave men. they had dismounted and sent their horses to the rear, and were undoubtedly determined upon a desperate fight, and their superior numbers made them confident of success. but they never fought with artillery, and a cannon has more terror for them than ten thousand rifles and all the wild camanches on the plains of texas. at first glimpse of the shining brass monsters there was a visible wavering in the determined front of the enemy, and as the shells came screaming over their heads the scare was complete. they broke ranks, fled for their horses, scrambled on the first that came to hand, and skedaddled in the direction of brownsville."_new york evening post_, september , . the moment a shell had burst or fallen unburst, our little gun was invariably fired in return, and that with some precision, so far as we could judge, its range also being nearly as great. for some reason they showed no disposition to overtake us, in which attempt their locomotive would have given them an immense advantage over our heavy hand-car, and their cavalry force over our infantry. nevertheless, i rather hoped that they would attempt it, for then an effort might have been made to cut them off in the rear by taking up some rails. as it was, this was out of the question, though they moved slowly, as we moved, keeping always about two miles away. when they finally ceased firing we took up the rails beyond us before withdrawing, and thus kept the enemy from approaching so near the city again. but i shall never forget that dantean monster, rearing its black head amid the distant smoke, nor the solicitude with which i watched for the puff which meant danger, and looked round to see if my chickens were all under cover. the greatest peril, after all, was from the possible dismounting of our gun, in which case we should have been very apt to lose it, if the enemy had showed any dash. there may be other such tilts of railway artillery on record during the war; but if so, i have not happened to read of them, and so have dwelt the longer on this. this was doubtless the same locomotive battery which had previously fired more than once upon the town,--running up within two miles and then withdrawing, while it was deemed inexpedient to destroy the railroad, on our part, lest it might be needed by ourselves in turn. one night, too, the rebel threat had been fulfilled, and they had shelled the town with the same battery. they had the range well, and every shot fell near the post headquarters. it was exciting to see the great blakely shell, showing a light as it rose, and moving slowly towards us like a comet, then exploding and scattering its formidable fragments. yet, strange to say, no serious harm was done to life or limb, and the most formidable casualty was that of a citizen who complained that a shell had passed through the wall of his bedroom, and carried off his mosquito curtain in its transit. little knew we how soon these small entertainments would be over. colonel montgomery had gone up the river with his two companies, perhaps to remain permanently; and i was soon to follow. on friday, march th, i wrote home: "the burnside has gone to beaufort for rations, and the john adams to fernandina for coal; we expect both back by sunday, and on monday i hope to get the regiment off to a point farther up,--magnolia, thirty-five miles, or pilatka, seventy-five,--either of which would be a good post for us. general hunter is expected every day, and it is strange he has not come." the very next day came an official order recalling the whole expedition, and for the third time evacuating jacksonville. a council of military and naval officers was at once called (though there was but one thing to be done), and the latter were even more disappointed and amazed than the former. this was especially the case with the senior naval officer, captain steedman, a south-carolinian by birth, but who had proved himself as patriotic as he was courteous and able, and whose presence and advice had been of the greatest value to me. he and all of us felt keenly the wrongfulness of breaking the pledges which we had been authorized to make to these people, and of leaving them to the mercy of the rebels once more. most of the people themselves took the same view, and eagerly begged to accompany us on our departure. they were allowed to bring their clothing and furniture also, and at once developed that insane mania for aged and valueless trumpery which always seizes upon the human race, i believe, in moments of danger. with the greatest difficulty we selected between the essential and the non-essential, and our few transports were at length loaded to the very water's edge on the morning of march th,--colonel montgomery having by this time returned from up-river, with sixteen prisoners, and the fruits of foraging in plenty. and upon that last morning occurred an act on the part of some of the garrison most deeply to be regretted, and not to be excused by the natural indignation at their recall,--an act which, through the unfortunate eloquence of one newspaper correspondent, rang through the nation,--the attempt to burn the town. i fortunately need not dwell much upon it, as i was not at the time in command of the post,--as the white soldiers frankly took upon themselves the whole responsibility,--and as all the fires were made in the wooden part of the city, which was occupied by them, while none were made in the brick part, where the colored soldiers were quartered. it was fortunate for our reputation that the newspaper accounts generally agreed in exculpating us from all share in the matter;* and the single exception, which one correspondent asserted, i could never verify, and do not believe to have existed. it was stated by colonel rust, in his official report, that some twenty-five buildings in all were burned, and i doubt if the actual number was greater; but this was probably owing in part to a change of wind, and did not diminish the discredit of the transaction. it made our sorrow at departure no less, though it infinitely enhanced the impressiveness of the scene. *"the colored regiments had nothing at all to do with it; they behaved with propriety throughout" _boston journal_ correspondence. ("carleton.") "the negro troops took no part whatever in the perpetration of this vandalism."_new york tribune_ correspondence. ("n. p.") "we know not whether we are most rejoiced or saddened to observe, by the general concurrence of accounts, that the negro soldiers had nothing to do with the barbarous act" _boston journal_ editorial, april , . the excitement of the departure was intense. the embarkation was so laborious that it seemed as if the flames must be upon us before we could get on board, and it was also generally expected that the rebel skirmishers would be down among the houses, wherever practicable, to annoy us to the utmost, as had been the case at the previous evacuation. they were, indeed, there, as we afterwards heard, but did not venture to molest us. the sight and roar of the flames, and the rolling clouds of smoke, brought home to the impressible minds of the black soldiers all their favorite imagery of the judgment-day; and those who were not too much depressed by disappointment were excited by the spectacle, and sang and exhorted without ceasing. with heavy hearts their officers floated down the lovely river, which we had ascended with hopes so buoyant; and from that day to this, the reasons for our recall have never been made public. it was commonly attributed to proslavery advisers, acting on the rather impulsive nature of major-general hunter, with a view to cut short the career of the colored troops, and stop their recruiting. but it may have been simply the scarcity of troops in the department, and the renewed conviction at head-quarters that we were too few to hold the post alone. the latter theory was strengthened by the fact that, when general seymour reoccupied jacksonville, the following year, he took with him twenty thousand men instead of one thousand,--and the sanguinary battle of olustee found him with too few. chapter . out on picket one can hardly imagine a body of men more disconsolate than a regiment suddenly transferred from an adventurous life in the enemy's country to the quiet of a sheltered camp, on safe and familiar ground. the men under my command were deeply dejected when, on a most appropriate day,--the first of april, ,--they found themselves unaccountably recalled from florida, that region of delights which had seemed theirs by the right of conquest. my dusky soldiers, who based their whole walk and conversation strictly on the ancient israelites, felt that the prophecies were all set at naught, and that they were on the wrong side of the red sea; indeed, i fear they regarded even me as a sort of reversed moses, whose pisgah fronted in the wrong direction. had they foreseen how the next occupation of the promised land was destined to result, they might have acquiesced with more of their wonted cheerfulness. as it was, we were very glad to receive, after a few days of discontented repose on the very ground where we had once been so happy, an order to go out on picket at port royal ferry, with the understanding that we might remain there for some time. this picket station was regarded as a sort of military picnic by the regiments stationed at beaufort, south carolina; it meant blackberries and oysters, wild roses and magnolias, flowery lanes instead of sandy barrens, and a sort of guerilla existence in place of the camp routine. to the colored soldiers especially, with their love of country life, and their extensive personal acquaintance on the plantations, it seemed quite like a christmas festival. besides, they would be in sight of the enemy, and who knew but there might, by the blessing of providence, be a raid or a skirmish? if they could not remain on the st. john's river, it was something to dwell on the coosaw. in the end they enjoyed it as much as they expected, and though we "went out" several times subsequently, until it became an old story, the enjoyment never waned. and as even the march from the camp to the picket lines was something that could not possibly have been the same for any white regiment in the service, it is worth while to begin at the beginning and describe it. a regiment ordered on picket was expected to have reveille at daybreak, and to be in line for departure by sunrise. this delighted our men, who always took a childlike pleasure in being out of bed at any unreasonable hour; and by the time i had emerged, the tents were nearly all struck, and the great wagons were lumbering into camp to receive them, with whatever else was to be transported. the first rays of the sun must fall upon the line of these wagons, moving away across the wide parade-ground, followed by the column of men, who would soon outstrip them. but on the occasion which i especially describe the sun was shrouded, and, when once upon the sandy plain, neither camp nor town nor river could be seen in the dimness; and when i rode forward and looked back there was only visible the long, moving, shadowy column, seeming rather awful in its snake-like advance. there was a swaying of flags and multitudinous weapons that might have been camels' necks for all one could see, and the whole thing might have been a caravan upon the desert. soon we debouched upon the "shell road," the wagon-train drew on one side into the fog, and by the time the sun appeared the music ceased, the men took the "route step," and the fun began. the "route step" is an abandonment of all military strictness, and nothing is required of the men but to keep four abreast, and not lag behind. they are not required to keep step, though, with the rhythmical ear of our soldiers, they almost always instinctively did so; talking and singing are allowed, and of this privilege, at least, they eagerly availed themselves. on this day they were at the top of exhilaration. there was one broad grin from one end of the column to the other; it might soon have been a caravan of elephants instead of camels, for the ivory and the blackness; the chatter and the laughter almost drowned the tramp of feet and the clatter of equipments. at cross-roads and plantation gates the colored people thronged to see us pass; every one found a friend and a greeting. "how you do, aunty?" "huddy (how d'ye), budder benjamin?" "how you find yourself dis mor-nin', tittawisa (sister louisa)?" such saluations rang out to everybody, known or unknown. in return, venerable, kerchiefed matrons courtesied laboriously to every one, with an unfailing "bress de lord, budder." grave little boys, blacker than ink, shook hands with our laughing and utterly unmanageable drummers, who greeted them with this sure word of prophecy, "dem's de drummers for de nex' war!" pretty mulatto girls ogled and coquetted, and made eyes, as thackeray would say, at half the young fellows in the battalion. meantime the singing was brisk along the whole column, and when i sometimes reined up to see them pass, the chant of each company, entering my ear, drove out from the other ear the strain of the preceding. such an odd mixture of things, military and missionary, as the successive waves of song drifted byl first, "john brown," of course; then, "what make old satan for follow me so?" then, "marching along"; then, "hold your light on canaan's shore"; then, "when this cruel war is over" (a new favorite, sung by a few); yielding presently to a grand burst of the favorite marching song among them all, and one at which every step instinctively quickened, so light and jubilant its rhythm,-- "all true children gwine in de wilderness, gwine in de wilderness, gwine in de wilderness, true believers gwine in de wilderness, to take away de sins ob de world,"-- ending in a "hoigh!" after each verse,--a sort of irish yell. for all the songs, but especially for their own wild hymns, they constantly improvised simple verses, with the same odd mingling,--the little facts of to-day's march being interwoven with the depths of theological gloom, and the same jubilant chorus annexed to all; thus,-- "we're gwin to de ferry, de bell done ringing; gwine to de landing, de bell done ringing; trust, believer o, de bell done ringing; satan's behind me, de bell done ringing; 't is a misty morning, de bell done ringing; o de road am sandy, de bell done ringing; hell been open, de bell done ringing";-- and so on indefinitely. the little drum-corps kept in advance, a jolly crew, their drums slung on their backs, and the drum-sticks perhaps balanced on their heads. with them went the officers' servant-boys, more uproarious still, always ready to lend their shrill treble to any song. at the head of the whole force there walked, by some self-imposed pre-eminence, a respectable elderly female, one of the company laundresses, whose vigorous stride we never could quite overtake, and who had an enormous bundle balanced on her head, while she waved in her hand, like a sword, a long-handled tin dipper. such a picturesque medley of fun, war, and music i believe no white regiment in the service could have shown; and yet there was no straggling, and a single tap of the drum would at any moment bring order out of this seeming chaos. so we marched our seven miles out upon the smooth and shaded road,--beneath jasmine clusters, and great pine-cones dropping, and great bunches of misletoe still in bloom among the branches. arrived at the station, the scene soon became busy and more confused; wagons were being unloaded, tents pitched, water brought, wood cut, fires made, while the "field and staff" could take possession of the abandoned quarters of their predecessors, and we could look round in the lovely summer morning to "survey our empire and behold our home." the only thoroughfare by land between beaufort and charleston is the "shell road," a beautiful avenue, which, about nine miles from beaufort, strikes a ferry across the coosaw river. war abolished the ferry, and made the river the permanent barrier between the opposing picket lines. for ten miles, right and left, these lines extended, marked by well-worn footpaths, following the endless windings of the stream; and they never varied until nearly the end of the war. upon their maintenance depended our whole foothold on the sea islands; and upon that again finally depended the whole campaign of sherman. but for the services of the colored troops, which finally formed the main garrison of the department of the south, the great march would never have been performed. there was thus a region ten or twelve miles square of which i had exclusive military command. it was level, but otherwise broken and bewildering to the last degree. no road traversed it, properly speaking, but the shell road. all the rest was a wild medley of cypress swamp, pine barren, muddy creek, and cultivated plantation, intersected by interminable lanes and bridle-paths, through which we must ride day and night, and which our horses soon knew better than ourselves. the regiment was distributed at different stations, the main force being under my immediate command, at a plantation close by the shell road, two miles from the ferry, and seven miles from beaufort. our first picket duty was just at the time of the first attack on charleston, under dupont and hunter; and it was generally supposed that the confederates would make an effort to recapture the sea islands. my orders were to watch the enemy closely, keep informed as to his position and movements, attempt no advance, and, in case any were attempted from the other side, to delay it as long as possible, sending instant notice to head-quarters. as to the delay, that could be easily guaranteed. there were causeways on the shell road which a single battery could hold against a large force; and the plantations were everywhere so intersected by hedges and dikes that they seemed expressly planned for defence. although creeks wound in and out everywhere, yet these were only navigable at high tide, and at all other times were impassable marshes. there were but few posts where the enemy were within rifle range, and their occasional attacks at those points were soon stopped by our enforcement of a pithy order from general hunter, "give them as good as they send." so that, with every opportunity for being kept on the alert, there was small prospect of serious danger; and all promised an easy life, with only enough of care to make it pleasant. the picket station was therefore always a coveted post among the regiments, combining some undeniable importance with a kind of relaxation; and as we were there three months on our first tour of duty, and returned there several times afterwards, we got well acquainted with it. the whole region always reminded me of the descriptions of la vende'e, and i always expected to meet henri larochejaquelein riding in the woods. how can i ever describe the charm and picturesqueness of that summer life? our house possessed four spacious rooms and a _piazza_; around it were grouped sheds and tents; the camp was a little way off on one side, the negro-quarters of the plantation on the other; and all was immersed in a dense mass of waving and murmuring locust-blossoms. the spring days were always lovely, while the evenings were always conveniently damp; so that we never shut the windows by day, nor omitted our cheerful fire by night. indoors, the main head-quarters seemed like the camp of some party of young engineers in time of peace, only with a little female society added, and a good many martial associations thrown in. a large, low, dilapidated room, with an immense fireplace, and with window-panes chiefly broken, so that the sashes were still open even when closed,--such was our home. the walls were scrawled with capital charcoal sketches by r. of the fourth new hampshire, and with a good map of the island and its wood-paths by c. of the first massachusetts cavalry. the room had the picturesqueness which comes everywhere from the natural grouping of articles of daily use,--swords, belts, pistols, rifles, field-glasses, spurs, canteens, gauntlets,--while wreaths of gray moss above the windows, and a pelican's wing three feet long over the high mantel-piece, indicated more deliberate decoration. this, and the whole atmosphere of the place, spoke of the refining presence of agreeable women; and it was pleasant when they held their little court in the evening, and pleasant all day, with the different visitors who were always streaming in and out,--officers and soldiers on various business; turbaned women from the plantations, coming with complaints or questionings; fugitives from the main-land to be interrogated; visitors riding up on horseback, their hands full of jasmine and wild roses; and the sweet sunny air all perfumed with magnolias and the southern pine. from the neighboring camp there was a perpetual low hum. louder voices and laughter re-echoed, amid the sharp sounds of the axe, from the pine woods; and sometimes, when the relieved pickets were discharging their pieces, there came the hollow sound of dropping rifle-shots, as in skirmishing,--perhaps the most unmistakable and fascinating association that war bequeaths to the memory of the ear. our domestic arrangements were of the oddest description. from the time when we began housekeeping by taking down the front-door to complete therewith a little office for the surgeon on the _piazza_, everything seemed upside down. i slept on a shelf in the corner of the parlor, bequeathed me by major f., my jovial predecessor, and, if i waked at any time, could put my head through the broken window, arouse my orderly, and ride off to see if i could catch a picket asleep. we used to spell the word _picquet_, because that was understood to be the correct thing, in that department at least; and they used to say at post head-quarters that as soon as the officer in command of the outposts grew negligent, and was guilty of a _k_, he was ordered in immediately. then the arrangements for ablution were peculiar. we fitted up a bathing-place in a brook, which somehow got appropriated at once by the company laundresses; but i had my revenge, for i took to bathing in the family washtub. after all, however, the kitchen department had the advantage, for they used my solitary napkin to wipe the mess-table. as for food, we found it impossible to get chickens, save in the immature shape of eggs; fresh pork was prohibited by the surgeon, and other fresh meat came rarely. we could, indeed, hunt for wild turkeys, and even deer, but such hunting was found only to increase the appetite, without corresponding supply. still we had our luxuries,--large, delicious drum-fish, and alligator steaks,--like a more substantial fried halibut,--which might have afforded the theme for charles lamb's dissertation on roast pig, and by whose aid "for the first time in our lives we tested _crackling_" the post bakery yielded admirable bread; and for vegetables and fruit we had very poor sweet potatoes, and (in their season) an unlimited supply of the largest blackberries. for beverage, we had the vapid milk of that region, in which, if you let it stand, the water sinks instead of the cream's rising; and the delicious sugar-cane syrup, which we had brought from florida, and which we drank at all hours. old floridians say that no one is justified in drinking whiskey, while he can get cane-juice; it is sweet and spirited, without cloying, foams like ale, and there were little spots on the ceiling of the dining-room where our lively beverage had popped out its cork. we kept it in a whiskey-bottle; and as whiskey itself was absolutely prohibited among us, it was amusing to see the surprise of our military visitors when this innocent substitute was brought in. they usually liked it in the end, but, like the old frenchwoman over her glass of water, wished that it were a sin to give it a relish. as the foaming beakers of molasses and water were handed round, the guests would make with them the courteous little gestures of polite imbiding, and would then quaff the beverage, some with gusto, others with a slight afterlook of dismay. but it was a delicious and cooling drink while it lasted; and at all events was the best and the worst we had. we used to have reveille at six, and breakfast about seven; then the mounted couriers began to arrive from half a dozen different directions, with written reports of what had happened during the night,--a boat seen, a picket fired upon, a battery erecting. these must be consolidated and forwarded to head-quarters, with the daily report of the command,--so many sick, so many on detached service, and all the rest. this was our morning newspaper, our herald and tribune; i never got tired of it. then the couriers must be furnished with countersign and instructions, and sent off again. then we scattered to our various rides, all disguised as duty; one to inspect pickets, one to visit a sick soldier, one to build a bridge or clear a road, and still another to head-quarters for ammunition or commissary stores. galloping through green lanes, miles of triumphal arches of wild roses,--roses pale and large and fragrant, mingled with great boughs of the white cornel, fantastic masses, snowy surprises,--such were our rides, ranging from eight to fifteen and even twenty miles. back to a late dinner with our various experiences, and perhaps specimens to match,--a thunder-snake, eight feet long; a live opossum, with a young clinging to the natural pouch; an armful of great white, scentless pond-lilies. after dinner, to the tangled garden for rosebuds or early magnolias, whose cloying fragrance will always bring back to me the full zest of those summer days; then dress-parade and a little drill as the day grew cool. in the evening, tea; and then the piazza or the fireside, as the case might be,--chess, cards,--perhaps a little music by aid of the assistant surgeon's melodeon, a few pages of jean paul's "titan," almost my only book, and carefully husbanded,--perhaps a mail, with its infinite felicities. such was our day. night brought its own fascinations, more solitary and profound. the darker they were, the more clearly it was our duty to visit the pickets. the paths that had grown so familiar by day seemed a wholly new labyrinth by night; and every added shade of darkness seemed to shift and complicate them all anew, till at last man's skill grew utterly baffled, and the clew must be left to the instinct of the horse. riding beneath the solemn starlight, or soft, gray mist, or densest blackness, the frogs croaking, the strange "chuckwuts-widow" droning his ominous note above my head, the mocking-bird dreaming in music, the great southern fireflies rising to the tree-tops, or hovering close to the ground like glowworms, till the horse raised his hoofs to avoid them; through pine woods and cypress swamps, or past sullen brooks, or white tents, or the dimly seen huts of sleeping negroes; down to the glimmering shore, where black statues leaned against trees or stood alert in the pathways;--never, in all the days of my life, shall i forget the magic of those haunted nights. we had nocturnal boat service, too, for it was a part of our instructions to obtain all possible information about the enemy's position; and we accordingly, as usual in such cases, incurred a great many risks that harmed nobody, and picked up much information which did nobody any good. the centre of these nightly reconnoissances, for a long time, was the wreck of the george washington, the story of whose disaster is perhaps worth telling. till about the time when we went on picket, it had been the occasional habit of the smaller gunboats to make the circuit of port royal island,--a practice which was deemed very essential to the safety of our position, but which the rebels effectually stopped, a few days after our arrival, by destroying the army gunboat george washington with a single shot from a light battery. i was roused soon after daybreak by the firing, and a courier soon came dashing in with the particulars. forwarding these hastily to beaufort (for we had then no telegraph), i was soon at the scene of action, five miles away. approaching, i met on the picket paths man after man who had escaped from the wreck across a half-mile of almost impassable marsh. never did i see such objects,--some stripped to their shirts, some fully clothed, but all having every garment literally pasted to them--bodies with mud. across the river, the rebels were retiring, having done their work, but were still shelling, from greater and greater distances, the wood through which i rode. arrived at the spot nearest the wreck (a point opposite to what we called the brickyard station), i saw the burning vessel aground beyond a long stretch of marsh, out of which the forlorn creatures were still floundering. here and there in the mud and reeds we could see the laboring heads, slowly advancing, and could hear excruciating cries from wounded men in the more distant depths. it was the strangest mixture of war and dante and robinson crusoe. our energetic chaplain coming up, i sent him with four men, under a flag of truce, to the place whence the worst cries proceeded, while i went to another part of the marsh. during that morning we got them all out, our last achievement being the rescue of the pilot, an immense negro with a wooden leg,--an article so particularly unavailable for mud travelling, that it would have almost seemed better, as one of the men suggested, to cut the traces, and leave it behind. a naval gunboat, too, which had originally accompanied this vessel, and should never have left it, now came back and took off the survivors, though there had been several deaths from scalding and shell. it proved that the wreck was not aground after all, but at anchor, having foolishly lingered till after daybreak, and having thus given time for the enemy to bring down then: guns. the first shot had struck the boiler, and set the vessel on fire; after which the officer in command had raised a white flag, and then escaped with his men to our shore; and it was for this flight in the wrong direction that they were shelled in the marshes by the rebels. the case furnished in this respect some parallel to that of the kearsage and alabama, and it was afterwards cited, i believe, officially or unofficially, to show that the rebels had claimed the right to punish, in this case, the course of action which they approved in semmes. i know that they always asserted thenceforward that the detachment on board the george washington had become rightful prisoners of war, and were justly fired upon when they tried to escape. this was at the tune of the first attack on charleston, and the noise of this cannonading spread rapidly thither, and brought four regiments to reinforce beaufort in a hurry, under the impression that the town was already taken, and that they must save what remnants they could. general saxton, too, had made such capital plans for defending the post that he could not bear not to have it attacked; so, while the rebels brought down a force to keep us from taking the guns off the wreck, i was also supplied with a section or two of regular artillery, and some additional infantry, with which to keep them from it; and we tried to "make believe very hard," and rival the charleston expedition on our own island. indeed, our affair came to about as much,--nearly nothing,--and lasted decidedly longer; for both sides nibbled away at the guns, by night, for weeks afterward, though i believe the mud finally got them,--at least, we did not. we tried in vain to get the use of a steamboat or floating derrick of any kind; for it needed more mechanical ingenuity than we possessed to transfer anything so heavy to our small boats by night, while by day we did not go near the wreck in anything larger than a "dug-out." one of these nocturnal visits to the wreck i recall with peculiar gusto, because it brought back that contest with catarrh and coughing among my own warriors which had so ludicrously beset me in florida. it was always fascinating to be on those forbidden waters by night, stealing out with muffled oars through the creeks and reeds, our eyes always strained for other voyagers, our ears listening breathlessly to all the marsh sounds,--blackflsh splashing, and little wakened reed-birds that fled wailing away over the dim river, equally safe on either side. but it always appeared to the watchful senses that we were making noise enough to be heard at fort sumter; and somehow the victims of catarrh seemed always the most eager for any enterprise requiring peculiar caution. in this case i thought i had sifted them before-hand; but as soon as we were afloat, one poor boy near me began to wheeze, and i turned upon him in exasperation. he saw his danger, and meekly said, "i won't cough, gunnel!" and he kept his word. for two mortal hours he sat grasping his gun, with never a chirrup. but two unfortunates in the bow of the boat developed symptoms which i could not suppress; so, putting in at a picket station, with some risk i dumped them in mud knee-deep, and embarked a substitute, who after the first five minutes absolutely coughed louder than both the others united. handkerchiefs, blankets, over-coats, suffocation in its direst forms, were tried in vain, but apparently the rebel pickets slept through it all, and we exploded the wreck in safety. i think they were asleep, for certainly across the level marshes there came a nasal sound, as of the "con-thieveracy" in its slumbers. it may have been a bull-frog, but it sounded like a human snore. picket life was of course the place to feel the charm of natural beauty on the sea islands. we had a world of profuse and tangled vegetation around us, such as would have been a dream of delight to me, but for the constant sense of responsibility and care which came between. amid this preoccupation, nature seemed but a mirage, and not the close and intimate associate i had before known. i pressed no flowers, collected no insects or birds' eggs, made no notes on natural objects, reversing in these respects all previous habits. yet now, in the retrospect, there seems to have been infused into me through every pore the voluptuous charm of the season and the place; and the slightest corresponding sound or odor now calls back the memory of those delicious days. being afterwards on picket at almost every season, i tasted the sensations of all; and though i hardly then thought of such a result, the associations of beauty will remain forever. in february, for instance,--though this was during a later period of picket service,--the woods were usually draped with that "net of shining haze" which marks our northern may; and the house was embowered in wild-plum-blossoms, small, white, profuse, and tenanted by murmuring bees. there were peach-blossoms, too, and the yellow jasmine was opening its multitudinous buds, climbing over tall trees, and waving from bough to bough. there were fresh young ferns and white bloodroot in the edges of woods, matched by snowdrops in the garden, beneath budded myrtle and _petisporum_. in this wilderness the birds were busy; the two main songsters being the mocking-bird and the cardinal-grosbeak, which monopolized all the parts of our more varied northern orchestra save the tender and liquid notes, which in south carolina seemed unattempted except by some stray blue-bird. jays were as loud and busy as at the north in autumn; there were sparrows and wrens; and sometimes i noticed the shy and whimsical chewink. from this early spring-time onward, there seemed no great difference in atmospheric sensations, and only a succession of bloom. after two months one's notions of the season grew bewildered, just as very early rising bewilders the day. in the army one is perhaps roused after a bivouac, marches before daybreak, halts, fights, somebody is killed, a long day's life has been lived, and after all it is not seven o'clock, and breakfast is not ready. so when we had lived in summer so long as hardly to remember winter, it suddenly occurred to us that it was not yet june. one escapes at the south that mixture of hunger and avarice which is felt in the northern summer, counting each hour's joy with the sad consciousness that an hour is gone. the compensating loss is in missing those soft, sweet, liquid sensations of the northern spring, that burst of life and joy, those days of heaven that even april brings; and this absence of childhood in the year creates a feeling of hardness in the season, like that i have suggested in the melody of the southern birds. it seemed to me also that the woods had not those pure, clean, _innocent_ odors which so abound in the new england forest in early spring; but there was something luscious, voluptuous, almost oppressively fragrant about the magnolias, as if they belonged not to hebe, but to magdalen. such immense and lustrous butterflies i had never seen but in dreams; and not even dreams had prepared me for sand-flies. almost too small to be seen, they inflicted a bite which appeared larger than themselves,--a positive wound, more torturing than that of a mosquito, and leaving more annoyance behind. these tormentors elevated dress-parade into the dignity of a military engagement. i had to stand motionless, with my head a mere nebula of winged atoms, while tears rolled profusely down my face, from mere muscular irritation. had i stirred a finger, the whole battalion would have been slapping its cheeks. such enemies were, however, a valuable aid to discipline, on the whole, as they abounded in the guard-house, and made that institution an object of unusual abhorrence among the men. the presence of ladies and the homelike air of everything, made the picket station a very popular resort while we were there. it was the one agreeable ride from beaufort, and we often had a dozen people unexpectedly to dinner. on such occasions there was sometimes mounting in hot haste, and an eager search among the outlying plantations for additional chickens and eggs, or through the company kitchens for some of those villanous tin cans which everywhere marked the progress of our army. in those cans, so far as my observation went, all fruits relapsed into a common acidulation, and all meats into a similarity of tastelessness; while the "condensed milk" was best described by the men, who often unconsciously stumbled on a better joke than they knew, and always spoke of it as _condemned_ milk. we had our own excursions too,--to the barnwell plantations, with their beautiful avenues and great live-oaks, the perfection of southern beauty,--to hall's island, debatable ground, close under the enemy's fire, where half-wild cattle were to be shot, under military precautions, like scottish moss-trooping,--or to the ferry, where it was fascinating to the female mind to scan the rebel pickets through a field-glass. our horses liked the by-ways far better than the level hardness of the shell road, especially those we had brought from florida, which enjoyed the wilderness as if they had belonged to marion's men. they delighted to feel the long sedge brush their flanks, or to gallop down the narrow wood-paths, leaping the fallen trees, and scaring the bright little lizards which shot across our track like live rays broken from the sunbeams. we had an abundance of horses, mostly captured and left in our hands by some convenient delay of the post quartermaster. we had also two side-saddles, which, not being munitions of war, could not properly (as we explained) be transferred like other captured articles to the general stock; otherwise the p. q. m. (a married man) would have showed no unnecessary delay in their case. for miscellaneous accommodation was there not an ambulance,--that most inestimable of army conveniences, equally ready to carry the merry to a feast or the wounded from a fray. "ambulance" was one of those words, rather numerous, which ethiopian lips were not framed by nature to articulate. only the highest stages of colored culture could compass it; on the tongue of the many it was transformed mystically as "amulet," or ambitiously as "epaulet," or in culinary fashion as "omelet." but it was our experience that an ambulance under any name jolted equally hard. besides these divertisements, we had more laborious vocations,--a good deal of fatigue, and genuine though small alarms. the men went on duty every third day at furthest, and the officers nearly as often,--most of the tours of duty lasting twenty-four hours, though the stream was considered to watch itself tolerably well by daylight. this kind of responsibility suited the men; and we had already found, as the whole army afterwards acknowledged, that the constitutional watchfulness and distrustfulness of the colored race made them admirable sentinels. soon after we went on picket, the commanding general sent an aid, with a cavalry escort, to visit all the stations, without my knowledge. they spent the whole night, and the officer reported that he could not get within thirty yards of any post without a challenge. this was a pleasant assurance for me; since our position seemed so secure, compared with jacksonville, that i had feared some relaxation of vigilance, while yet the safety of all depended on our thorough discharge of duty. jacksonville had also seasoned the men so well that they were no longer nervous, and did not waste much powder on false alarms. the rebels made no formal attacks, and rarely attempted to capture pickets. sometimes they came stealing through the creeks in "dugouts," as we did on their side of the water, and occasionally an officer of ours was fired upon while making his rounds by night. often some boat or scow would go adrift, and sometimes a mere dark mass of river-weed would be floated by the tide past the successive stations, eliciting a challenge and perhaps a shot from each. i remember the vivid way in which one of the men stated to his officer the manner in which a faithful picket should do his duty, after challenging, in case a boat came in sight. "fus' ting i shoot, and den i shoot, and den i shoot again. den i creep-creep up near de boat, and see who dey in 'em; and s'pose anybody pop up he head, den i shoot again. s'pose i fire my forty rounds. i tink he hear at de camp and send more mans,"--which seemed a reasonable presumption. this soldier's name was paul jones, a daring fellow, quite worthy of his namesake. in time, however, they learned quieter methods, and would wade far out in the water, there standing motionless at last, hoping to surround and capture these floating boats, though, to their great disappointment, the prize usually proved empty. on one occasion they tried a still profounder strategy; for an officer visiting the pickets after midnight, and hearing in the stillness a portentous snore from the end of the causeway (our most important station), straightway hurried to the point of danger, with wrath in his soul. but the sergeant of the squad came out to meet him, imploring silence, and explaining that they had seen or suspected a boat hovering near, and were feigning sleep in order to lure and capture those who would entrap them. the one military performance at the picket station of which my men were utterly intolerant was an occasional flag of truce, for which this was the appointed locality. these farces, for which it was our duty to furnish the stock actors, always struck them as being utterly despicable, and unworthy the serious business of war. they felt, i suppose, what mr. pickwick felt, when he heard his counsel remark to the counsel for the plaintiff, that it was a very fine morning. it goaded their souls to see the young officers from the two opposing armies salute each other courteously, and interchange cigars. they despised the object of such negotiations, which was usually to send over to the enemy some family of rebel women who had made themselves quite intolerable on our side, but were not above collecting a subscription among the union officers, before departure, to replenish their wardrobes. the men never showed disrespect to these women by word or deed, but they hated them from the bottom of their souls. besides, there was a grievance behind all this. the rebel order remained unrevoked which consigned the new colored troops and their officers to a felon's death, if captured; and we all felt that we fought with ropes round our necks. "dere's no flags ob truce for us," the men would contemptuously say. "when de secesh fight de _fus' souf_" (first south carolina), "he fight in earnest." indeed, i myself took it as rather a compliment when the commander on the other side--though an old acquaintance of mine in massachusetts and in kansas--at first refused to negotiate through me or my officers,--a refusal which was kept up, greatly to the enemy's inconvenience, until our men finally captured some of the opposing pickets, and their friends had to waive all scruples in order to send them supplies. after this there was no trouble, and i think that the first rebel officer in south carolina who officially met any officer of colored troops under a flag of truce was captain john c. calhoun. in florida we had been so recognized long before; but that was when they wished to frighten us out of jacksonville. such was our life on picket at port royal,--a thing whose memory is now fast melting into such stuff as dreams are made of. we stayed there more than two months at that tune; the first attack on charleston exploded with one puff, and had its end; general hunter was ordered north, and the busy gilmore reigned in his stead; and in june, when the blackberries were all eaten, we were summoned, nothing loath, to other scenes and encampments new. chapter . a night in the water yes, that was a pleasant life on picket, in the delicious early summer of the south, and among the endless flowery forests of that blossoming isle. in the retrospect i seem to see myself adrift upon a horse's back amid a sea of roses. the various outposts were within a six-mile radius, and it was one long, delightful gallop, day and night. i have a faint impression that the moon shone steadily every night for two months; and yet i remember certain periods of such dense darkness that in riding through the wood-paths it was really unsafe to go beyond a walk, for fear of branches above and roots below; and one of my officers was once shot at by a rebel scout who stood unperceived at his horse's bridle. to those doing outpost-duty on an island, however large, the main-land has all the fascination of forbidden fruit, and on a scale bounded only by the horizon. emerson says that every house looks ideal until we enter it,--and it is certainly so, if it be just the other side of the hostile lines. every grove in that blue distance appears enchanted ground, and yonder loitering gray-back leading his horse to water in the farthest distance, makes one thrill with a desire to hail him, to shoot at him, to capture him, to do anything to bridge this inexorable dumb space that lies between. a boyish feeling, no doubt, and one that time diminishes, without effacing; yet it is a feeling which lies at the bottom of many rash actions in war, and of some brilliant ones. for one, i could never quite outgrow it, though restricted by duty from doing many foolish things in consequence, and also restrained by reverence for certain confidential advisers whom i had always at hand, and who considered it their mission to keep me always on short rations of personal adventure. indeed, most of that sort of entertainment in the army devolves upon scouts detailed for the purpose, volunteer aides-de-camp and newspaper-reporters,--other officers being expected to be about business more prosaic. all the excitements of war are quadrupled by darkness; and as i rode along our outer lines at night, and watched the glimmering flames which at regular intervals starred the opposite river-shore, the longing was irresistible to cross the barrier of dusk, and see whether it were men or ghosts who hovered round those dying embers. i had yielded to these impulses in boat-adventures by night,--for it was a part of my instructions to obtain all possible information about the rebel outposts,--and fascinating indeed it was to glide along, noiselessly paddling, with a dusky guide, through the endless intricacies of those southern marshes, scaring the reed-birds, which wailed and fled away into the darkness, and penetrating several miles into the ulterior, between hostile fires, where discovery might be death. yet there were drawbacks as to these enterprises, since it is not easy for a boat to cross still water, even on the darkest night, without being seen by watchful eyes; and, moreover, the extremes of high and low tide transform so completely the whole condition of those rivers that it needs very nice calculation to do one's work at precisely the right tune. to vary the experiment, i had often thought of trying a personal reconnoissance by swimming, at a certain point, whenever circumstances should make it an object. the opportunity at last arrived, and i shall never forget the glee with which, after several postponements, i finally rode forth, a little before midnight, on a night which seemed made for the purpose. i had, of course, kept my own secret, and was entirely alone. the great southern fireflies were out, not haunting the low ground merely, like ours, but rising to the loftiest tree-tops with weird illumination, and anon hovering so low that my horse often stepped the higher to avoid them. the dewy cherokee roses brushed my face, the solemn "chuckwill's-widow" croaked her incantation, and the rabbits raced phantom-like across the shadowy road. slowly in the darkness i followed the well-known path to the spot where our most advanced outposts were stationed, holding a causeway which thrust itself far out across the separating river,--thus fronting a similar causeway on the other side, while a channel of perhaps three hundred yards, once traversed by a ferry-boat, rolled between. at low tide this channel was the whole river, with broad, oozy marshes on each side; at high tide the marshes were submerged, and the stream was a mile wide. this was the point which i had selected. to ascertain the numbers and position of the picket on the opposite causeway was my first object, as it was a matter on which no two of our officers agreed. to this point, therefore, i rode, and dismounting, after being duly challenged by the sentinel at the causeway-head, walked down the long and lonely path. the tide was well up, though still on the flood, as i desired; and each visible tuft of marsh-grass might, but for its motionlessness, have been a prowling boat. dark as the night had appeared, the water was pale, smooth, and phosphorescent, and i remember that the phrase "wan water," so familiar in the scottish ballards, struck me just then as peculiarly appropriate, though its real meaning is quite different. a gentle breeze, from which i had hoped for a ripple, had utterly died away, and it was a warm, breathless southern night. there was no sound but the faint swash of the coming tide, the noises of the reed-birds in the marshes, and the occasional leap of a fish; and it seemed to my overstrained ear as if every footstep of my own must be heard for miles. however, i could have no more postponements, and the thing must be tried now or never. reaching the farther end of the causeway, i found my men couched, like black statues, behind the slight earthwork there constructed. i expected that my proposed immersion would rather bewilder them, but knew that they would say nothing, as usual. as for the lieutenant on that post, he was a steady, matter-of-fact, perfectly disciplined englishman, who wore a crimean medal, and never asked a superfluous question in his life. if i had casually remarked to him, "mr. hooper, the general has ordered me on a brief personal reconnoissance to the planet jupiter, and i wish you to take care of my watch, lest it should be damaged by the precession of the equinoxes," he would have responded with a brief "all right, sir," and a quick military gesture, and have put the thing in his pocket. as it was, i simply gave him the watch, and remarked that i was going to take a swim. i do not remember ever to have experienced a greater sense of exhilaration than when i slipped noiselessly into the placid water, and struck out into the smooth, eddying current for the opposite shore. the night was so still and lovely, my black statues looked so dream-like at their posts behind the low earthwork, the opposite arm of the causeway stretched so invitingly from the rebel main, the horizon glimmered so low around me,--for it always appears lower to a swimmer than even to an oarsman,--that i seemed floating in some concave globe, some magic crystal, of which i was the enchanted centre. with each little ripple of my steady progress all things hovered and changed; the stars danced and nodded above; where the stars ended the great southern fireflies began; and closer than the fireflies, there clung round me a halo of phosphorescent sparkles from the soft salt water. had i told any one of my purpose, i should have had warnings and remonstrances enough. the few negroes who did not believe in alligators believed in sharks; the sceptics as to sharks were orthodox in respect to alligators; while those who rejected both had private prejudices as to snapping-turtles. the surgeon would have threatened intermittent fever, the first assistant rheumatism, and the second assistant congestive chills; non-swimmers would have predicted exhaustion, and swimmers cramp; and all this before coming within bullet-range of any hospitalities on the other shore. but i knew the folly of most alarms about reptiles and fishes; man's imagination peoples the water with many things which do not belong there, or prefer to keep out of his way, if they do; fevers and congestions were the surgeon's business, and i always kept people to their own department; cramp and exhaustion were dangers i could measure, as i had often done; bullets were a more substantial danger, and i must take the chance,--if a loon could dive at the flash, why not i? if i were once ashore, i should have to cope with the rebels on their own ground, which they knew better than i; but the water was my ground, where i, too, had been at home from boyhood. i swam as swiftly and softly as i could, although it seemed as if water never had been so still before. it appeared impossible that anything uncanny should hide beneath that lovely mirror; and yet when some floating wisp of reeds suddenly coiled itself around my neck, or some unknown thing, drifting deeper, coldly touched my foot, it caused that undefinable shudder which every swimmer knows, and which especially comes over one by night. sometimes a slight sip of brackish water would enter my lips,--for i naturally tried to swim as low as possible,--and then would follow a slight gasping and contest against chocking, that seemed to me a perfect convulsion; for i suppose the tendency to choke and sneeze is always enhanced by the circumstance that one's life may depend on keeping still, just as yawning becomes irresistible where to yawn would be social ruin, and just as one is sure to sleep in church, if one sits in a conspicuous pew. at other times, some unguarded motion would create a splashing which seemed, in the tension of my senses, to be loud enough to be heard at richmond, although it really mattered not, since there are fishes in those rivers which make as much noise on special occasions as if they were misguided young whales. as i drew near the opposite shore, the dark causeway projected more and more distinctly, to my fancy at least, and i swam more softly still, utterly uncertain as to how far, in the stillness of air and water, my phosphorescent course could be traced by eye or ear. a slight ripple would have saved me from observation, i was more than ever sure, and i would have whistled for a fair wind as eagerly as any sailor, but that my breath was worth to me more than anything it was likely to bring. the water became smoother and smoother, and nothing broke the dim surface except a few clumps of rushes and my unfortunate head. the outside of this member gradually assumed to its inside a gigantic magnitude; it had always annoyed me at the hatter's from a merely animal bigness, with no commensurate contents to show for it, and now i detested it more than ever. a physical feeling of turgescence and congestion in that region, such as swimmers often feel, probably increased the impression. i thought with envy of the aztec children, of the headless horseman of sleepy hollow, of saint somebody with his head tucked under his arm. plotinus was less ashamed of his whole body than i of this inconsiderate and stupid appendage. to be sure, i might swim for a certain distance under water. but that accomplishment i had reserved for a retreat, for i knew that the longer i stayed down the more surely i should have to snort like a walrus when i came up again, and to approach an enemy with such a demonstration was not to be thought of. suddenly a dog barked. we had certain information that a pack of hounds was kept at a rebel station a few miles off, on purpose to hunt runaways, and i had heard from the negroes almost fabulous accounts of the instinct of these animals. i knew that, although water baffled their scent, they yet could recognize in some manner the approach of any person across water as readily as by land; and of the vigilance of all dogs by night every traveller among southern plantations has ample demonstration. i was now so near that i could dimly see the figures of men moving to and fro upon the end of the causeway, and could hear the dull knock, when one struck his foot against a piece of limber. as my first object was to ascertain whether there were sentinels at that time at that precise point, i saw that i was approaching the end of my experiment could i have once reached the causeway unnoticed, i could have lurked in the water beneath its projecting timbers, and perhaps made my way along the main shore, as i had known fugitive slaves to do, while coming from that side. or had there been any ripple on the water, to confuse the aroused and watchful eyes, i could have made a circuit and approached the causeway at another point, though i had already satisfied myself that there was only a narrow channel on each side of it, even at high tide, and not, as on our side, a broad expanse of water. indeed, this knowledge alone was worth all the trouble i had taken, and to attempt much more than this, in the face of a curiosity already roused, would have been a waste of future opportunities. i could try again, with the benefit of this new knowledge, on a point where the statements of the negroes had always been contradictory. resolving, however, to continue the observation a very little longer, since the water felt much warmer than i had expected, and there was no sense of chill or fatigue, i grasped at some wisps of straw or rushes that floated near, gathering them round my face a little, and then drifting nearer the wharf in what seemed a sort of eddy was able, without creating further alarm, to make some additional observations on points which it is not best now to particularize. then, turning my back upon the mysterious shore which had thus far lured me, i sank softly below the surface, and swam as far as i could under water. during this unseen retreat, i heard, of course, all manner of gurglings and hollow reverberations, and could fancy as many rifle-shots as i pleased. but on rising to the surface all seemed quiet, and even i did not create as much noise as i should have expected. i was now at a safe distance, since the enemy were always chary of showing their boats, and always tried to convince us they had none. what with absorbed attention first, and this submersion afterwards, i had lost all my bearings but the stars, having been long out of sight of my original point of departure. however, the difficulties of the return were nothing; making a slight allowance for the floodtide, which could not yet have turned, i should soon regain the place i had left. so i struck out freshly against the smooth water, feeling just a little stiffened by the exertion, and with an occasional chill running up the back of the neck, but with no nips from sharks, no nudges from alligators, and not a symptom of fever-and-ague. time i could not, of course, measure,--one never can in a novel position; but, after a reasonable amount of swimming, i began to look, with a natural interest, for the pier which i had quitted. i noticed, with some solicitude, that the woods along the friendly shore made one continuous shadow, and that the line of low bushes on the long causeway could scarcely be relieved against them, yet i knew where they ought to be, and the more doubtful i felt about it, the more i put down my doubts, as if they were unreasonable children. one can scarcely conceive of the alteration made in familiar objects by bringing the eye as low as the horizon, especially by night; to distinguish foreshortening is impossible, and every low near object is equivalent to one higher and more remote. still i had the stars; and soon my eye, more practised, was enabled to select one precise line of bushes as that which marked the causeway, and for which i must direct my course. as i swam steadily, but with some sense of fatigue, towards this phantom-line, i found it difficult to keep my faith steady and my progress true; everything appeared to shift and waver, in the uncertain light. the distant trees seemed not trees, but bushes, and the bushes seemed not exactly bushes, but might, after all, be distant trees. could i be so confident that, out of all that low stretch of shore, i could select the one precise point where the friendly causeway stretched its long arm to receive me from the water? how easily (some tempter whispered at my ear) might one swerve a little, on either side, and be compelled to flounder over half a mile of oozy marsh on an ebbing tide, before reaching our own shore and that hospitable volley of bullets with which it would probably greet me! had i not already (thus the tempter continued) been swimming rather unaccountably far, supposing me on a straight track for that inviting spot where my sentinels and my drapery were awaiting my return? suddenly i felt a sensation as of fine ribbons drawn softly across my person, and i found myself among some rushes. but what business had rushes there, or i among them? i knew that there was not a solitary spot of shoal in the deep channel where i supposed myself swimming, and it was plain in an instant that i had somehow missed my course, and must be getting among the marshes. i felt confident, to be sure, that i could not have widely erred, but was guiding my course for the proper side of tie river. but whether i had drifted above or below the causeway i had not the slightest clew to tell. i pushed steadily forward, with some increasing sense of lassitude, passing one marshy islet after another, all seeming strangely out of place, and sometimes just reaching with my foot a soft tremulous shoal which gave scarce the shadow of a support, though even that shadow rested my feet. at one of these moments of stillness it suddenly occurred to my perception (what nothing but this slight contact could have assured me, in the darkness) that i was in a powerful current, and that this current set _the wrong way_. instantly a flood of new intelligence came. either i had unconsciously turned and was rapidly nearing the rebel shore,--a suspicion which a glance at the stars corrected,--or else it was the tide itself which had turned, and which was sweeping me down the river with all its force, and was also sucking away at every moment the narrowing water from that treacherous expanse of mud out of whose horrible miry embrace i had lately helped to rescue a shipwrecked crew. either alternative was rather formidable. i can distinctly remember that for about one half-minute the whole vast universe appeared to swim in the same watery uncertainty in which i floated. i began to doubt everything, to distrust the stars, the line of low bushes for which i was wearily striving, the very land on which they grew, if such visionary things could be rooted anywhere. doubts trembled in my mind like the weltering water, and that awful sensation of having one's feet unsupported, which benumbs the spent swimmer's heart, seemed to clutch at mine, though not yet to enter it. i was more absorbed in that singular sensation of nightmare, such as one may feel equally when lost by land or by water, as if one's own position were all right, but the place looked for had somehow been preternaturally abolished out of the universe. at best, might not a man in the water lose all his power of direction, and so move in an endless circle until he sank exhausted? it required a deliberate and conscious effort to keep my brain quite cool. i have not the reputation of being of an excitable temperament, but the contrary; yet i could at that moment see my way to a condition in which one might become insane in an instant. it was as if a fissure opened somewhere, and i saw my way into a mad-house; then it closed, and everything went on as before. once in my life i had obtained a slight glimpse of the same sensation, and then, too, strangely enough, while swimming,--in the mightiest ocean-surge into which i had ever dared plunge my mortal body. keats hints at the same sudden emotion, in a wild poem written among the scottish mountains. it was not the distinctive sensation which drowning men are said to have, that spasmodic passing in review of one's whole personal history. i had no well-defined anxiety, felt no fear, was moved to no prayer, did not give a thought to home or friends; only it swept over me, as with a sudden tempest, that, if i meant to get back to my own camp, i must keep my wits about me. i must not dwell on any other alternative, any more than a boy who climbs a precipice must look down. imagination had no business here. that way madness lay. there was a shore somewhere before me, and i must get to it, by the ordinary means, before the ebb laid bare the flats, or swept me below the lower bends of the stream. that was all. suddenly a light gleamed for an instant before me, as if from a house in a grove of great trees upon a bank; and i knew that it came from the window of a ruined plantation-building, where our most advanced outposts had their headquarters. the flash revealed to me every point of the situation. i saw at once where i was, and how i got there: that the tide had turned while i was swimming, and with a much briefer interval of slack-water than i had been led to suppose,--that i had been swept a good way down stream, and was far beyond all possibility of regaining the point i had left. could i, however, retain my strength to swim one or two hundred yards farther, of which i had no doubt,--and if the water did not ebb too rapidly, of which i had more fear,--then i was quite safe. every stroke took me more and more out of the power of the current, and there might even be an eddy to aid me. i could not afford to be carried down much farther, for there the channel made a sweep toward the wrong side of the river; but there was now no reason why i should not reach land. i could dismiss all fear, indeed, except that of being fired upon by our own sentinels, many of whom were then new recruits, and with the usual disposition to shoot first and investigate afterwards. i found myself swimming in shallow and shallower water, and the flats seemed almost bare when i neared the shore, where the great gnarled branches of the liveoaks hung far over the muddy bank. floating on my back for noiselessness, i paddled rapidly in with my hands, expecting momentarily to hear the challenge of the picket, and the ominous click so likely to follow. i knew that some one should be pacing to and fro, along that beat, but could not tell at what point he might be at that precise moment. besides, there was a faint possibility that some chatty corporal might have carried the news of my bath thus far along the line, and they might be partially prepared for this unexpected visitor. suddenly, like another flash, came the quick, quaint challenge,-- "halt! who's go dar?" "f-f-friend with the c-c-countersign," retorted i, with chilly, but conciliatory energy, rising at full length out of the shallow water, to show myself a man and a brother. "ac-vance, friend, and give de countersign," responded the literal soldier, who at such a tune would have accosted: a spirit of light or goblin damned with no other formula. i advanced and gave it, he recognized my voice at once. | and then and there, as i stood, a dripping ghost, beneath the f trees before him, the unconscionable fellow, wishing to exhaust upon me the utmost resources of military hospitality, deliberately presented arms! now a soldier on picket, or at night, usually presents arms to nobody; but a sentinel on camp-guard by day is expected to perform that ceremony to anything in human shape that has two rows of buttons. here was a human shape, but so utterly buttonless that it exhibited not even a rag to which a button could by any earthly possibility be appended, button-less even potentially; and my blameless ethiopian presented arms to even this. where, then, are the theories of carlyle, the axioms of "sartor resartus," the inability of humanity to conceive "a naked duke of windlestraw addressing a naked house of lords"? cautioning my adherent, however, as to the proprieties suitable for such occasions thenceforward, i left him watching the river with renewed vigilance, and awaiting the next merman who should report himself. finding my way to the building, i hunted up a sergeant and a blanket, got a fire kindled in the dismantled chimney, and sat before it in my single garment, like a moist but undismayed choctaw, until horse and clothing could be brought round from the causeway. it seemed strange that the morning had not yet dawned, after the uncounted periods that must have elapsed; but when the wardrobe arrived i looked at my watch and found that my night in the water had lasted precisely one hour. galloping home, i turned in with alacrity, and without a drop of whiskey, and waked a few hours after in excellent condition. the rapid changes of which that department has seen so many--and, perhaps, to so little purpose--soon transferred us to a different scene. i have been on other scouts since then, and by various processes, but never with a zest so novel as was afforded by that night's experience. the thing soon got wind in the regiment, and led to only one ill consequence, so far as i know. it rather suppressed a way i had of lecturing the officers on the importance of reducing their personal baggage to a minimum. they got a trick of congratulating me, very respectfully, on the thoroughness with which i had once conformed my practice to my precepts. chapter . up the edisto in reading military history, one finds the main interest to lie, undoubtedly, in the great campaigns, where a man, a regiment, a brigade, is but a pawn in the game. but there is a charm also in the more free and adventurous life of partisan warfare, where, if the total sphere be humbler, yet the individual has more relative importance, and the sense of action is more personal and keen. this is the reason given by the eccentric revolutionary biographer, weems, for writing the life of washington first, and then that of marion. and there were, certainly, hi the early adventures of the colored troops in the department of the south, some of the same elements of picturesqueness that belonged to marion's band, on the same soil, with the added feature that the blacks were fighting for their personal liberties, of which marion had helped to deprive them. it is stated by major-general gillmore, in his "siege of charleston," as one of the three points in his preliminary strategy, that an expedition was sent up the edisto river to destroy a bridge on the charleston and savannah railway. as one of the early raids of the colored troops, this expedition may deserve narration, though it was, in a strategic point of view, a disappointment. it has already been told, briefly and on the whole with truth, by greeley and others, but i will venture on a more complete account. the project dated back earlier than general gillmore's siege, and had originally no connection with that movement. it had been formed by captain trowbridge and myself in camp, and was based on facts learned from the men. general saxton and colonel w. w. h. davis, the successive post-commanders, had both favored it. it had been also approved by general hunter, before his sudden removal, though he regarded the bridge as a secondary affair, because there was another railway communication between the two cities. but as my main object was to obtain permission to go, i tried to make the most of all results which might follow, while it was very clear that the raid would harass and confuse the enemy, and be the means of bringing away many of the slaves. general hunter had, therefore, accepted the project mainly as a stroke for freedom and black recruits; and general gillmore, because anything that looked toward action found favor in his eyes, and because it would be convenient to him at that time to effect a diversion, if nothing more. it must be remembered that, after the first capture of port royal, the outlying plantations along the whole southern coast were abandoned, and the slaves withdrawn into the interior. it was necessary to ascend some river for thirty miles in order to reach the black population at all. this ascent could only be made by night, as it was a slow process, and the smoke of a steamboat could be seen for a great distance. the streams were usually shallow, winding, and muddy, and the difficulties of navigation were such as to require a full moon and a flood tide. it was really no easy matter to bring everything to bear, especially as every projected raid must be kept a secret so far as possible. however, we were now somewhat familiar with such undertakings, half military, half naval, and the thing to be done on the edisto was precisely what we had proved to be practicable on the st. mary's and the st. john's,--to drop anchor before the enemy's door some morning at daybreak, without his having dreamed of our approach. since a raid made by colonel montgomery up the combahee, two months before, the vigilance of the rebels had increased. but we had information that upon the south edisto, or pon-pon river, the rice plantations were still being actively worked by a large number of negroes, in reliance on obstructions placed at the mouth of that narrow stream, where it joins the main river, some twenty miles from the coast. this point was known to be further protected by a battery of unknown strength, at wiltown bluff, a commanding and defensible situation. the obstructions consisted of a row of strong wooden piles across the river; but we convinced ourselves that these must now be much decayed, and that captain trowbridge, an excellent engineer officer, could remove them by the proper apparatus. our proposition was to man the john adams, an armed ferry-boat, which had before done us much service,--and which has now reverted to the pursuits of peace, it is said, on the east boston line,--to ascend in this to wiltown bluff, silence the battery, and clear a passage through the obstructions. leaving the john adams to protect this point, we could then ascend the smaller stream with two light-draft boats, and perhaps burn the bridge, which was ten miles higher, before the enemy could bring sufficient force to make our position at wiltown bluff untenable. the expedition was organized essentially upon this plan. the smaller boats were the enoch dean,--a river steamboat, which carried a ten-pound parrott gun, and a small howitzer,--and a little mosquito of a tug, the governor milton, upon which, with the greatest difficulty, we found room for two twelve-pound armstrong guns, with their gunners, forming a section of the first connecticut battery, under lieutenant clinton, aided by a squad from my own regiment, under captain james. the john adams carried, i if i remember rightly, two parrott guns (of twenty and ten | pounds calibre) and a howitzer or two. the whole force of men did not exceed two hundred and fifty. we left beaufort, s. c., on the afternoon of july th, . in former narrations i have sufficiently described the charm of a moonlight ascent into a hostile country, upon an unknown stream, the dark and silent banks, the rippling water, the wail of the reed-birds, the anxious watch, the breathless listening, the veiled lights, the whispered orders. to this was now to be added the vexation of an insufficient pilotage, for our negro guide knew only the upper river, and, as it finally proved, not even that, while, to take us over the bar which obstructed the main stream, we must borrow a pilot from captain dutch, whose gunboat blockaded that point. this active naval officer, however, whose boat expeditions had penetrated all the lower branches of those rivers, could supply our want, and we borrowed from him not only a pilot, but a surgeon, to replace our own, who had been prevented by an accident from coming with us. thus accompanied, we steamed over the bar in safety, had a peaceful ascent, passed the island of jehossee,--the fine estate of governor aiken, then left undisturbed by both sides,--and fired our first shell into the camp at wiltown bluff at four o'clock in the morning. the battery--whether fixed or movable we knew not--met us with a promptness that proved very shortlived. after three shots it was silent, but we could not tell why. the bluff was wooded, and we could see but little. the only course was to land, under cover of the guns. as the firing ceased and the smoke cleared away, i looked across the rice-fields which lay beneath the bluff. the first sunbeams glowed upon their emerald levels, and on the blossoming hedges along the rectangular dikes. what were those black dots which everywhere appeared? those moist meadows had become alive with human heads, and along each narrow path came a straggling file of men and women, all on a run for the river-side. i went ashore with a boat-load of troops at once. the landing was difficult and marshy. the astonished negroes tugged us up the bank, and gazed on us as if we had been cortez and columbus. they kept arriving by land much faster than we could come by water; every moment increased the crowd, the jostling, the mutual clinging, on that miry foothold. what a scene it was! with the wild faces, eager figures, strange garments, it seemed, as one of the poor things reverently suggested, "like notin' but de judgment day." presently they began to come from the houses also, with their little bundles on their heads; then with larger bundles. old women, trotting on the narrow paths, would kneel to pray a little prayer, still balancing the bundle; and then would suddenly spring up, urged by the accumulating procession behind, and would move on till irresistibly compelled by thankfulness to dip down for another invocation. reaching us, every human being must grasp our hands, amid exclamations of "bress you, mas'r," and "bress de lord," at the rate of four of the latter ascriptions to one of the former. women brought children on their shoulders; small black boys learned on their back little brothers equally inky, and, gravely depositing them, shook hands. never had i seen human beings so clad, or rather so unclad, in such amazing squalid-ness and destitution of garments. i recall one small urchin without a rag of clothing save the basque waist of a lady's dress, bristling with whalebones, and worn wrong side before, beneath which his smooth ebony legs emerged like those of an ostrich from its plumage. how weak is imagination, how cold is memory, that i ever cease, for a day of my life, to see before me the picture of that astounding scene! yet at the time we were perforce a little impatient of all this piety, protestation, and hand-pressing; for the vital thing was to ascertain what force had been stationed at the bluff, and whether it was yet withdrawn. the slaves, on the other hand, were too much absorbed in their prospective freedom to aid us in taking any further steps to secure it. captain trowbridge, who had by this time landed at a different point, got quite into despair over the seeming deafness of the people to all questions. "how many soldiers are there on the bluff?" he asked of the first-comer. "mas'r," said the man, stuttering terribly, "i c-c-c--" "tell me how many soldiers there are!" roared trowbridge, in his mighty voice, and all but shaking the poor old thing, in his thirst for information. "o mas'r," recommenced in terror the incapacitated wit-ness, "i c-c-carpenter!" holding up eagerly a little stump of a hatchet, his sole treasure, as if his profession ought to excuse from all military opinions. i wish that it were possible to present all this scene from the point of view of the slaves themselves. it can be most nearly done, perhaps, by quoting the description given of a similar scene on the combahee river, by a very aged man, who had been brought down on the previous raid, already mentioned. i wrote it down in tent, long after, while the old man recited the tale, with much gesticulation, at the door; and it is by far the best glimpse i have ever had, through a negro's eyes, at these wonderful birthdays of freedom. "de people was all a hoein', mas'r," said the old man. "dey was a hoein' in the rice-field, when de gunboats come. den ebry man drap dem hoe, and leff de rice. de mas'r he stand and call, 'run to de wood for hide! yankee come, sell you to cuba! run for hide!' ebry man he run, and, my god! run all toder way! "mas'r stand in de wood, peep, peep, faid for truss [afraid to trust]. he say, 'run to de wood!' and ebry man run by him, straight to de boat. "de brack sojer so presumptious, dey come right ashore, hold up dere head. fus' ting i know, dere was a barn, ten tousand bushel rough rice, all in a blaze, den mas'r's great house, all cracklin' up de roof. didn't i keer for see 'em blaze? lor, mas'r, didn't care notin' at all, _was gwine to de boat_." dore's don quixote could not surpass the sublime absorption in which the gaunt old man, with arm uplifted, described this stage of affairs, till he ended in a shrewd chuckle, worthy of sancho panza. then he resumed. "de brack sojers so presumptious!" this he repeated three times, slowly shaking his head in an ecstasy of admiration. it flashed upon me that the apparition of a black soldier must amaze those still in bondage, much as a butterfly just from the chrysalis might astound his fellow-grubs. i inwardly vowed that my soldiers, at least, should be as "presumptious" as i could make them. then he went on. "ole woman and i go down to de boat; den dey say behind us, 'rebels comin'l rebels comin'!' ole woman say, 'come ahead, come plenty ahead!' i hab notin' on but my shirt and pantaloon; ole woman one single frock he hab on, and one handkerchief on he head; i leff all-two my blanket and run for de rebel come, and den dey didn't come, didn't truss for come. "ise eighty-eight year old, mas'r. my ole mas'r lowndes keep all de ages in a big book, and when we come to age ob sense we mark em down ebry year, so i know. too ole for come? mas'r joking. neber too ole for leave de land o' bondage. i old, but great good for chil'en, gib tousand tank ebry day. young people can go through, _force_ [forcibly], mas'r, but de ole folk mus' go slow." such emotions as these, no doubt, were inspired by our arrival, but we could only hear their hasty utterance in passing; our duty being, with the small force already landed, to take possession of the bluff. ascending, with proper precautions, the wooded hill, we soon found ourselves in the deserted camp of a light battery, amid scattered equipments and suggestions of a very unattractive breakfast. as soon as possible, skirmishers were thrown out through the woods to the farther edge of the bluff, while a party searched the houses, finding the usual large supply of furniture and pictures,--brought up for safety from below,--but no soldiers. captain trowbridge then got the john adams beside the row of piles, and went to work for their removal. again i had the exciting sensation of being within the hostile lines,--the eager explorations, the doubts, the watchfulness, the listening for every sound of coming hoofs. presently a horse's tread was heard in earnest, but it was a squad of our own men bringing in two captured cavalry soldiers. one of these, a sturdy fellow, submitted quietly to his lot, only begging that, whenever we should evacuate the bluff, a note should be left behind stating that he was a prisoner. the other, a very young man, and a member of the "rebel troop," a sort of cadet corps among the charleston youths, came to me in great wrath, complaining that the corporal of our squad had kicked him after he had surrendered. his air of offended pride was very rueful, and it did indeed seem a pathetic reversal of fortunes for the two races. to be sure, the youth was a scion of one of the foremost families of south carolina, and when i considered the wrongs which the black race had encountered from those of his blood, first and last, it seemed as if the most scrupulous recording angel might tolerate one final kick to square the account. but i reproved the corporal, who respectfully disclaimed the charge, and said the kick was an incident of the scuffle. it certainly was not their habit to show such poor malice; they thought too well of themselves. his demeanor seemed less lofty, but rather piteous, when he implored me not to put him on board any vessel which was to ascend the upper stream, and hinted, by awful implications, the danger of such ascent. this meant torpedoes, a peril which we treated, in those days, with rather mistaken contempt. but we found none on the edisto, and it may be that it was only a foolish attempt to alarm us. meanwhile, trowbridge was toiling away at the row of piles, which proved easier to draw out than to saw asunder, either work being hard enough. it took far longer than we had hoped, and we saw noon approach and the tide rapidly fall, taking with it, inch by inch, our hopes of effecting a surprise at the bridge. during this time, and indeed all day, the detachments on shore, under captains whitney and sampson, were having occasional skirmishes with the enemy, while the colored people were swarming to the shore, or running to and fro like ants, with the poor treasures of their houses. our busy quartermaster, mr. bingham--who died afterwards from the overwork of that sultry day--was transporting the refugees on board the steamer, or hunting up bales of cotton, or directing the burning of rice-houses, in accordance with our orders. no dwelling-houses were destroyed or plundered by our men,--sherman's "bummers" not having yet arrived,--though i asked no questions as to what the plantation negroes might bring in their great bundles. one piece of property, i must admit, seemed a lawful capture,--a united states dress-sword, of the old pattern, which had belonged to the rebel general who afterwards gave the order to bury colonel shaw "with his niggers." that i have retained, not without some satisfaction, to this day. a passage having been cleared at last, and the tide having turned by noon, we lost no time in attempting the ascent, leaving the bluff to be held by the john adams, and by the small force on shore. we were scarcely above the obstructions, however, when the little tug went aground, and the enoch dean, ascending a mile farther, had an encounter with a battery on the right,--perhaps our old enemy,--and drove it back. soon after, she also ran aground, a misfortune of which our opponent strangely took no advantage; and, on getting off, i thought it best to drop down to the bluff again, as the tide was still hopelessly low. none can tell, save those who have tried them, the vexations of those muddy southern streams, navigable only during a few hours of flood-tide. after waiting an hour, the two small vessels again tried the ascent. the enemy on the right had disappeared; but we could now see, far off on our left, another light battery moving parallel with the river, apparently to meet us at some upper bend. but for the present we were safe, with the low rice-fields on each side of us; and the scene was so peaceful, it seemed as if all danger were done. for the first time, we saw in south carolina blossoming river-banks and low emerald meadows, that seemed like new england. everywhere there were the same rectangular fields, smooth canals, and bushy dikes. a few negroes stole out to us in dugouts, and breathlessly told us how others had been hurried away by the overseers. we glided safely on, mile after mile. the day was unutterably hot, but all else seemed propitious. the men had their combustibles all ready to fire the bridge, and our hopes were unbounded. but by degrees the channel grew more tortuous and difficult, and while the little milton glided smoothly over everything, the enoch dean, my own boat, repeatedly grounded. on every occasion of especial need, too, something went wrong in her machinery,--her engine being constructed on some wholly new patent, of which, i should hope, this trial would prove entirely sufficient. the black pilot, who was not a soldier, grew more and more bewildered, and declared that it was the channel, not his brain, which had gone wrong; the captain, a little elderly man, sat wringing his hands in the pilot-box; and the engineer appeared to be mingling his groans with those of the diseased engine. meanwhile i, in equal ignorance of machinery and channel, had to give orders only justified by minute acquaintance with both. so i navigated on general principles, until they grounded us on a mud-bank, just below a wooded point, and some two miles from the bridge of our destination. it was with a pang that i waved to major strong, who was on the other side of the channel in a tug, not to risk approaching us, but to steam on and finish the work, if he could. short was his triumph. gliding round the point, he found himself instantly engaged with a light battery of four or six guns, doubtless the same we had seen in the distance. the milton was within two hundred and fifty yards. the connecticut men fought then: guns well, aided by the blacks, and it was exasperating for us to hear the shots, while we could see nothing and do nothing. the scanty ammunition of our bow gun was exhausted, and the gun in the stern was useless, from the position in which we lay. in vain we moved the men from side to side, rocking the vessel, to dislodge it. the heat was terrific that august afternoon; i remember i found myself constantly changing places, on the scorched deck, to keep my feet from being blistered. at last the officer in charge of the gun, a hardy lumberman from maine, got the stern of the vessel so far round that he obtained the range of the battery through the cabin windows, "but it would be necessary," he cooly added, on reporting to me this fact, "to shoot away the corner of the cabin." i knew that this apartment was newly painted and gilded, and the idol of the poor captain's heart; but it was plain that even the thought of his own upholstery could not make the poor soul more wretched than he was. so i bade captain dolly blaze away, and thus we took our hand in the little game, though at a sacrifice. it was of no use. down drifted out little consort round the point, her engine disabled and her engineer killed, as we afterwards found, though then we could only look and wonder. still pluckily firing, she floated by upon the tide, which had now just turned; and when, with a last desperate effort, we got off, our engine had one of its impracticable fits, and we could only follow her. the day was waning, and all its range of possibility had lain within the limits of that one tide. all our previous expeditions had been so successful it now seemed hard to turn back; the river-banks and rice-fields, so beautiful before, seemed only a vexation now. but the swift current bore us on, and after our parthian shots had died away, a new discharge of artillery opened upon us, from our first antagonist of the morning, which still kept the other side of the stream. it had taken up a strong position on another bluff, almost out of range of the john adams, but within easy range of us. the sharpest contest of the day was before us. happily the engine and engineer were now behaving well, and we were steering in a channel already traversed, and of which the dangerous points were known. but we had a long, straight reach of river before us, heading directly toward the battery, which, having once got our range, had only to keep it, while we could do nothing in return. the rebels certainly served then: guns well. for the first time i discovered that there were certain compensating advantages in a slightly built craft, as compared with one more substantial; the missiles never lodged in the vessel, but crashed through some thin partition as if it were paper, to explode beyond us, or fall harmless in the water. splintering, the chief source of wounds and death in wooden ships, was thus entirely avoided; the danger was that our machinery might be disabled, or that shots might strike below the water-line and sink us. this, however, did not happen. fifteen projectiles, as we afterwards computed, passed through the vessel or cut the rigging. yet few casualties occurred, and those instantly fatal. as my orderly stood leaning on a comrade's shoulder, the head of the latter was shot off. at last i myself felt a sudden blow in the side, as if from some prize-fighter, doubling me up for a moment, while i sank upon a seat. it proved afterwards to have been produced by the grazing of a ball, which, without tearing a garment, had yet made a large part of my side black and blue, leaving a sensation of paralysis which made it difficult to stand. supporting myself on captain rogers, i tried to comprehend what had happened, and i remember being impressed by an odd feeling that i had now got my share, and should henceforth be a great deal safer than any of the rest. i am told that this often follows one's first experience of a wound. but this immediate contest, sharp as it was, proved brief; a turn in the river enabled us to use our stern gun, and we soon glided into the comparative shelter of wiltown bluff. there, however, we were to encounter the danger of shipwreck, superadded to that of fight. when the passage through the piles was first cleared, it had been marked by stakes, lest the rising tide should cover the remaining piles, and make it difficult to run the passage. but when we again reached it, the stakes had somehow been knocked away, the piles were just covered by the swift current, and the little tug-boat was aground upon them. she came off easily, however, with our aid, and, when we in turn essayed the passage, we grounded also, but more firmly. we getting off at last, and making the passage, the tug again became lodged, when nearly past danger, and all our efforts proved powerless to pull her through. i therefore dropped down below, and sent the john adams to her aid, while i superintended the final recall of the pickets, and the embarkation of the remaining refugees. while thus engaged, i felt little solicitude about the boats above. it was certain that the john adams could safely go close to the piles on the lower side, that she was very strong, and that the other was very light. still, it was natural to cast some anxious glances up the river, and it was with surprise that i presently saw a canoe descending, which contained major strong. coming on board, he told me with some excitement that the tug could not possibly be got off, and he wished for orders. it was no time to consider whether it was not his place to have given orders, instead of going half a mile to seek them. i was by this time so far exhausted that everything seemed to pass by me as by one in a dream; but i got into a boat, pushed up stream, met presently the john adams returning, and was informed by the officer in charge of the connecticut battery that he had abandoned the tug, and--worse news yet--that his guns had been thrown overboard. it seemed to me then, and has always seemed, that this sacrifice was utterly needless, because, although the captain of the john adams had refused to risk his vessel by going near enough to receive the guns, he should have been compelled to do so. though the thing was done without my knowledge, and beyond my reach, yet, as commander of the expedition, i was technically responsible. it was hard to blame a lieutenant when his senior had shrunk from a decision, and left him alone; nor was it easy to blame major strong, whom i knew to be a man of personal courage though without much decision of character. he was subsequently tried by court-martial and acquitted, after which he resigned, and was lost at sea on his way home. the tug, being thus abandoned, must of course be burned to prevent her falling into the enemy's hands. major strong went with prompt fearlessness to do this, at my order; after which he remained on the enoch dean, and i went on board the john adams, being compelled to succumb at last, and transfer all remaining responsibility to captain trowbridge. exhausted as i was, i could still observe, in a vague way, the scene around me. every available corner of the boat seemed like some vast auction-room of second-hand goods. great piles of bedding and bundles lay on every side, with black heads emerging and black forms reclining in every stage of squalidness. some seemed ill, or wounded, or asleep, others were chattering eagerly among themselves, singing, praying, or soliloquizing on joys to come. "bress de lord," i heard one woman say, "i spec' i got salt victual now,--notin' but fresh victual dese six months, but ise get salt victual now,"--thus reversing, under pressure of the salt-embargo, the usual anticipations of voyagers. trowbridge told me, long after, that, on seeking a fan for my benefit, he could find but one on board. that was in the hands of a fat old "aunty," who had just embarked, and sat on an enormous bundle of her goods, in everybody's way, fanning herself vehemently, and ejaculating, as her gasping breath would permit, "oh! do, jesus! oh! do, jesus!" when the captain abruptly disarmed her of the fan, and left her continuing her pious exercises. thus we glided down the river in the waning light. once more we encountered a battery, making five in all; i could hear the guns of the assailants, and could not distinguish the explosion of their shells from the answering throb of our own guns. the kind quartermaster kept bringing me news of what occurred, like rebecca in front-de-boeuf s castle, but discreetly withholding any actual casualties. then all faded into safety and sleep; and we reached beaufort in the morning, after thirty-six hours of absence. a kind friend, who acted in south carolina a nobler part amid tragedies than in any of her early stage triumphs, met us with an ambulance at the wharf, and the prisoners, the wounded, and the dead were duly attended. the reader will not care for any personal record of convalescence; though, among the general military laudations of whiskey, it is worth while to say that one life was saved, in the opinion of my surgeons, by an habitual abstinence from it, leaving no food for peritoneal inflammation to feed upon. the able-bodied men who had joined us were, sent to aid general gillmore in the trenches, while their families were established in huts and tents on st. helena island. a year after, greatly to the delight of the regiment, in taking possession of a battery which they had helped to capture on james island, they found in their hands the selfsame guns which they had seen thrown overboard from the governor milton. they then felt that their account with the enemy was squared, and could proceed to further operations. before the war, how great a thing seemed the rescue of even one man from slavery; and since the war has emancipated all, how little seems the liberation of two hundred! but no one then knew how the contest might end; and when i think of that morning sunlight, those emerald fields, those thronging numbers, the old women with their prayers, and the little boys with them: living burdens, i know that the day was worth all it cost, and more. chapter . the baby of the regiment we were in our winter camp on port royal island. it was a lovely november morning, soft and spring-like; the mocking-birds were singing, and the cotton-fields still white with fleecy pods. morning drill was over, the men were cleaning their guns and singing very happily; the officers were in their tents, reading still more happily their letters just arrived from home. suddenly i heard a knock at my tent-door, and the latch clicked. it was the only latch in camp, and i was very proud of it, and the officers always clicked it as loudly as possible, in order to gratify my feelings. the door opened, and the quartermaster thrust in the most beaming face i ever saw. "colonel," said he, "there are great news for the regiment. my wife and baby are coming by the next steamer!" "baby!" said i, in amazement. "q. m., you are beside yourself." (we always called the quartermaster q. m. for shortness.) "there was a pass sent to your wife, but nothing was ever said about a baby. baby indeed!" "but the baby was included in the pass," replied the triumphant father-of-a-family. "you don't suppose my wife would come down here without her baby! besides, the pass itself permits her to bring necessary baggage, and is not a baby six months old necessary baggage?" "but, my dear fellow," said i, rather anxiously, "how can you make the little thing comfortable in a tent, amidst these rigors of a south carolina winter, when it is uncomfortably hot for drill at noon, and ice forms by your bedside at night?" "trust me for that," said the delighted papa, and went off whistling. i could hear him telling the same news to three others, at least, before he got to his own tent. that day the preparations began, and soon his abode was a wonder of comfort. there were posts and rafters, and a raised floor, and a great chimney, and a door with hinges,--every luxury except a latch, and that he could not have, for mine was the last that could be purchased. one of the regimental carpenters was employed to make a cradle, and another to make a bedstead high enough for the cradle to go under. then there must be a bit of red carpet beside the bedstead, and thus the progress of splendor went on. the wife of one of the colored sergeants was engaged to act as nursery-maid. she was a very respectable young woman; the only objection to her being that she smoked a pipe. but we thought that perhaps baby might not dislike tobacco; and if she did, she would have excellent opportunities to break the pipe in pieces. in due time the steamer arrived, and baby and her mother were among the passengers. the little recruit was soon settled in her new cradle, and slept in it as if she had never known any other. the sergeant's wife soon had her on exhibition through the neighborhood, and from that time forward she was quite a queen among us. she had sweet blue eyes and pretty brown hair, with round, dimpled cheeks, and that perfect dignity which is so beautiful in a baby. she hardly ever cried, and was not at all timid. she would go to anybody, and yet did not encourage any romping from any but the most intimate friends. she always wore a warm long-sleeved scarlet cloak with a hood, and in this costume was carried or "toted," as the soldiers said, all about the camp. at "guard-mounting" in the morning, when the men who are to go on guard duty for the day are drawn up to be inspected, baby was always there, to help inspect them. she did not say much, but she eyed them very closely, and seemed fully to appreciate their bright buttons. then the officer-of-the-day, who appears at guard-mounting with his sword and sash, and comes afterwards to the colonel's tent for orders, would come and speak to baby on his way, and receive her orders first. when the time came for drill she was usually present to watch the troops; and when the drum beat for dinner she liked to see the long row of men in each company march up to the cookhouse, in single file, each with tin cup and plate. during the day, in pleasant weather, she might be seen in her nurse's arms, about the company streets, the centre of an admiring circle, her scarlet costume looking very pretty amidst the shining black cheeks and neat blue uniforms of the soldiers. at "dress-parade," just before sunset, she was always an attendant. as i stood before the regiment, i could see the little spot of red out of the corner of my eye, at one end of the long line of men; and i looked with so much interest for her small person, that, instead of saying at the proper time, "attention, battalion! shoulder arms!"--it is a wonder that i did not say, "shoulder babies!" our little lady was very impartial, and distributed her kind looks to everybody. she had not the slightest prejudice against color, and did not care in the least whether her particular friends were black or white. her especial favorites, i think, were the drummer-boys, who were not my favorites by any means, for they were a roguish set of scamps, and gave more trouble than all the grown men in the regiment. i think annie liked them because they were small, and made a noise, and had red caps like her hood, and red facings on their jackets, and also because they occasionally stood on their heads for her amusement. after dress-parade the whole drum-corps would march to the great flag-staff, and wait till just sunset-time, when they would beat "the retreat," and then the flag would be hauled down,--a great festival for annie. sometimes the sergeant-major would wrap her in the great folds of the flag, after it was taken down, and she would peep out very prettily from amidst the stars and stripes, like a new-born goddess of liberty. about once a month, some inspecting officer was sent to the camp by the general in command, to see to the condition of everything in the regiment, from bayonets to buttons. it was usually a long and tiresome process, and, when everything else was done, i used to tell the officer that i had one thing more for him to inspect, which was peculiar to our regiment. then i would send for baby to be exhibited, and i never saw an inspecting officer, old or young, who did not look pleased at the sudden appearance of the little, fresh, smiling creature,--a flower in the midst of war. and annie in her turn would look at them, with the true baby dignity la her face,--that deep, earnest look which babies often have, and which people think so wonderful when raphael paints it, although they might often see just the same expression in the faces of their own darlings at home. meanwhile annie seemed to like the camp style of housekeeping very much. her father's tent was double, and he used the front apartment for his office, and the inner room for parlor and bedroom; while the nurse had a separate tent and wash-room behind all. i remember that, the first time i went there in the evening, it was to borrow some writing-paper; and while baby's mother was hunting for it in the front tent, i heard a great cooing and murmuring in the inner room. i asked if annie was still awake, and her mother told me to go in and see. pushing aside the canvas door, i entered. no sign of anybody was to be seen; but a variety of soft little happy noises seemed to come from some unseen corner. mrs. c. came quietly in, pulled away the counterpane of her own bed, and drew out the rough cradle where lay the little damsel, perfectly happy, and wider awake than anything but a baby possibly can be. she looked as if the seclusion of a dozen family bedsteads would not be enough to discourage her spirits, and i saw that camp life was likely to suit her very well. a tent can be kept very warm, for it is merely a house with a thinner wall than usual; and i do not think that baby felt the cold much more than if she had been at home that winter. the great trouble is, that a tent-chimney, not being built very high, is apt to smoke when the wind is in a certain direction; and when that happens it is hardly possible to stay inside. so we used to build the chimneys of some tents on the east side, and those of others on the west, and thus some of the tents were always comfortable. i have seen baby's mother running in a hard rain, with little red-riding-hood in her arms, to take refuge with the adjutant's wife, when every other abode was full of smoke; and i must admit that there were one or two windy days that season when nobody could really keep warm, and annie had to remain ignominiously in her cradle, with as many clothes on as possible, for almost the whole time. the quartermaster's tent was very attractive to us in the evening. i remember that once, on passing near it after nightfall, i heard our major's fine voice singing methodist hymns within, and mrs. c.'s sweet tones chiming in. so i peeped through the outer door. the fire was burning very pleasantly in the inner tent, and the scrap of new red carpet made the floor look quite magnificent. the major sat on a box, our surgeon on a stool; "q. m." and his wife, and the adjutant's wife, and one of the captains, were all sitting on the bed, singing as well as they knew how; and the baby was under the bed. baby had retired for the night, was overshadowed, suppressed, sat upon; the singing went on, and she had wandered away into her own land of dreams, nearer to heaven, perhaps, than any pitch their voices could attain. i went in, and joined the party. presently the music stopped, and another officer was sent for, to sing some particular song. at this pause the invisible innocent waked a little, and began to cluck and coo. "it's the kitten," exclaimed somebody. "it's my baby!" exclaimed mrs. c. triumphantly, in that tone of unfailing personal pride which belongs to young mothers. the people all got up from the bed for a moment, while annie was pulled from beneath, wide awake and placid as usual; and she sat in one lap or another during the rest of the concert, sometimes winking at the candle, but usually listening to the songs, with a calm and critical expression, as if she could make as much noise as any of them, whenever she saw fit to try. not a sound did she make, however, except one little soft sneeze, which led to an immediate flood-tide of red shawl, covering every part of her but the forehead. but i soon hinted that the concert had better be ended, because i knew from observation that the small damsel had carefully watched a regimental inspection and a brigade drill on that day, and that an interval of repose was certainly necessary. annie did not long remain the only baby in camp. one day, on going out to the stables to look at a horse, i heard a sound of baby-talk, addressed by some man to a child near by, and, looking round the corner of a tent, i saw that one of the hostlers had something black and round, lying on the sloping side of a tent, with which he was playing very eagerly. it proved to be his baby, a plump, shiny thing, younger than annie; and i never saw a merrier picture than the happy father frolicking with his child, while the mother stood quietly by. this was baby number two, and she stayed in camp several weeks, the two innocents meeting each other every day, in the placid indifference that belonged to their years; both were happy little healthy things, and it never seemed to cross their minds that there was any difference in their complexions. as i said before, annie was not troubled by any prejudice in regard to color, nor do i suppose that the other little maiden was. annie enjoyed the tent-life very much; but when we were sent out on picket soon after, she enjoyed it still more. our head-quarters were at a deserted plantation house, with one large parlor, a dining-room, and a few bedrooms. baby's father and mother had a room up stairs, with a stove whose pipe went straight out at the window. this was quite comfortable, though half the windows were broken, and there was no glass and no glazier to mend them. the windows of the large parlor were in much the same condition, though we had an immense fireplace, where we had a bright fire whenever it was cold, and always in the evening. the walls of this room were very dirty, and it took our ladies several days to cover all the unsightly places with wreaths and hangings of evergreen. in the performance baby took an active part. her duties consisted in sitting in a great nest of evergreen, pulling and fingering the fragrant leaves, and occasionally giving a little cry of glee when she had accomplished some piece of decided mischief. there was less entertainment to be found in the camp itself at this time; but the household at head-quarters was larger than baby had been accustomed to. we had a great deal of company, moreover, and she had quite a gay life of it. she usually made her appearance in the large parlor soon after breakfast; and to dance her for a few moments in our arms was one of the first daily duties of each one. then the morning reports began to arrive from the different outposts,--a mounted officer or courier coming in from each place, dismounting at the door, and clattering in with jingling arms and spurs, each a new excitement for annie. she usually got some attention from any officer who came, receiving with her wonted dignity any daring caress. when the messengers had ceased to be interesting, there were always the horses to look at, held or tethered under the trees beside the sunny _piazza_. after the various couriers had been received, other messengers would be despatched to the town, seven miles away, and baby had all the excitement of their mounting and departure. her father was often one of the riders, and would sometimes seize annie for a good-by kiss, place her on the saddle before him, gallop her round the house once or twice, and then give her back to her nurse's arms again. she was perfectly fearless, and such boisterous attentions never frightened her, nor did they ever interfere with her sweet, infantine self-possession. after the riding-parties had gone, there was the _piazza_ still for entertainment, with a sentinel pacing up and down before it; but annie did not enjoy the sentinel, though his breastplate and buttons shone like gold, so much as the hammock which always hung swinging between the pillars. it was a pretty hammock, with great open meshes; and she delighted to lie in it, and have the netting closed above her, so that she could only be seen through the apertures. i can see her now, the fresh little rosy thing, in her blue and scarlet wrappings, with one round and dimpled arm thrust forth through the netting, and the other grasping an armful of blushing roses and fragrant magnolias. she looked like those pretty french bas-reliefs of cupids imprisoned in baskets, and peeping through. that hammock was a very useful appendage; it was a couch for us, a cradle for baby, a nest for the kittens; and we had, moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost there every night. when the mornings were colder, and the stove up stairs smoked the wrong way, baby was brought down in a very incomplete state of toilet, and finished her dressing by the great fire. we found her bare shoulders very becoming, and she was very much interested in her own little pink toes. after a very slow dressing, she had a still slower breakfast out of a tin cup of warm milk, of which she generally spilt a good deal, as she had much to do in watching everybody who came into the room, and seeing that there was no mischief done. then she would be placed on the floor, on our only piece of carpet, and the kittens would be brought in for her to play with. we had, at different times, a variety of pets, of whom annie did not take much notice. sometimes we had young partridges, caught by the drummer-boys in trap-cages. the children called them "bob and chloe," because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names. one day i brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young clinging to the droll pouch where their mothers keep them. sometimes we had pretty green lizards, their color darkening or deepening, like that of chameleons, in light or shade. but the only pets that took baby's fancy were the kittens. they perfectly delighted her, from the first moment she saw them; they were the only things younger than herself that she had ever beheld, and the only things softer than themselves that her small hands had grasped. it was astonishing to see how much the kittens would endure from her. they could scarcely be touched by any one else without mewing; but when annie seized one by the head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently together, they did not make a sound. i suppose that a baby's grasp is really soft, even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think. at any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they entirely outstripped annie in learning to walk, and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry playthings back to her again. "little baby," she learned to call them; and these were the very first words she spoke. baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an intimate knowledge of drills and parades. the nearer she came to actual conflict the better she seemed to like it, peaceful as her own little ways might be. twice, at least, while she was with us on picket, we had alarms from the rebel troops, who would bring down cannon to the opposite side of the ferry, about two miles beyond us, and throw shot and shell over upon our side. then the officer at the ferry would think that there was to be an attack made, and couriers would be sent, riding to and fro, and the men would all be called to arms in a hurry, and the ladies at headquarters would all put on their best bonnets and come down stairs, and the ambulance would be made ready to carry them to a place of safety before the expected fight. on such occasions baby was in all her glory. she shouted with delight at being suddenly uncribbed and thrust into her little scarlet cloak, and brought down stairs, at an utterly unusual and improper hour, to a _piazza_ with lights and people and horses and general excitement. she crowed and gurgled and made gestures with her little fists, and screamed out what seemed to be her advice on the military situation, as freely as if she had been a newspaper editor. except that it was rather difficult to understand her precise direction, i do not know but the whole rebel force might have been captured through her plans. and at any rate, i should much rather obey her orders than those of some generals whom i have known; for she at least meant no harm, and would lead one into no mischief. however, at last the danger, such as it was, would be all over, and the ladies would be induced to go peacefully to bed again; and annie would retreat with them to her ignoble cradle, very much disappointed, and looking vainly back at the more martial scene below. the next morning she would seem to have forgotten all about it, and would spill her bread and milk by the fire as if nothing had happened. i suppose we hardly knew, at the time, how large a part of the sunshine of our daily lives was contributed by dear little annie. yet, when i now look back on that pleasant southern home, she seems as essential a part of it as the mocking-birds or the magnolias, and i cannot convince myself that in returning to it i should not find her there. but annie went back, with the spring, to her northern birthplace, and then passed away from this earth before her little feet had fairly learned to tread its paths; and when i meet her next it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. i know, however, that her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to whatsoever things were pure. chapter . negro spirituals the war brought to some of us, besides its direct experiences, many a strange fulfilment of dreams of other days. for instance, the present writer had been a faithful student of the scottish ballads, and had always envied sir walter the delight of tracing them out amid their own heather, and of writing them down piecemeal from the lips of aged crones. it was a strange enjoyment, therefore, to be suddenly brought into the midst of a kindred world of unwritten songs, as simple and indigenous as the border minstrelsy, more uniformly plaintive, almost always more quaint, and often as essentially poetic. this interest was rather increased by the fact that i had for many years heard of this class of songs under the name of "negro spirituals," and had even heard some of them sung by friends from south carolina. i could now gather on their own soil these strange plants, which i had before seen as in museums alone. true, the individual songs rarely coincided; there was a line here, a chorus there,--just enough to fix the class, but this was unmistakable. it was not strange that they differed, for the range seemed almost endless, and south carolina, georgia, and florida seemed to have nothing but the generic character in common, until all were mingled in the united stock of camp-melodies. often in the starlit evening, i have returned from some lonely ride by the swift river, or on the plover-haunted barrens, and, entering the camp, have silently approached some glimmering fire, round which the dusky figures moved in the rhythmical barbaric dance the negroes call a "shout," chanting, often harshly, but always in the most perfect time, some monotonous refrain. writing down in the darkness, as i best could,--perhaps with my hand in the safe covert of my pocket,--the words of the song, i have afterwards carried it to my tent, like some captured bird or insect, and then, after examination, put it by. or, summoning one of the men at some period of leisure,--corporal robert sutton, for instance, whose iron memory held all the details of a song as if it were a ford or a forest,--i have completed the new specimen by supplying the absent parts. the music i could only retain by ear, and though the more common strains were repeated often enough to fix their impression, there were others that occurred only once or twice. the words will be here given, as nearly as possible, in the original dialect; and if the spelling seems sometimes inconsistent, or the misspelling insufficient, it is because i could get no nearer. i wished to avoid what seems to me the only error of lowell's "biglow papers" in respect to dialect, the occasional use of an extreme misspelling, which merely confuses the eye, without taking us any closer to the peculiarity of sound. the favorite song in camp was the following, sung with no accompaniment but the measured clapping of hands and the clatter of many feet. it was sung perhaps twice as often as any other. this was partly due to the fact that it properly consisted of a chorus alone, with which the verses of other songs might be combined at random. i. hold your light. "hold your light, brudder robert, hold your light, hold your light on canaan's shore. "what make ole satan for follow me so? satan ain't got notin' for do wid me. hold your light, hold your light, hold your light on canaan's shore." this would be sung for half an hour at a time, perhaps each person present being named in turn. it seemed the simplest primitive type of "spiritual." the next in popularity was almost as elementary, and, like this, named successively each one of the circle. it was, however, much more resounding and convivial in its music. ii. bound to go. "jordan river, i'm bound to go, bound to go, bound to go,-- jordan river, i'm bound to go, and bid 'em fare ye well. "my brudder robert, i'm bound to go, bound to go," &c. "my sister lucy, i'm bound to go, bound to go," &c. sometimes it was "tink 'em" (think them) "fare ye well." the _ye_ was so detached that i thought at first it was "very" or "vary well." another picturesque song, which seemed immensely popular, was at first very bewildering to me. i could not make out the first words of the chorus, and called it the "roman-dar," being reminded of some romaic song which i had formerly heard. that association quite fell in with the orientalism of the new tent-life. iii. room in there. "o, my mudder is gone! my mudder is gone! my mudder is gone into heaven, my lord! i can't stay behind! dere's room in dar, room in dar, room in dar, in de heaven, my lord! i can't stay behind! can't stay behind, my dear, i can't stay behind! "o, my fader is gone!" &c. "o, de angels are gone!" &c. "o, i'se been on de road! i'se been on de road! i'se been on de road into heaven, my lord! i can't stay behind! o, room in dar, room in dar, room in dar, in de heaven, my lord! i can't stay behind! by this time every man within hearing, from oldest to youngest, would be wriggling and shuffling, as if through some magic piper's bewitchment; for even those who at first affected contemptuous indifference would be drawn into the vortex erelong. next to these in popularity ranked a class of songs belonging emphatically to the church militant, and available for camp purposes with very little strain upon their symbolism. this, for instance, had a true companion-in-arms heartiness about it, not impaired by the feminine invocation at the end. iv. hail mary. "one more valiant soldier here, one more valiant soldier here, one more valiant soldier here, to help me bear de cross. o hail, mary, hail! hail, mary, hail! hail, mary, hail! to help me bear de cross." i fancied that the original reading might have been "soul," instead of "soldier,"--with some other syllable inserted to fill out the metre,--and that the "hail, mary," might denote a roman catholic origin, as i had several men from st. augustine who held in a dim way to that faith. it was a very ringing song, though not so grandly jubilant as the next, which was really impressive as the singers pealed it out, when marching or rowing or embarking. v. my army cross over. "my army cross over, my army cross over, o, pharaoh's army drowndedl my army cross over. "we'll cross de mighty river, my army cross over; we'll cross de river jordan, my army cross over; we'll cross de danger water, my army cross over; we'll cross de mighty myo, my army cross over. _(thrice.)_ o, pharaoh's army drowndedl my army cross over." i could get no explanation of the "mighty myo," except that one of the old men thought it meant the river of death. perhaps it is an african word. in the cameroon dialect, "mawa" signifies "to die." the next also has a military ring about it, and the first line is well matched by the music. the rest is conglomerate, and one or two lines show a more northern origin. "done" is a virginia shibboleth, quite distinct from the "been" which replaces it in south carolina. yet one of their best choruses, without any fixed words, was, "de bell done ringing," for which, in proper south carolina dialect, would have been substituted, "de bell been a-ring." this refrain may have gone south with our army. vi. ride in, kind saviour. "ride in, kind saviour! no man can hinder me. o, jesus is a mighty man! no man, &c. we're marching through virginny fields. no man, &c. o, satan is a busy man, no man, &c. and he has his sword and shield, no man, &c. o, old secesh done come and gone! no man can hinder me." sometimes they substituted "binder _we_," which was more spicy to the ear, and more in keeping with the usual head-over-heels arrangement of their pronouns. almost all their songs were thoroughly religious in their tone, however quaint then: expression, and were in a minor key, both as to words and music. the attitude is always the same, and, as a commentary on the life of the race, is infinitely pathetic. nothing but patience for this life,--nothing but triumph in the next. sometimes the present predominates, sometimes the future; but the combination is always implied. in the following, for instance, we hear simply the patience. vii. this world almost done. "brudder, keep your lamp trimmin' and a-burnin', keep your lamp trimmin' and a-burnin', keep your lamp trimmin' and a-burnin', for dis world most done. so keep your lamp, &c. dis world most done." but in the next, the final reward of patience is proclaimed as plaintively. viii. i want to go home. "dere's no rain to wet you, o, yes, i want to go home. dere's no sun to burn you, o, yes, i want to go home; o, push along, believers, o, yes, &c. dere's no hard trials, o, yes, &c. dere's no whips a-crackin', o, yes, &c. my brudder on de wayside, o, yes, &c. o, push along, my brudder, o, yes, &c. where dere's no stormy weather, o, yes, &c. dere's no tribulation, o, yes, &c. this next was a boat-song, and timed well with the tug of the oar. ix. the coming day "i want to go to canaan, i want to go to canaan, i want to go to canaan, to meet 'em at de comin' day. o, remember, let me go to canaan, _(thrice.)_ to meet "em, &c. o brudder, let me go to canaan, _(thrice.)_ to meet 'em, &c. my brudder, you--oh!--remember, _(thrice.)_ to meet 'em at de comin' day." the following begins with a startling affirmation, yet the last line quite outdoes the first. this, too, was a capital boat-song. x. one more river. "o, jordan bank was a great old bank, dere ain't but one more river to cross. we have some valiant soldier here, dere ain't, &c. o, jordan stream will never run dry, dere ain't, &c. dere's a hill on my leff, and he catch on my right, dere ain't but one more river to cross." i could get no explanation of this last riddle, except, "dat mean, if you go on de leff, go to 'struction, and if you go on de right, go to god, for sure." in others, more of spiritual conflict is implied, as in this next xi. o the dying lamb! "i wants to go where moses trod, o de dying lamb! for moses gone to de promised land, o de dying lamb! to drink from springs dat never run dry, o, &c. cry o my lord! o, &c. before i'll stay in hell one day, o, &c. i'm in hopes to pray my sins away, o, &c. cry o my lord! ,&c. brudder moses promised for be dar too, o, &c. to drink from streams dat never run dry, o de dying lamb!" in the next, the conflict is at its height, and the lurid imagery of the apocalypse is brought to bear. this book, with the books of moses, constituted their bible; all that lay between, even the narratives of the life of jesus, they hardly cared to read or to hear. xii. down in the valley. "we'll run and never tire, we'll run and never tire, we'll run and never tire, jesus set poor sinners free. way down in de valley, who will rise and go with me? you've heern talk of jesus, who set poor sinners free. "de lightnin' and de flashin' de lightnin' and de flashin', de lightnin' and de flashin', jesus set poor shiners free. i can't stand the fire. _(thrice.)_ jesus set poor sinners free, de green trees a-flamin'. _(thrice_.) jesus set poor shiners free, way down in de valley, who will rise and go with me? you've heern talk of jesus who set poor shiners free." "de valley" and "de lonesome valley" were familiar words in their religious experience. to descend into that region implied the same process with the "anxious-seat" of the camp-meeting. when a young girl was supposed to enter it, she bound a handkerchief by a peculiar knot over her head, and made it a point of honor not to change a single garment till the day of her baptism, so that she was sure of being in physical readiness for the cleansing rite, whatever her spiritual mood might be. more than once, in noticing a damsel thus mystically kerchiefed, i have asked some dusky attendant its meaning, and have received the unfailing answer,--framed with their usual indifference to the genders of pronouns--"he in de lonesome valley, sa." the next gives the same dramatic conflict, while its detached and impersonal refrain gives it strikingly the character of the scotch and scandinavian ballads. xiii. cry holy. "cry holy, holy! look at de people dat is born of god. and i run down de valley, and i run down to pray, says, look at de people dat is born of god. when i get dar, cappen satan was dar, says, look at, &c. says, young man, young man, dere's no use for pray, says, look at, &c. for jesus is dead, and god gone away, says, look at, &c. and i made him out a liar, and i went my way, says, look at, &c. sing holy, holy! "o, mary was a woman, and he had a one son, says, look at, &c. and de jews and de romans had him hung, says, look at, &c. cry holy, holy! "and i tell you, sinner, you had better had pray, says, look at, &c. for hell is a dark and dismal place, says, look at, &c. and i tell you, sinner, and i wouldn't go dar! says, look at, &c. cry holy, holy!" here is an infinitely quaint description of the length of the heavenly road:-- xiv. o'er the crossing. "vender's my old mudder, been a-waggin' at de hill so long. it's about time she'll cross over; get home bimeby. keep prayin', i do believe we're a long time waggin' o'er de crossin'. keep prayin', i do believe we'll get home to heaven bimeby. "hear dat mournful thunder roll from door to door, calling home god's children; get home bimeby. little chil'en, i do believe we're a long time, &c. little chil'en, i do believe we'll get home, &c. "see dat forked lightnin' flash from tree to tree, callin' home god's chil'en; get home bimeby. true believer, i do believe we're a long time, &c. o brudders, i do believe, we'll get home to heaven bimeby." one of the most singular pictures of future joys, and with fine flavor of hospitality about it, was this:-- xv. walk 'em easy. "o, walk 'em easy round de heaven, walk 'em easy round de heaven, walk 'em easy round de heaven, dat all de people may join de band. walk 'em easy round de heaven. (_thrice_.) o, shout glory till 'em join dat band!" the chorus was usually the greater part of the song, and often came in paradoxically, thus:-- xvi. o yes, lord. "o, must i be like de foolish mans? o yes, lord! will build de house on de sandy hill. o yes, lord! i'll build my house on zion hill, o yes, lord! no wind nor rain can blow me down, o yes, lord!" the next is very graceful and lyrical, and with more variety of rhythm than usual:-- xvii. bow low, mary. "bow low, mary, bow low, martha, for jesus come and lock de door, and carry de keys away. sail, sail, over yonder, and view de promised land. for jesus come, &c. weep, o mary, bow low, martha, for jesus come, &c. sail, sail, my true believer; sail, sail, over yonder; mary, bow low, martha, bow low, for jesus come and lock de door and carry de keys away." but of all the "spirituals" that which surprised me the most, i think,--perhaps because it was that in which external nature furnished the images most directly,--was this. with all my experience of their ideal ways of speech, i was startled when first i came on such a flower of poetry in that dark soil. xviii. i know moon-rise. "i know moon-rise, i know star-rise, lay dis body down. i walk in de moonlight, i walk in de starlight, to lay dis body down. i'll walk in de graveyard, i'll walk through de graveyard, to lay dis body down. i'll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms; lay dis body down. i go to de judgment in de evenin' of de day, when i lay dis body down; and my soul and your soul will meet in de day when i lay dis body down." "i'll lie in de grave and stretch out my arms." never, it seems to me, since man first lived and suffered, was his infinite longing for peace uttered more plaintively than in that line. the next is one of the wildest and most striking of the whole series: there is a mystical effect and a passionate striving throughout the whole. the scriptural struggle between jacob and the angel, which is only dimly expressed in the words, seems all uttered in the music. i think it impressed my imagination more powerfully than any other of these songs. xix. wrestling jacob. "o wrestlin' jacob, jacob, day's a-breakin'; i will not let thee go! o wrestlin' jacob, jacob, day's a-breakin'; he will not let me go! o, i hold my brudder wid a tremblin' hand i would not let him go! i hold my sister wid a tremblin' hand; i would not let her go! "o, jacob do hang from a tremblin' limb, he would not let him go! o, jacob do hang from a tremblin' limb; de lord will bless my soul. o wrestlin' jacob, jacob," &c. of "occasional hymns," properly so called, i noticed but one, a funeral hymn for an infant, which is sung plaintively over and over, without variety of words. xx. the baby gone home. "de little baby gone home, de little baby gone home, de little baby gone along, for to climb up jacob's ladder. and i wish i'd been dar, i wish i'd been dar, i wish i'd been dar, my lord, for to climb up jacob's ladder." still simpler is this, which is yet quite sweet and touching. xxi. jesus with us. "he have been wid us, jesus he still wid us, jesus, he will be wid us, jesus, be wid us to the end." the next seemed to be a favorite about christmas time, when meditations on "de rollin' year" were frequent among them. xxii. lord, remember me. "o do, lord, remember me! o do, lord, remember me! o, do remember me, until de year roll round! do, lord, remember me! "if you want to die like jesus died, lay in de grave, you would fold your arms and close your eyes and die wid a free good will. "for death is a simple ting, and he go from door to door, and he knock down some, and he cripple op some, and he leave some here to pray. "o do, lord remember me! o do, lord, remember me! my old fader's gone till de year roll round; do, lord, remember me!" the next was sung in such an operatic and rollicking way that it was quite hard to fancy it a religious performance, which, however, it was. i heard it but once. xxih. early in the morning. "i meet little rosa early in de mornin', o jerusalem! early in de mornin'; and i ax her, how you do, my darter? o jerusalem! early in de mornin'. "i meet my mudder early in de mornin', o jerusalem! &c. and i ax her, how you do, my mudder? o jerusalem! &c. "i meet brudder robert early in de mornin', o jerusalem! &c. and i ax him, how you do, my sonny? o jerusalem! &c. "i meet tittawisa early in de mornin', o jerusalem! &c. and i ax her, how you do, my darter? o jerusalem!" &c. "tittawisa" means "sister louisa." in songs of this class the name of every person present successively appears. their best marching song, and one which was invaluable to lift their feet along, as they expressed it, was the following. there was a kind of spring and lilt to it, quite indescribable by words. xxiv. go in the wilderness. "jesus call you. go in de wilderness, go in de wilderness, go in de wilderness, jesus call you. go in de wilderness to wait upon de lord. go wait upon de lord, go wait upon de lord, go wait upon de lord, my god, he take away de sins of de world. "jesus a-waitin'. go in de wilderness, go, &c. all dem chil'en go in de wilderness to wait upon de lord." the next was one of those which i had heard in boyish days, brought north from charleston. but the chorus alone was identical; the words were mainly different, and those here given are quaint enough. xxv. blow your trumpet, gabriel. "o, blow your trumpet, gabriel, blow your trumpet louder; and i want dat trumpet to blow me home to my new jerusalem. "de prettiest ting dat ever i done was to serve de lord when i was young. so blow your trumpet, gabriel, &c. "o, satan is a liar, and he conjure too, and if you don't mind, he'll conjure you. so blow your trumpet, gabriel, &c. "o, i was lost in de wilderness. king jesus hand me de candle down. so blow your trumpet, gabriel," &c. the following contains one of those odd transformations of proper names with which their scriptural citations were often enriched. it rivals their text, "paul may plant, and may polish wid water," which i have elsewhere quoted, and in which the sainted apollos would hardly have recognized himself. xxvi. in the morning. "in de mornin', in de mornin', chil'en? yes, my lord! don't you hear de trumpet sound? if i had a-died when i was young, i never would had de race for run. don't you hear de trumpet sound? "o sam and peter was fishin' in de sea, and dey drop de net and follow my lord. don't you hear de trumpet sound? "dere's a silver spade for to dig my grave and a golden chain for to let me down. don't you hear de trumpet sound? in de mornin', in de mornin', chil'en? yes, my lord! don't you hear de trumpet sound?" these golden and silver fancies remind one of the king of spain's daughter in "mother goose," and the golden apple, and the silver pear, which are doubtless themselves but the vestiges of some simple early composition like this. the next has a humbler and more domestic style of fancy. xxvii. fare ye well. "my true believers, fare ye well, fare ye well, fare ye well, fare ye well, by de grace of god, for i'm going home. massa jesus give me a little broom for to sweep my heart clean, and i will try, by de grace of god, to win my way home." among the songs not available for marching, but requiring the concentrated enthusiasm of the camp, was "the ship of zion," of which they had three wholly distinct versions, all quite exuberant and tumultuous. xxviii. the ship of zion. "come along, come along, and let us go home, o, glory, hallelujah? dis de ole ship o' zion, halleloo! halleloo! dis de ole ship o' zion, hallelujah! "she has landed many a tousand, she can land as many more. o, glory, hallelujah! &c. "do you tink she will be able for to take us all home? o, glory, hallelujah! &c. "you can tell 'em i'm a comin', halleloo! halleloo! you can tell 'em i'm a comin', hallelujah! come along, come along," &c. xxix. the ship of zion. _(second version.)_ "dis de good ole ship o' zion, dis de good ole ship o' zion, dis de good ole ship o' zion, and she's makin' for de promise land. she hab angels for de sailors, _(thrice.)_ and she's, &c. and how you know dey's angels? _(thrice.)_ and she's, &c. good lord, shall i be one? _(thrice.)_ and she's, &c. "dat ship is out a-sailin', sailin', sailin', and she's, &c. she's a-sailin' mighty steady, steady, steady, and she's, &c. she'll neither reel nor totter, totter, totter, and she's, &c. she's a-sailin' away cold jordan, jordan, jordan, and she's, &c. king jesus is de captain, captain, captain, and she's makin' for de promise land." xxx. the ship of zion. _(third version.)_ "de gospel ship is sailin', hosann--sann. o, jesus is de captain, hosann--sann. de angels are de sailors, hosann--sann. o, is your bundle ready? hosann--sann. o, have you got your ticket? hosann--sann." this abbreviated chorus is given with unspeakable unction. the three just given are modifications of an old camp-meeting melody; and the same may be true of the three following, although i cannot find them in the methodist hymn-books. each, however, has its characteristic modifications, which make it well worth giving. in the second verse of this next, for instance, "saviour" evidently has become "soldier." xxxi. sweet music "sweet music in heaven, just beginning for to roll. don't you love god? glory, hallelujah! "yes, late i heard my soldier say, come, heavy soul, i am de way. don't you love god? glory, hallelujah! "i'll go and tell to sinners round what a kind saviour i have found. don't you love god? glory, hallelujah! "my grief my burden long has been, because i was not cease from sin. don't you love god? glory, hallelujahl" xxxii. good news. "o, good news! o, good news! de angels brought de tidings down, just comin' from de trone. "as grief from out my soul shall fly, just comin' from de trone; i'll shout salvation when i die, good news, o, good news! just comin' from de trone. "lord, i want to go to heaven when i die, good news, o, good news! &c. "de white folks call us a noisy crew, good news, o, good news! but dis i know, we are happy too, just comin' from de trone." xxxiii. the heavenly road. "you may talk of my name as much as you please, and carry my name abroad, but i really do believe i'm a child of god as i walk in de heavenly road. o, won't you go wid me? _(thrice.)_ for to keep our garments clean. "o satan is a mighty busy ole man, and roll rocks in my way; but jesus is my bosom friend, and roll 'em out of de way. o, won't you go wid me? _(thrice.)_ for to keep our garments clean. "come, my brudder, if you never did pray, i hope you may pray to-night; for i really believe i'm a child of god as i walk in de heavenly road. o, won't you," &c. some of the songs had played an historic part during the war. for singing the next, for instance, the negroes had been put in jail in georgetown, s. c., at the outbreak of the rebellion. "we'll soon be free" was too dangerous an assertion; and though the chant was an old one, it was no doubt sung with redoubled emphasis during the new events. "de lord will call us home," was evidently thought to be a symbolical verse; for, as a little drummer-boy explained to me, showing all his white teeth as he sat in the moonlight by the door of my tent, "dey tink _de lord_ mean for say _de yankees_." xxxiv. we'll soon be free. "we'll soon be free, we'll soon be free, we'll soon be free, when de lord will call us home. my brudder, how long, my brudder, how long, my brudder, how long, 'fore we done sufferin' here? it won't be long _(thrice.)_ 'fore de lord will call us home. we'll walk de miry road _(thrice.)_ where pleasure never dies. we'll walk de golden street _(thrice.)_ where pleasure never dies. my brudder, how long _(thrice.)_ 'fore we done sufferin' here? we'll soon be free _(thrice.)_ when jesus sets me free. we'll fight for liberty _(thrice.)_ when de lord will call us home." the suspicion in this case was unfounded, but they had another song to which the rebellion had actually given rise. this was composed by nobody knew whom,--though it was the most recent, doubtless, of all these "spirituals,"--and had been sung in secret to avoid detection. it is certainly plaintive enough. the peck of corn and pint of salt were slavery's rations. xxxv. many thousand go. "no more peck o' corn for me, no more, no more,-- no more peck o' corn for me, many tousand go. "no more driver's lash for me, _(twice.)_ no more, &c. "no more pint o' salt for me, _(twice_.) no more, &c. "no more hundred lash for me, _(twice_.) no more, &c. "no more mistress' call for me, no more, no more,-- no more mistress' call for me, many tousand go." even of this last composition, however, we have only the approximate date and know nothing of the mode of composition. allan ramsay says of the scotch songs, that, no matter who made them, they were soon attributed to the minister of the parish whence they sprang. and i always wondered, about these, whether they had always a conscious and definite origin in some leading mind, or whether they grew by gradual accretion, in an almost unconscious way. on this point i could get no information, though i asked many questions, until at last, one day when i was being rowed across from beaufort to ladies' island, i found myself, with delight, on the actual trail of a song. one of the oarsmen, a brisk young fellow, not a soldier, on being asked for his theory of the matter, dropped out a coy confession. "some good sperituals," he said, "are start jess out o' curiosity. i been a-raise a sing, myself, once." my dream was fulfilled, and i had traced out, not the poem alone, but the poet. i implored him to proceed. "once we boys," he said, "went for tote some rice and de nigger-driver he keep a-callin' on us; and i say, 'o, de ole nigger-driver!' den anudder said, 'fust ting my mammy tole me was, notin' so bad as nigger-driver.' den i made a sing, just puttin' a word, and den anudder word." then he began singing, and the men, after listening a moment, joined in the chorus, as if it were an old acquaintance, though they evidently had never heard it before. i saw how easily a new "sing" took root among them. xxxvi. the driver. "o, de ole nigger-driver! o, gwine away! fust ting my mammy tell me, o, gwine away! tell me 'bout de nigger-driver, o, gwine away! nigger-driver second devil, o, gwine away! best ting for do he driver, o, gwine away! knock he down and spoil he labor, o, gwine away!" it will be observed that, although this song is quite secular in its character, yet its author called it a "spiritual." i heard but two songs among them, at any time, to which they would not, perhaps, have given this generic name. one of these consisted simply in the endless repetition--after the manner of certain college songs--of the mysterious line,-- "rain fall and wet becky lawton." but who becky lawton was, and why she should or should not be wet, and whether the dryness was a reward or a penalty, none could say. i got the impression that, in either case, the event was posthumous, and that there was some tradition of grass not growing over the grave of a sinner; but even this was vague, and all else vaguer. the other song i heard but once, on a morning when a squad of men came in from picket duty, and chanted it in the most rousing way. it had been a stormy and comfortless night, and the picket station was very exposed. it still rained in the morning when i strolled to the edge of the camp, looking out for the men, and wondering how they had stood it. presently they came striding along the road, at a great pace, with their shining rubber blankets worn as cloaks around them, the rain streaming from these and from their equally shining faces, which were almost all upon the broad grin, as they pealed out this remarkable ditty:-- hangman johnny. "o, dey call me hangman johnny! o, ho! o, ho! but i never hang nobody, o, hang, boys, hang! o dey, call me hangman johnny! o, ho! o, ho! but we'll all hang togedder, o, hang, boys, hang!" my presence apparently checked the performance of another verse, beginning, "de buckra 'list for money," apparently in reference to the controversy about the pay-question, then just beginning, and to the more mercenary aims they attributed to the white soldiers. but "hangman johnny" remained always a myth as inscrutable as "becky lawton." as they learned all their songs by ear, they often strayed into wholly new versions, which sometimes became popular, and entirely banished the others. this was amusingly the case, for instance, with one phrase in the popular camp-song of "marching along," which was entirely new to them until our quartermaster taught it to them, at my request. the words, "gird on the armor," were to them a stumbling-block, and no wonder, until some ingenious ear substituted, "guide on de army," which was at once accepted, and became universal. "we'll guide on de army, and be marching along" is now the established version on the sea islands. these quaint religious songs were to the men more than a source of relaxation; they were a stimulus to courage and a tie to heaven. i never overheard in camp a profane or vulgar song. with the trifling exceptions given, all had a religious motive, while the most secular melody could not have been more exciting. a few youths from savannah, who were comparatively men of the world, had learned some of the "ethiopian minstrel" ditties, imported from the north. these took no hold upon the mass; and, on the other hand, they sang reluctantly, even on sunday, the long and short metres of the hymn-books, always gladly yielding to the more potent excitement of their own "spirituals." by these they could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the apocalypse. i remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. there is no parallel instance of an oppressed race thus sustained by the religious sentiment alone. these songs are but the vocal expression of the simplicity of their faith and the sublimity of their long resignation. chapter life at camp shaw the edisto expedition cost me the health and strength of several years. i could say, long after, in the words of one of the men, "i'se been a sickly person, eber since de expeditious." justice to a strong constitution and good habits compels me, however, to say that, up to the time of my injury, i was almost the only officer in the regiment who had not once been off duty from illness. but at last i had to yield, and went north for a month. we heard much said, during the war, of wounded officers who stayed unreasonably long at home. i think there were more instances of those who went back too soon. such at least was my case. on returning to the regiment i found a great accumulation of unfinished business; every member of the field and staff was prostrated by illness or absent on detailed service; two companies had been sent to hilton head on fatigue duty, and kept there unexpectedly long: and there was a visible demoralization among the rest, especially from the fact that their pay had just been cut down, in violation of the express pledges of the government. a few weeks of steady sway made all right again; and during those weeks i felt a perfect exhilaration of health, followed by a month or two of complete prostration, when the work was done. this passing, i returned to duty, buoyed up by the fallacious hope that the winter months would set me right again. we had a new camp on port royal island, very pleasantly situated, just out of beaufort. it stretched nearly to the edge of a shelving bluff, fringed with pines and overlooking the river; below the bluff was a hard, narrow beach, where one might gallop a mile and bathe at the farther end. we could look up and down the curving stream, and watch the few vessels that came and went. our first encampment had been lower down that same river, and we felt at home. the new camp was named camp shaw, in honor of the noble young officer who had lately fallen at fort wagner, under circumstances which had endeared him to all the men. as it happened, they had never seen him, nor was my regiment ever placed within immediate reach of the fifty-fourth massachusetts. this i always regretted, feeling very desirous to compare the military qualities of the northern and southern blacks. as it was, the southern regiments with which the massachusetts troops were brigaded were hardly a fair specimen of their kind, having been raised chiefly by drafting, and, for this and other causes, being afflicted with perpetual discontent and desertion. we had, of course, looked forward with great interest to the arrival of these new colored regiments, and i had ridden in from the picket-station to see the fifty-fourth. apart from the peculiarity of its material, it was fresh from my own state, and i had relatives and acquaintances among its officers. governor andrew, who had formed it, was an old friend, and had begged me, on departure from massachusetts, to keep him informed as to our experiment i had good reason to believe that my reports had helped to prepare the way for this new battalion, and i had sent him, at his request, some hints as to its formation.* *commonwealth of massachusetts, executive department, boston, february , . to col. t. w. higginson, commanding st regt. s. c. vols., port royal id., s. c. colonel,--i am under obligations to you for your very interesting letter of january th, which i considered to be too important in its testimony to the efficiency of colored troops to be allowed to remain hidden on my files. i therefore placed some portions of it in the hands of hon. stephen m. weld, of jamaica plain, for publication, and you will find enclosed the newspaper slip from the "journal" of february d, in which it appeared. during a recent visit at washington i have obtained permission from the department of war to enlist colored troops as part of the massachusetts quota, and i am about to begin to organize a colored infantry regiment, to be numbered the " th massachusetts volunteers." i shall be greatly obliged by any suggestions which your experience may afford concerning it, and i am determined that it shall serve as a model, in the high character of its officers and the thorough discipline of its men, for all subsequent corps of the like material. please present to general saxton the assurances of my respectful regard. i have the honor to be, respectfully and obediently yours, john a. andrew, governor of massachusetts. in the streets of beaufort i had met colonel shaw, riding with his lieutenant-colonel and successor, edward hallowell, and had gone back with them to share their first meal in camp. i should have known shaw anywhere by his resemblance to his kindred, nor did it take long to perceive that he shared their habitual truthfulness and courage. moreover, he and hallowell had already got beyond the commonplaces of inexperience, in regard to colored troops, and, for a wonder, asked only sensible questions. for instance, he admitted the mere matter of courage to be settled, as regarded the colored troops, and his whole solicitude bore on this point, would they do as well in line-of-battle as they had already done in more irregular service, and on picket and guard duty? of this i had, of course, no doubt, nor, i think, had he; though i remember his saying something about the possibility of putting them between two fires in case of need, and so cutting off their retreat. i should never have thought of such a project, but i could not have expected bun to trust them as i did, until he had been actually under fire with them. that, doubtless, removed all his anxieties, if he really had any. this interview had occurred on the th of june. shaw and his regiment had very soon been ordered to georgia, then to morris island; fort wagner had been assaulted, and he had been killed. most of the men knew about the circumstances of his death, and many of them had subscribed towards a monument for him,--a project which originated with general saxton, and which was finally embodied in the "shaw school-house" at charleston. so it gave us all pleasure to name this camp for him, as its predecessor had been named for general saxton. the new camp was soon brought into good order. the men had great ingenuity in building screens and shelters of light poles, filled in with the gray moss from the live-oaks. the officers had vestibules built in this way, before all their tents; the cooking-places were walled round in the same fashion; and some of the wide company-streets had sheltered sidewalks down the whole line of tents. the sergeant on duty at the entrance of the camp had a similar bower, and the architecture culminated in a "praise-house" for school and prayer-meetings, some thirty feet in diameter. as for chimneys and flooring, they were provided with that magic and invisible facility which marks the second year of a regiment's life. that officer is happy who, besides a constitutional love of adventure, has also a love for the details of camp life, and likes to bring them to perfection. nothing but a hen with her chickens about her can symbolize the content i felt on getting my scattered companies together, after some temporary separation on picket or fatigue duty. then we went to work upon the nest. the only way to keep a camp in order is to set about everything as if you expected to stay there forever; if you stay, you get the comfort of it; if ordered away in twenty-four hours, you forget all wasted labor in the excitement of departure. thus viewed, a camp is a sort of model farm or bit of landscape gardening; there is always some small improvement to be made, a trench, a well, more shade against the sun, an increased vigilance in sweeping. then it is pleasant to take care of the men, to see them happy, to hear them purr. then the duties of inspection and drill, suspended during active service, resume their importance with a month or two of quiet. it really costs unceasing labor to keep a regiment in perfect condition and ready for service. the work is made up of minute and endless details, like a bird's pruning her feathers or a cat's licking her kittens into their proper toilet. here are eight hundred men, every one of whom, every sunday morning at farthest, must be perfectly _soigne_ in all personal proprieties; he must exhibit himself provided with every article of clothing, buttons, shoe-strings, hooks and eyes, company letter, regimental number, rifle, bayonet, bayonet-scabbard, cap-pouch, cartridge-box, cartridge-box belt, cartridge-box belt-plate, gun-sling, canteen, haversack, knapsack, packed according to rule, forty cartridges, forty percussion caps; and every one of these articles polished to the highest brightness or blackness as the case may be, and moreover hung or slung or tied or carried in precisely the correct manner. what a vast and formidable housekeeping is here, my patriotic sisters! consider, too, that every corner of the camp is to be kept absolutely clean and ready for exhibition at the shortest notice; hospital, stables, guard-house, cook-houses, company tents, must all be brought to perfection, and every square inch of this "farm of four acres" must look as smooth as an english lawn, twice a day. all this, beside the discipline and the drill and the regimental and company books, which must keep rigid account of all these details; consider all this, and then wonder no more that officers and men rejoice in being ordered on active service, where a few strokes of the pen will dispose of all this multiplicity of trappings as "expended in action" or "lost in service." for one, the longer i remained in service, the better i appreciated the good sense of most of the regular army niceties. true, these things must all vanish when the time of action comes, but it is these things that have prepared you for action. of course, if you dwell on them only, military life becomes millinery life alone. kinglake says that the russian grand-duke constantine, contemplating his beautiful toy-regiments, said that he dreaded war, for he knew that it would spoil the troops. the simple fact is, that a soldier is like the weapon he carries; service implies soiling, but you must have it clean in advance, that when soiled it may be of some use. the men had that year a christmas present which they enjoyed to the utmost,--furnishing the detail, every other day, for provost-guard duty in beaufort. it was the only military service which they had ever shared within the town, and it moreover gave a sense of self-respect to be keeping the peace of their own streets. i enjoyed seeing them put on duty those mornings; there was such a twinkle of delight in their eyes, though their features were immovable. as the "reliefs" went round, posting the guard, under charge of a corporal, one could watch the black sentinels successively dropped and the whites picked up,--gradually changing the complexion, like lord somebody's black stockings which became white stockings,--till at last there was only a squad of white soldiers obeying the "support arms! forward, march!" of a black corporal. then, when once posted, they glorified their office, you may be sure. discipline had grown rather free-and-easy in the town about that time, and it is said that the guard-house never was so full within human memory as after their first tour of duty. i remember hearing that one young reprobate, son of a leading northern philanthropist in those parts, was much aggrieved at being taken to the lock-up merely because he was found drunk in the streets. "why," said he, "the white corporals always showed me the way home." and i can testify that, after an evening party, some weeks later, i beard with pleasure the officers asking eagerly for the countersign. "who has the countersign?" said they. "the darkeys are on guard to-night, and we must look out for our lives." even after a christmas party at general saxton's, the guard at the door very properly refused to let the ambulance be brought round from the stable for the ladies because the driver had not the countersign. one of the sergeants of the guard, on one of these occasions, made to one who questioned his authority an answer that could hardly have been improved. the questioner had just been arrested for some offence. "know what dat mean?" said the indignant sergeant, pointing to the chevrons on his own sleeve. "dat mean _guv'ment_." volumes could not have said more, and the victim collapsed. the thing soon settled itself, and nobody remembered to notice whether the face beside the musket of a sentinel were white or black. it meant government, all the same. the men were also indulged with several raids on the mainland, under the direction of captain j. e. bryant, of the eighth maine, the most experienced scout in that region, who was endeavoring to raise by enlistment a regiment of colored troops. on one occasion captains whitney and heasley, with their companies, penetrated nearly to pocataligo, capturing some pickets and bringing away all the slaves of a plantation,--the latter operation being entirely under the charge of sergeant harry williams (co. k), without the presence of any white man. the whole command was attacked on the return by a rebel force, which turned out to be what was called in those regions a "dog-company," consisting of mounted riflemen with half a dozen trained bloodhounds. the men met these dogs with their bayonets, killed four or five of their old tormentors with great relish, and brought away the carcass of one. i had the creature skinned, and sent the skin to new york to be stuffed and mounted, meaning to exhibit it at the sanitary commission fair hi boston; but it spoiled on the passage. these quadruped allies were not originally intended as "dogs of war," but simply to detect fugitive slaves, and the men were delighted at this confirmation of their tales of dog-companies, which some of the officers had always disbelieved. captain bryant, during his scouting adventures, had learned to outwit these bloodhounds, and used his skill in eluding escape, during another expedition of the same kind. he was sent with captain metcalf's company far up the combahee river to cut the telegraphic wires and intercept despatches. our adventurous chaplain and a telegraphic operator went with the party. they ascended the river, cut the wires, and read the despatches for an hour or two. unfortunately, the attached wire was too conspicuously hung, and was seen by a passenger on the railway train in passing. the train was stopped and a swift stampede followed; a squad of cavalry was sent in pursuit, and our chaplain, with lieutenant osborn, of bryant's projected regiment, were captured; also one private,--the first of our men who had ever been taken prisoners. in spite of an agreement at washington to the contrary, our chaplain was held as prisoner of war, the only spiritual adviser in uniform, so far as i know, who had that honor. i do not know but his reverence would have agreed with scott's pirate-lieutenant, that it was better to live as plain jack bunce than die as frederick altamont; but i am very sure that he would rather have been kept prisoner to the close of the war, as a combatant, than have been released on parole as a non-resistant. after his return, i remember, he gave the most animated accounts of the whole adventure, of which he had enjoyed every instant, from the first entrance on the enemy's soil to the final capture. i suppose we should all like to tap the telegraphic wires anywhere and read our neighbor's messages, if we could only throw round this process the dignity of a sacred cause. this was what our good chaplain had done, with the same conscientious zest with which he had conducted his sunday foraging in florida. but he told me that nothing so impressed him on the whole trip as the sudden transformation in the black soldier who was taken prisoner with him. the chaplain at once adopted the policy, natural to him, of talking boldly and even defiantly to his captors, and commanding instead of beseeching. he pursued the same policy always and gained by it, he thought. but the negro adopted the diametrically opposite policy, also congenial to his crushed race,--all the force seemed to go out of him, and he surrendered himself like a tortoise to be kicked and trodden upon at their will. this manly, well-trained soldier at once became a slave again, asked no questions, and, if any were asked, made meek and conciliatory answers. he did not know, nor did any of us know, whether he would be treated as a prisoner of war, or shot, or sent to a rice-plantation. he simply acted according to the traditions of his race, as did the chaplain on his side. in the end the soldier's cunning was vindicated by the result; he escaped, and rejoined us in six months, while the chaplain was imprisoned for a year. the men came back very much exhausted from this expedition, and those who were in the chaplain's squad narrowly escaped with their lives. one brave fellow had actually not a morsel to eat for four days, and then could keep nothing on his stomach for two days more, so that his life was despaired of; and yet he brought all his equipments safe into camp. some of these men had led such wandering lives, in woods and swamps, that to hunt them was like hunting an otter; shyness and concealment had grown to be their second nature. after these little episodes came two months of peace. we were clean, comfortable, quiet, and consequently discontented. it was therefore with eagerness that we listened to a rumor of a new florida expedition, in which we might possibly take a hand. chapter . florida again? let me revert once more to my diary, for a specimen of the sharp changes and sudden disappointments that may come to troops in service. but for a case or two of varioloid in the regiment, we should have taken part in the battle of olustee, and should have had (as was reported) the right of the line. at any rate we should have shared the hard knocks and the glory, which were distributed pretty freely to the colored troops then and there. the diary will give, better than can any continuous narrative, our ups and down of expectation in those days. "camp shaw, beaufort, s. c., "february , . "great are the uncertainties of military orders! since our recall from jacksonville we have had no such surprises as came to us on wednesday night. it was our third day of a new tour of duty at the picket station. we had just got nicely settled,--men well tented, with good floors, and in high spirits, officers at out-stations all happy, mrs. ---- coming to stay with her husband, we at head-quarters just in order, house cleaned, moss-garlands up, camellias and jessamines in the tin wash-basins, baby in bliss;--our usual run of visitors had just set in, two beaufort captains and a surgeon had just risen from a late dinner after a flag of truce, general saxton and his wife had driven away but an hour or two before, we were all sitting about busy, with a great fire blazing, mrs. d. had just remarked triumphantly, 'last time i had but a mouthful here, and now i shall be here three weeks'--when-- "in dropped, like a bombshell, a despatch announcing that we were to be relieved by the eighth maine, the next morning, as general gillmore had sent an order that we should be ready for departure from beaufort at any moment. "conjectures, orders, packing, sending couriers to out-stations, were the employments of the evening; the men received the news with cheers, and we all came in next morning." "february , . "for three days we have watched the river, and every little steamboat that comes up for coal brings out spy-glasses and conjectures, and 'dar's de fourf new hampshire,'--for when that comes, it is said, we go. meanwhile we hear stirring news from florida, and the men are very impatient to be off. it is remarkable how much more thoroughly they look at things as soldiers than last year, and how much less as home-bound men,--the south-carolinians, i mean, for of course the floridians would naturally wish to go to florida. "but in every way i see the gradual change in them, sometimes with a sigh, as parents watch their children growing up and miss the droll speeches and the confiding ignorance of childhood. sometimes it comes over me with a pang that they are growing more like white men,--less naive and less grotesque. still, i think there is enough of it to last, and that their joyous buoyancy, at least, will hold out while life does. "as for our destination, our greatest fear is of finding ourselves posted at hilton head and going no farther. as a dashing irish officer remarked the other day, 'if we are ordered away anywhere, i hope it will be either to go to florida or else stay here!'" "sublime uncertainties again! "after being ordered in from picket, under marching orders; after the subsequent ten days of uncertainty; after watching every steamboat that came up the river, to see if the fourth new hampshire was on board,--at last the regiment came. "then followed another break; there was no transportation to take us. at last a boat was notified. "then general saxton, as anxious to keep us as was the regiment to go, played his last card in small-pox, telegraphing to department head-quarters that we had it dangerously in the regiment. (n. b. all varioloid, light at that, and besides, we always have it.) "then the order came to leave behind the sick and those who had been peculiarly exposed, and embark the rest next day. "great was the jubilee! the men were up, i verily believe, by three in the morning, and by eight the whole camp was demolished or put in wagons, and we were on our way. the soldiers of the fourth new hampshire swarmed in; every board was swept away by them; there had been a time when colored boards (if i may delicately so express myself) were repudiated by white soldiers, but that epoch had long since passed. i gave my new tent-frame, even the latch, to colonel bell; ditto lieutenant-colonel to lieutenant-colonel. "down we marched, the men singing 'john brown' and 'marching along' and 'gwine in de wilderness'; women in tears and smiles lined the way. we halted opposite the dear general's; we cheered, he speeched, i speeched, we all embraced symbolically, and cheered some more. then we went to work at the wharf; vast wagon-loads of tents, rations, ordnance, and what-not disappeared in the capacious maw of the delaware. in the midst of it all came riding down general saxton with a despatch from hilton head:-- "'if you think the amount of small-pox in the first south carolina volunteers sufficient, the order will be countermanded.' "'what shall i say?' quoth the guilty general, perceiving how preposterously too late the negotiation was reopened. "'say, sir?' quoth i. 'say that we are on board already and the small-pox left behind. say we had only thirteen cases, chiefly varioloid, and ten almost well.' "our blood was up with a tremendous morning's work done, and, rather than turn back, we felt ready to hold down major-general gillmore, commanding department, and all his staff upon the wharf, and vaccinate them by main force. "so general saxton rode away, and we worked away. just as the last wagon-load but one was being transferred to the omnivorous depths of the delaware,--which i should think would have been filled ten times over with what we had put into it,--down rode the general with a fiendish joy in his bright eyes and held out a paper,--one of the familiar rescripts from headquarters. "'the marching orders of the first south carolina volunteers are hereby countermanded.' "'major trowbridge,' said i, 'will you give my compliments to lieutenant hooper, somewhere in the hold of that steamer, and direct him to set his men at work to bring out every individual article which they have carried hi.' and i sat down on a pile of boards. "'you will return to your old camping-ground, colonel,' said the general, placidly. 'now,' he added with serene satisfaction, 'we will have some brigade drills!' "brigade drills! since mr. pickwick, with his heartless tomato-sauce and warming-pans, there had been nothing so aggravating as to try to solace us, who were as good as on board ship and under way,--nay, in imagination as far up the st. john's as pilatka at least,--with brigade drills! it was very kind and flattering in him to wish to keep us. but unhappily we had made up our minds to go. "never did officer ride at the head of a battalion of more wobegone, spiritless wretches than i led back from beaufort that day. 'when i march down to de landin',' said one of the men afterwards, 'my knapsack full of feathers. comin' back, _he lead_!' and the lead, instead of the feathers, rested on the heart of every one. "as if the disappointment itself were not sufficient, we had to return to our pretty camp, accustomed to its drawing-room order, and find it a desert. every board gone from the floors, the screens torn down from the poles, all the little conveniences scattered, and, to crown all, a cold breeze such as we had not known since new-year's day blowing across the camp and flooding everything with dust. i sincerely hope the regiment would never behave after a defeat as they behaved then. every man seemed crushed, officers and soldiers alike; when they broke ranks, they went and lay down like sheep where their tents used to be, or wandered disconsolately about, looking for their stray belongings. the scene was so infinitely dolorous that it gradually put me in the highest spirits; the ludicrousness of the whole affair was so complete, there was nothing to do but laugh. the horrible dust blew till every officer had some black spot on his nose which paralyzed pathos. of course the only way was to set them all at work as soon as possible; and work them we did,--i at the camp and the major at the wharf,--loading and unloading wagons and just reversing all which the morning had done. "the new hampshire men were very considerate, and gave back most of what they had taken, though many of our men were really too delicate or proud to ask or even take what they had once given to soldiers or to the colored people. i had no such delicacy about my tent-frame, and by night things had resumed something of their old aspect, and cheerfulness was in part restored. yet long after this i found one first sergeant absolutely in tears,--a florida man, most of whose kindred were up the st. john's. it was very natural that the men from that region should feel thus bitterly, but it shows how much of the habit of soldiers they have all acquired, that the south carolina men, who were leaving the neighborhood of their families for an indefinite time, were just as eager to go, and not one deserted, though they knew it for a week beforehand. no doubt my precarious health makes it now easier for me personally to remain here--easier on reflection at least--than for the others. at the same time florida is fascinating, and offers not only adventure, but the command of a brigade. certainly at the last moment there was not a sacrifice i would not have made rather than wrench myself and others away from the expedition. we are, of course, thrown back into the old uncertainty, and if the small-pox subsides (and it is really diminishing decidedly) we may yet come in at the wrong end of the florida affair." "february . "not a bit of it! this morning the general has ridden up radiant, has seen general gillmore, who has decided not to order us to florida at all, nor withdraw any of this garrison. moreover, he says that all which is intended in florida is done,--that there will be no advance to tallahassee, and general seymour will establish a camp of instruction in jacksonville. well, if that is all, it is a lucky escape." we little dreamed that on that very day the march toward olustee was beginning. the battle took place next day, and i add one more extract to show how the news reached beaufort. "february , . "there was the sound of revelry by night at a ball in beaufort last night, in a new large building beautifully decorated. all the collected flags of the garrison hung round and over us, as if the stars and stripes were devised for an ornament alone. the array of uniforms was such that a civilian became a distinguished object, much more a lady. all would have gone according to the proverbial marriage-bell, i suppose, had there not been a slight palpable shadow over all of us from hearing vague stories of a lost battle in florida, and from the thought that perhaps the very ambulances in which we rode to the ball were ours only until the wounded or the dead might tenant them. "general gillmore only came, i supposed, to put a good face upon the matter. he went away soon, and general saxton went; then came a rumor that the cosmopolitan had actually arrived with wounded, but still the dance went on. there was nothing unfeeling about it,--one gets used to things,--when suddenly, in the midst of the 'lancers,' there came a perfect hush, the music ceasing, a few surgeons went hastily to and fro, as if conscience-stricken (i should think they might have been),--then there 'waved a mighty shadow in,' as in uhland's 'black knight,' and as we all stood wondering we were 'ware of general saxton, who strode hastily down the hall, his pale face very resolute, and looking almost sick with anxiety. he had just been on board the steamer; there were two hundred and fifty wounded men just arrived, and the ball must end. not that there was anything for us to do; but the revel was mistimed, and must be ended; it was wicked to be dancing, with such a scene of suffering near by. "of course the ball was instantly broken up, though with some murmurings and some longings of appetite, on the part of some, toward the wasted supper. "later, i went on board the boat. among the long lines of wounded, black and white intermingled, there was the wonderful quiet which usually prevails on such occasions. not a sob nor a groan, except from those undergoing removal. it is not self-control, but chiefly the shock to the system produced by severe wounds, especially gunshot wounds, and which usually keeps the patient stiller at first than any later time. "a company from my regiment waited on the wharf, in their accustomed dusky silence, and i longed to ask them what they thought of our florida disappointment now? in view of what they saw, did they still wish we had been there? i confess that in presence of all that human suffering, i could not wish it. but i would not have suggested any such thought to them. "i found our kind-hearted ladies, mrs. chamberlin and mrs. dewhurst, on board the steamer, but there was nothing for them to do, and we walked back to camp in the radiant moonlight; mrs. chamberlin more than ever strengthened in her blushing woman's philosophy, 'i don't care who wins the laurels, provided we don't!'" "february . "but for a few trivial cases of varioloid, we should certainly have been in that disastrous fight. we were confidently expected for several days at jacksonville, and the commanding general told colonel hallowell that we, being the oldest colored regiment, would have the right of the line. this was certainly to miss danger and glory very closely." chapter . the negro as a soldier there was in our regiment a very young recruit, named sam roberts, of whom trowbridge used to tell this story. early in the war trowbridge had been once sent to amelia island with a squad of men, under direction of commodore goldsborough, to remove the negroes from the island. as the officers stood on the beach, talking to some of the older freedmen, they saw this urchin peeping at them from front and rear in a scrutinizing way, for which his father at last called him to account, as thus:-- "hi! sammy, what you's doin', chile?" "daddy," said the inquisitive youth, "don't you know mas'r tell us yankee hab tail? i don't see no tail, daddy!" there were many who went to port royal during the war, in civil or military positions, whose previous impressions of the colored race were about as intelligent as sam's view of themselves. but, for once, i had always had so much to do with fugitive slaves, and had studied the whole subject with such interest, that i found not much to learn or unlearn as to this one point. their courage i had before seen tested; their docile and lovable qualities i had known; and the only real surprise that experience brought me was in finding them so little demoralized. i had not allowed for the extreme remoteness and seclusion of their lives, especially among the sea islands. many of them had literally spent their whole existence on some lonely island or remote plantation, where the master never came, and the overseer only once or twice a week. with these exceptions, such persons had never seen a white face, and of the excitements or sins of larger communities they had not a conception. my friend colonel hallo-well, of the fifty-fourth massachusetts, told me that he had among his men some of the worst reprobates of northern cities. while i had some men who were unprincipled and troublesome, there was not one whom i could call a hardened villain. i was constantly expecting to find male topsies, with no notions of good and plenty of evil. but i never found one. among the most ignorant there was very often a childlike absence of vices, which was rather to be classed as inexperience than as innocence, but which had some of the advantages of both. apart from this, they were very much like other men. general saxton, examining with some impatience a long list of questions from some philanthropic commission at the north, respecting the traits and habits of the freedmen, bade some staff-officer answer them all in two words,--"intensely human." we all admitted that it was a striking and comprehensive description. for instance, as to courage. so far as i have seen, the mass of men are naturally courageous up to a certain point. a man seldom runs away from danger which he ought to face, unless others run; each is apt to keep with the mass, and colored soldiers have more than usual of this gregariousness. in almost every regiment, black or white, there are a score or two of men who are naturally daring, who really hunger after dangerous adventures, and are happiest when allowed to seek them. every commander gradually finds out who these men are, and habitually uses them; certainly i had such, and i remember with delight their bearing, their coolness, and their dash. some of them were negroes, some mulattoes. one of them would have passed for white, with brown hair and blue eyes, while others were so black you could hardly see their features. these picked men varied in other respects too; some were neat and well-drilled soldiers, while others were slovenly, heedless fellows,--the despair of their officers at inspection, their pride on a raid. they were the natural scouts and rangers of the regiment; they had the two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, which napoleon thought so rare. the mass of the regiment rose to the same level under excitement, and were more excitable, i think, than whites, but neither more nor less courageous. perhaps the best proof of a good average of courage among them was in the readiness they always showed for any special enterprise. i do not remember ever to have had the slightest difficulty in obtaining volunteers, but rather in keeping down the number. the previous pages include many illustrations of this, as well as of then: endurance of pain and discomfort. for instance, one of my lieutenants, a very daring irishman, who had served for eight years as a sergeant of regular artillery in texas, utah, and south carolina, said he had never been engaged in anything so risky as our raid up the st. mary's. but in truth it seems to me a mere absurdity to deliberately argue the question of courage, as applied to men among whom i waked and slept, day and night, for so many months together. as well might he who has been wandering for years upon the desert, with a bedouin escort, discuss the courage of the men whose tents have been his shelter and whose spears his guard. we, their officers, did not go there to teach lessons, but to receive them. there were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young captains had incurred in all their lives. there was a family named wilson, i remember, of which we had several representatives. three or four brothers had planned an escape from the interior to our lines; they finally decided that the youngest should stay and take care of the old mother; the rest, with their sister and her children, came in a "dug-out" down one of the rivers. they were fired upon, again and again, by the pickets along the banks, until finally every man on board was wounded; and still they got safely through. when the bullets began to fly about them, the woman shed tears, and her little girl of nine said to her, "don't cry, mother, jesus will help you," and then the child began praying as the wounded men still urged the boat along. this the mother told me, but i had previously heard it from on officer who was on the gunboat that picked them up,--a big, rough man, whose voice fairly broke as he described their appearance. he said that the mother and child had been hid for nine months in the woods before attempting their escape, and the child would speak to no one,--indeed, she hardly would when she came to our camp. she was almost white, and this officer wished to adopt her, but the mother said, "i would do anything but that for _oonah_," this being a sort of indian formation of the second-person-plural, such as they sometimes use. this same officer afterwards saw a reward offered for this family in a savannah paper. i used to think that i should not care to read "uncle tom's cabin" hi our camp; it would have seemed tame. any group of men in a tent would have had more exciting tales to tell. i needed no fiction when i had fanny wright, for instance, daily passing to and fro before my tent, with her shy little girl clinging to her skirts. fanny was a modest little mulatto woman, a soldier's wife, and a company laundress. she had escaped from the main-land in a boat, with that child and another. her baby was shot dead in her arms, and she reached our lines with one child safe on earth and the other in heaven. i never found it needful to give any elementary instructions in courage to fanny's husband, you may be sure. there was another family of brothers in the regiment named miller. their grandmother, a fine-looking old woman, nearly seventy, i should think, but erect as a pine-tree, used sometimes to come and visit them. she and her husband had once tried to escape from a plantation near savannah. they had failed, and had been brought back; the husband had received five hundred lashes, and while the white men on the plantation were viewing the punishment, she was collecting her children and grandchildren, to the number of twenty-two, in a neighboring marsh, preparatory to another attempt that night. they found a flat-boat which had been rejected as unseaworthy, got on board,--still under the old woman's orders,--and drifted forty miles down the river to our lines. trowbridge happened to be on board the gunboat which picked them up, and he said that when the "flat" touched the side of the vessel, the grandmother rose to her full height, with her youngest grandchild in her arms, and said only, "my god! are we free?" by one of those coincidences of which life is full, her husband escaped also, after his punishment, and was taken up by the same gunboat. i hardly need point out that my young lieutenants did not have to teach the principles of courage to this woman's grandchildren. i often asked myself why it was that, with this capacity of daring and endurance, they had not kept the land in a perpetual flame of insurrection; why, especially since the opening of the war, they had kept so still. the answer was to be found in the peculiar temperament of the races, in their religious faith, and in the habit of patience that centuries had fortified. the shrewder men all said substantially the same thing. what was the use of insurrection, where everything was against them? they had no knowledge, no money, no arms, no drill, no organization,--above all, no mutual confidence. it was the tradition among them that all insurrections were always betrayed by somebody. they had no mountain passes to defend like the maroons of jamaica,--no unpenetrable swamps, like the maroons of surinam. where they had these, even on a small scale, they had used them,--as in certain swamps round savannah and in the everglades of florida, where they united with the indians, and would stand fire--so i was told by general saxton, who had fought them there--when the indians would retreat. it always seemed to me that, had i been a slave, my life would have been one long scheme of insurrection. but i learned to respect the patient self-control of those who had waited till the course of events should open a better way. when it came they accepted it. insurrection on their part would at once have divided the northern sentiment; and a large part of our army would have joined with the southern army to hunt them down. by their waiting till we needed them, their freedom was secured. two things chiefly surprised me in their feeling toward their former masters,--the absence of affection and the absence of revenge. i expected to find a good deal of the patriarchal feeling. it always seemed to me a very ill-applied emotion, as connected with the facts and laws of american slavery,--still i expected to find it. i suppose that my men and their families and visitors may have had as much of it as the mass of freed slaves; but certainly they had not a particle. i never could cajole one of them, in his most discontented moment, into regretting "ole mas'r time" for a single instant. i never heard one speak of the masters except as natural enemies. yet they were perfectly discriminating as to individuals; many of them claimed to have had kind owners, and some expressed great gratitude to them for particular favors received. it was not the individuals, but the ownership, of which they complained. that they saw to be a wrong which no special kindnesses could right. on this, as on all points connected with slavery, they understood the matter as clearly as garrison or phillips; the wisest philosophy could teach them nothing as to that, nor could any false philosophy befog them. after all, personal experience is the best logician. certainly this indifference did not proceed from any want of personal affection, for they were the most affectionate people among whom i had ever lived. they attached themselves to every officer who deserved love, and to some who did not; and if they failed to show it to their masters, it proved the wrongfulness of the mastery. on the other hand, they rarely showed one gleam of revenge, and i shall never forget the self-control with which one of our best sergeants pointed out to me, at jacksonville, the very place where one of his brothers had been hanged by the whites for leading a party of fugitive slaves. he spoke of it as a historic matter, without any bearing on the present issue. but side by side with this faculty of patience, there was a certain tropical element in the men, a sort of fiery ecstasy when aroused, which seemed to link them by blood with the french turcos, and made them really resemble their natural enemies, the celts, far more than the anglo-saxon temperament. to balance this there were great individual resources when alone,--a sort of indian wiliness and subtlety of resource. their gregariousness and love of drill made them more easy to keep in hand than white american troops, who rather like to straggle or go in little squads, looking out for themselves, without being bothered with officers. the blacks prefer organization. the point of inferiority that i always feared, though i never had occasion to prove it, was that they might show less fibre, less tough and dogged resistance, than whites, during a prolonged trial,--a long, disastrous march, for instance, or the hopeless defence of a besieged town. i should not be afraid of their mutinying or running away, but of their drooping and dying. it might not turn out so; but i mention it for the sake of fairness, and to avoid overstating the merits of these troops. as to the simple general fact of courage and reliability i think no officer in our camp ever thought of there being any difference between black and white. and certainly the opinions of these officers, who for years risked their lives every moment on the fidelity of their men, were worth more than those of all the world beside. no doubt there were reasons why this particular war was an especially favorable test of the colored soldiers. they had more to fight for than the whites. besides the flag and the union, they had home and wife and child. they fought with ropes round their necks, and when orders were issued that the officers of colored troops should be put to death on capture, they took a grim satisfaction. it helped their _esprit de corps_ immensely. with us, at least, there was to be no play-soldier. though they had begun with a slight feeling of inferiority to the white troops, this compliment substituted a peculiar sense of self-respect. and even when the new colored regiments began to arrive from the north my men still pointed out this difference,--that in case of ultimate defeat, the northern troops, black or white, would go home, while the first south carolina must fight it out or be re-enslaved. this was one thing that made the st. john's river so attractive to them and even to me;--it was so much nearer the everglades. i used seriously to ponder, during the darker periods of the war, whether i might not end my days as an outlaw,--a leader of maroons. meanwhile, i used to try to make some capital for the northern troops, in their estimate, by pointing out that it was a disinterested thing in these men from the free states, to come down there and fight, that the slaves might be free. but they were apt keenly to reply, that many of the white soldiers disavowed this object, and said that that was not the object of the war, nor even likely to be its end. some of them even repeated mr. seward's unfortunate words to mr. adams, which some general had been heard to quote. so, on the whole, i took nothing by the motion, as was apt to be the case with those who spoke a good word for our government, in those vacillating and half proslavery days. at any rate, this ungenerous discouragement had this good effect, that it touched their pride; they would deserve justice, even if they did not obtain it. this pride was afterwards severely tested during the disgraceful period when the party of repudiation in congress temporarily deprived them of their promised pay. in my regiment the men never mutinied, nor even threatened mutiny; they seemed to make it a matter of honor to do then: part, even if the government proved a defaulter; but one third of them, including the best men in the regiment, quietly refused to take a dollar's pay, at the reduced price. "we'se gib our sogerin' to de guv'ment, gunnel," they said, "but we won't 'spise ourselves so much for take de seben dollar." they even made a contemptuous ballad, of which i once caught a snatch. "ten dollar a month! tree ob dat for clothin'l go to washington fight for linkum's darter!" this "lincoln's daughter" stood for the goddess of liberty, it would seem. they would be true to her, but they would not take the half-pay. this was contrary to my advice, and to that of other officers; but i now think it was wise. nothing less than this would have called the attention of the american people to this outrageous fraud.* * see appendix. the same slow forecast had often marked their action in other ways. one of our ablest sergeants, henry mclntyre, who had earned two dollars and a half per day as a master-carpenter in florida, and paid one dollar and a half to his master, told me that he had deliberately refrained from learning to read, because that knowledge exposed the slaves to so much more watching and suspicion. this man and a few others had built on contract the greater part of the town of micanopy in florida, and was a thriving man when his accustomed discretion failed for once, and he lost all. he named his child william lincoln, and it brought upon him such suspicion that he had to make his escape. i cannot conceive what people at the north mean by speaking of the negroes as a bestial or brutal race. except in some insensibility to animal pain, i never knew of an act in my regiment which i should call brutal. in reading kay's "condition of the english peasantry" i was constantly struck with the unlikeness of my men to those therein described. this could not proceed from my prejudices as an abolitionist, for they would have led me the other way, and indeed i had once written a little essay to show the brutalizing influences of slavery. i learned to think that we abolitionists had underrated the suffering produced by slavery among the negroes, but had overrated the demoralization. or rather, we did not know how the religious temperament of the negroes had checked the demoralization. yet again, it must be admitted that this temperament, born of sorrow and oppression, is far more marked in the slave than in the native african. theorize as we may, there was certainly in our camp an average tone of propriety which all visitors noticed, and which was not created, but only preserved by discipline. i was always struck, not merely by the courtesy of the men, but also by a certain sober decency of language. if a man had to report to me any disagreeable fact, for instance, he was sure to do it with gravity and decorum, and not blurt it out in an offensive way. and it certainly was a significant fact that the ladies of our camp, when we were so fortunate as to have such guests, the young wives, especially, of the adjutant and quartermaster, used to go among the tents when the men were off duty, in order to hear their big pupils read and spell, without the slightest fear of annoyance. i do not mean direct annoyance or insult, for no man who valued his life would have ventured that in presence of the others, but i mean the annoyance of accidentally seeing or hearing improprieties not intended for them. they both declared that they would not have moved about with anything like the same freedom in any white camp they had ever entered, and it always roused their indignation to hear the negro race called brutal or depraved. this came partly from natural good manners, partly from the habit of deference, partly from ignorance of the refined and ingenious evil which is learned in large towns; but a large part came from their strongly religious temperament. their comparative freedom from swearing, for instance,--an abstinence which i fear military life did not strengthen,--was partly a matter of principle. once i heard one of them say to another, in a transport of indignation, "ha-a-a, boy, s'pose i no be a christian, i cuss you sol"--which was certainly drawing pretty hard upon the bridle. "cuss," however, was a generic term for all manner of evil speaking; they would say, "he cuss me fool," or "he cuss me coward," as if the essence of propriety were in harsh and angry speech,--which i take to be good ethics. but certainly, if uncle toby could have recruited his army in flanders from our ranks, their swearing would have ceased to be historic. it used to seem to me that never, since cromwell's time, had there been soldiers in whom the religious element held such a place. "a religious army," "a gospel army," were their frequent phrases. in their prayer-meetings there was always a mingling, often quaint enough, of the warlike and the pious. "if each one of us was a praying man," said corporal thomas long in a sermon, "it appears to me that we could fight as well with prayers as with bullets,--for the lord has said that if you have faith even as a grain of mustard-seed cut into four parts, you can say to the sycamore-tree, arise, and it will come up." and though corporal long may have got a little perplexed in his botany, his faith proved itself by works, for he volunteered and went many miles on a solitary scouting expedition into the enemy's country in florida, and got back safe, after i had given him up for lost. the extremes of religious enthusiasm i did not venture to encourage, for i could not do it honestly; neither did i discourage them, but simply treated them with respect, and let them have their way, so long as they did not interfere with discipline. in general they promoted it. the mischievous little drummer-boys, whose scrapes and quarrels were the torment of my existence, might be seen kneeling together in their tents to say their prayers at night, and i could hope that their slumbers were blessed by some spirit of peace, such as certainly did not rule over their waking. the most reckless and daring fellows in the regiment were perfect fatalists in theur confidence that god would watch over them, and that if they died, it would be because theur time had come. this almost excessive faith, and the love of freedom and of their families, all co-operated with their pride as soldiers to make them do their duty. i could not have spared any of these incentives. those of our officers who were personally the least influenced by such considerations, still saw the need of encouraging them among the men. i am bound to say that this strongly devotional turn was not always accompanied by the practical virtues; but neither was it strikingly divorced from them. a few men, i remember, who belonged to the ancient order of hypocrites, but not many. old jim cushman was our favorite representative scamp. he used to vex his righteous soul over the admission of the unregenerate to prayer-meetings, and went off once shaking his head and muttering, "too much goat shout wid de sheep." but he who objected to this profane admixture used to get our mess-funds far more hopelessly mixed with his own, when he went out to buy chickens. and i remember that, on being asked by our major, in that semi-ethiopian dialect into which we sometimes slid, "how much wife you got, jim?" the veteran replied, with a sort of penitence for lost opportunities, "on'y but four, sah!" another man of somewhat similar quality went among us by the name of henry ward beecher, from a remarkable resemblance in face and figure to that sturdy divine. i always felt a sort of admiration for this worthy, because of the thoroughness with which he outwitted me, and the sublime impudence in which he culminated. he got a series of passes from me, every week or two, to go and see his wife on a neighboring plantation, and finally, when this resource seemed exhausted, he came boldly for one more pass, that he might go and be married. we used to quote _him_ a good deal, also, as a sample of a certain shakespearian boldness of personification in which the men sometimes indulged. once, i remember, his captain had given him a fowling-piece to clean. henry ward had left it in the captain's tent, and the latter, finding it, had transferred the job to some one else. then came a confession, in this precise form, with many dignified gesticulations:-- "cappen! i took dat gun, and i put bun in cappen tent. den i look, and de gun not dar! den conscience say, cappen mus' hab gib dat gun to somebody else for clean. den i say, conscience, you reason correck." compare lancelot gobbo's soliloquy in the "two gentlemen of verona"! still, i maintain that, as a whole, the men were remarkably free from inconvenient vices. there was no more lying and stealing than in average white regiments. the surgeon was not much troubled by shamming sickness, and there were not a great many complaints of theft. there was less quarrelling than among white soldiers, and scarcely ever an instance of drunkenness. perhaps the influence of their officers had something to do with this; for not a ration of whiskey was ever issued to the men, nor did i ever touch it, while in the army, nor approve a requisition for any of the officers, without which it could not easily be obtained. in this respect our surgeons fortunately agreed with me, and we never had reason to regret it. i believe the use of ardent spirits to be as useless and injurious in the army as on board ship, and among the colored troops, especially, who had never been accustomed to it, i think that it did only harm. the point of greatest laxity in their moral habits--the want of a high standard of chastity--was not one which affected their camp life to any great extent, and it therefore came less under my observation. but i found to my relief that, whatever their deficiency in this respect, it was modified by the general quality of their temperament, and indicated rather a softening and relaxation than a hardening and brutalizing of their moral natures. any insult or violence in this direction was a thing unknown. i never heard of an instance. it was not uncommon for men to have two or three wives in different plantations,--the second, or remoter, partner being called a "'broad wife,"--i.e. wife abroad. but the whole tendency was toward marriage, and this state of things was only regarded as a bequest from "mas'r time." i knew a great deal about their marriages, for they often consulted me, and took my counsel as lovers are wont to do,--that is, when it pleased their fancy. sometimes they would consult their captains first, and then come to me in despairing appeal. "cap'n scroby [trowbridge] he acvise me not for marry dis lady, 'cause she hab seben chil'en. what for use? cap'n scroby can't lub for me. i mus' lub for myself, and i lub he." i remember that on this occasion "he" stood by, a most unattractive woman, jet black, with an old pink muslin dress, torn white cotton gloves, and a very flowery bonnet, that must have descended through generations of tawdry mistresses. i felt myself compelled to reaffirm the decision of the inferior court. the result was as usual. they were married the next day, and i believe that she proved an excellent wife, though she had seven children, whose father was also in the regiment. if she did not, i know many others who did, and certainly i have never seen more faithful or more happy marriages than among that people. the question was often asked, whether the southern slaves or the northern free blacks made the best soldiers. it was a compliment to both classes that each officer usually preferred those whom he had personally commanded. i preferred those who had been slaves, for their greater docility and affectionateness, for the powerful stimulus which their new freedom gave, and for the fact that they were fighting, in a manner, for their own homes and firesides. every one of these considerations afforded a special aid to discipline, and cemented a peculiar tie of sympathy between them and their officers. they seemed like clansmen, and had a more confiding and filial relation to us than seemed to me to exist in the northern colored regiments. so far as the mere habits of slavery went, they were a poor preparation for military duty. inexperienced officers often assumed that, because these men had been slaves before enlistment, they would bear to be treated as such afterwards. experience proved the contrary. the more strongly we marked the difference between the slave and the soldier, the better for the regiment. one half of military duty lies in obedience, the other half in self-respect. a soldier without self-respect is worthless. consequently there were no regiments in which it was so important to observe the courtesies and proprieties of military life as in these. i had to caution the officers to be more than usually particular in returning the salutations of the men; to be very careful in their dealings with those on picket or guard-duty; and on no account to omit the titles of the non-commissioned officers. so, in dealing out punishments, we had carefully to avoid all that was brutal and arbitrary, all that savored of the overseer. any such dealing found them as obstinate and contemptuous as was topsy when miss ophelia undertook to chastise her. a system of light punishments, rigidly administered according to the prescribed military forms, had more weight with them than any amount of angry severity. to make them feel as remote as possible from the plantation, this was essential. by adhering to this, and constantly appealing to their pride as soldiers and their sense of duty, we were able to maintain a high standard of discipline,--so, at least, the inspecting officers said,--and to get rid, almost entirely, of the more degrading class of punishments,--standing on barrels, tying up by the thumbs, and the ball and chain. in all ways we had to educate their self-respect. for instance, at first they disliked to obey their own non-commissioned officers. "i don't want him to play de white man ober me," was a sincere objection. they had been so impressed with a sense of inferiority that the distinction extended to the very principles of honor. "i ain't got colored-man principles," said corporal london simmons, indignantly defending himself from some charge before me. "i'se got white-gemman principles. i'se do my best. if cap'n tell me to take a man, s'pose de man be as big as a house, i'll clam hold on him till i die, inception [excepting] i'm sick." but it was plain that this feeling was a bequest of slavery, which military life would wear off. we impressed it upon them that they did not obey their officers because they were white, but because they were their officers, just as the captain must obey me, and i the general; that we were all subject to military law, and protected by it in turn. then we taught them to take pride in having good material for noncommissioned officers among themselves, and in obeying them. on my arrival there was one white first sergeant, and it was a question whether to appoint others. this i prevented, but left that one, hoping the men themselves would at last petition for his removal, which at length they did. he was at once detailed on other duty. the picturesqueness of the regiment suffered, for he was very tall and fair, and i liked to see him step forward in the centre when the line of first sergeants came together at dress-parade. but it was a help to discipline to eliminate the saxon, for it recognized a principle. afterwards i had excellent battalion-drills without a single white officer, by way of experiment; putting each company under a sergeant, and going through the most difficult movements, such as division-columns and oblique-squares. and as to actual discipline, it is doing no injustice to the line-officers of the regiment to say that none of them received from the men more implicit obedience than color-sergeant rivers. i should have tried to obtain commissions for him and several others before i left the regiment, had their literary education been sufficient; and such an attempt was finally made by lieutenant-colonel trowbridge, my successor in immediate command, but it proved unsuccessful. it always seemed to me an insult to those brave men to have novices put over their heads, on the ground of color alone; and the men felt it the more keenly as they remained longer in service. there were more than seven hundred enlisted men in the regiment, when mustered out after more than three years' service. the ranks had been kept full by enlistment, but there were only fourteen line-officers instead of the full thirty. the men who should have filled those vacancies were doing duty as sergeants in the ranks. in what respect were the colored troops a source of disappointment? to me in one respect only,--that of health. their health improved, indeed, as they grew more familiar with military life; but i think that neither their physical nor moral temperament gave them that toughness, that obstinate purpose of living, which sustains the more materialistic anglo-saxon. they had not, to be sure, the same predominant diseases, suffering in the pulmonary, not in the digestive organs; but they suffered a good deal. they felt malaria less, but they were more easily choked by dust and made ill by dampness. on the other hand, they submitted more readily to sanitary measures than whites, and, with efficient officers, were more easily kept clean. they were injured throughout the army by an undue share of fatigue duty, which is not only exhausting but demoralizing to a soldier; by the un-suitableness of the rations, which gave them salt meat instead of rice and hominy; and by the lack of good medical attendance. their childlike constitutions peculiarly needed prompt and efficient surgical care; but almost all the colored troops were enlisted late in the war, when it was hard to get good surgeons for any regiments, and especially for these. in this respect i had nothing to complain of, since there were no surgeons in the army for whom i would have exchanged my own. and this late arrival on the scene affected not only the medical supervision of the colored troops, but their opportunity for a career. it is not my province to write their history, nor to vindicate them, nor to follow them upon those larger fields compared with which the adventures of my regiment appear but a partisan warfare. yet this, at least, may be said. the operations on the south atlantic coast, which long seemed a merely subordinate and incidental part of the great contest, proved to be one of the final pivots on which it turned. all now admit that the fate of the confederacy was decided by sherman's march to the sea. port royal was the objective point to which he marched, and he found the department of the south, when he reached it, held almost exclusively by colored troops. next to the merit of those who made the march was that of those who held open the door. that service will always remain among the laurels of the black regiments. chapter . conclusion my personal forebodings proved to be correct, and so were the threats of the surgeons. in may, , i went home invalided, was compelled to resign in october from the same cause, and never saw the first south carolina again. nor did any one else see it under that appellation, for about that time its name was changed to the thirty-third united states colored troops, "a most vague and heartless baptism," as the man in the story says. it was one of those instances of injudicious sacrifice of _esprit de corps_ which were so frequent in our army. all the pride of my men was centred in "de fus' souf"; the very words were a recognition of the loyal south as against the disloyal. to make the matter worse, it had been originally designed to apply the new numbering only to the new regiments, and so the early numbers were all taken up before the older regiments came in. the governors of states, by especial effort, saved their colored troops from this chagrin; but we found here, as more than once before, the disadvantage of having no governor to stand by us. "it's a far cry to loch awe," said the highland proverb. we knew to our cost that it was a far cry to washington in those days, unless an officer left his duty and stayed there all the time. in june, , the regiment was ordered to folly island, and remained there and on cole's island till the siege of charleston was done. it took part in the battle of honey hill, and in the capture of a fort on james island, of which corporal robert vendross wrote triumphantly in a letter, "when we took the pieces we found that we recapt our own pieces back that we lost on willtown revear (river) and thank the lord did not lose but seven men out of our regiment." in february, , the regiment was ordered to charleston to do provost and guard duty, in march to savannah, in june to hamburg and aiken, in september to charleston and its neighborhood, and was finally mustered out of service--after being detained beyond its three years, so great was the scarcity of troops--on the th of february, . with dramatic fitness this muster-out took place at fort wagner, above the graves of shaw and his men. i give in the appendix the farewell address of lieutenant-colonel trowbridge, who commanded the regiment from the time i left it. brevet brigadier-general w. t. bennett, of the one hundred and second united states colored troops, who was assigned to the command, never actually held it, being always in charge of a brigade. the officers and men are scattered far and wide. one of our captains was a member of the south carolina constitutional convention, and is now state treasurer; three of our sergeants were in that convention, including sergeant prince rivers; and he and sergeant henry hayne are still members of the state legislature. both in that state and hi florida the former members of the regiment are generally prospering, so far as i can hear. the increased self-respect of army life fitted them to do the duties of civil life. it is not in nature that the jealousy of race should die out in this generation, but i trust they will not see the fulfilment of corporal simon cram's prediction. simon was one of the shrewdest old fellows in the regiment, and he said to me once, as he was jogging out of beaufort behind me, on the shell road, "i'se goin' to leave de souf, cunnel, when de war is over. i'se made up my mind dat dese yere secesh will neber be cibilized in my time." the only member of the regiment whom i have seen since leaving it is a young man, cyrus wiggins, who was brought off from the main-land in a dug-out, in broad day, before the very eyes of the rebel pickets, by captain james s. rogers, of my regiment. it was one of the most daring acts i ever saw, and as it happened under my own observation i was glad when the captain took home with him this "captive of his bow and spear" to be educated under his eye in massachusetts. cyrus has done credit to his friends, and will be satisfied with nothing short of a college-training at howard university. i have letters from the men, very quaint in handwriting and spelling; but he is the only one whom i have seen. some time i hope to revisit those scenes, and shall feel, no doubt, like a bewildered rip van winkle who once wore uniform. we who served with the black troops have this peculiar satisfaction, that, whatever dignity or sacredness the memories of the war may have to others, they have more to us. in that contest all the ordinary ties of patriotism were the same, of course, to us as to the rest; they had no motives which we had not, as they have now no memories which are not also ours. but the peculiar privilege of associating with an outcast race, of training it to defend its rights and to perform its duties, this was our especial meed. the vacillating policy of the government sometimes filled other officers with doubt and shame; until the negro had justice, they were but defending liberty with one hand and crushing it with the other. from this inconsistency we were free. whatever the government did, we at least were working in the right direction. if this was not recognized on our side of the lines, we knew that it was admitted on the other. fighting with ropes round our necks, denied the ordinary courtesies of war till we ourselves compelled then: concession, we could at least turn this outlawry into a compliment. we had touched the pivot of the war. whether this vast and dusky mass should prove the weakness of the nation or its strength, must depend in great measure, we knew, upon our efforts. till the blacks were armed, there was no guaranty of their freedom. it was their demeanor under arms that shamed the nation into recognizing them as men. appendix appendix a roster of officers first south carolina volunteers, afterwards thirty-third united states colored troops. colonels t. w. higginson, st mass. vols., nov. , ; resigned, oct. , . wm. t. bennett, d u. s. c. t., dec. , ; mustered out with regiment lieutenant-colonels liberty billings, civil life, nov. , ; dismissed by examining board, july , . john d. strong, promotion, july , ; resigned, aug. , . chas. t. trowbridge, promotion, dec. , ; mustered out, &c. majors john d. strong, civil life, oct. , ; lt-col., july , . chas. t. trowbridge, promotion, aug. , ; lt.-col., dec. , . h. a. whttney, promotion, dec. , ; mustered out, &c. surgeons seth rogers, civil life, dec. , ; resigned, dec. , . wm. b. crandall, th ct, june , ; mustered out, &c. assistant surgeons j. m. hawks, civil life, oct , ; surgeon d s. c. vols., oct. , . thos. t. minor, th ct., jan. , ; resigned, nov. , . e. s. stuard, civil life, sept. , ; mustered out, &c. chaplain jas. h. fowler, civil life, oct. , ; mustered out, &c. captains chas. t. trowbridge, n. y. vol. eng., oct. , ; major, aug. , . wm. james, th pa., oct. , ; mustered out, &c. w. j. randolph, th pa., oct. , ; resigned, jan. , . h. a. whitney, th me., oct. , ; major, dec. , . alex. heasley, th pa., oct , ; killed at augusta, ga., sept. , . george dolly, th me., nov. , ; resigned, oct. , . l. w. metcalf, th me., nov. , ; mustered out, &c. jas. h. tonking, n. y. vol. eng., nov. , ; resigned, july , . jas. s. rogers, st mass., dec. , ; resigned, oct. , . j. h. thibadeau, promotion, jan. , ; mustered out, &c. george d. walker, promotion, july , ; resigned, sept , . wm. h. danilson, promotion, july , ; major th u. s. c. t., may, [now st lt th u. s. infantry]. wm. w. sampson, promotion, nov. , ; mustered out, &c. john m. thompson, promotion, nov. , ; mustered out, &c. [now st lt. and bvt capt. th u. s. infy.] abr. w. jackson, promotion, april , ; resigned, aug. , . niles g. parker, promotion, feb., ; mustered out, &c. chas. w. hooper, promotion, sept, ; mustered out, &c. e. c. mermam, promotion, sept., ; resigned, dec. , . e. w. robbins, promotion, nov. , ; mustered out, &c. n. s. white, promotion, nov. , ; mustered out, &c. first lieutenants g. w. dewhurst (adjutant), civil life, oct , ; resigned, aug. , . j. m. binoham (quartermaster), civil life, oct. , ; died from effect of exhaustion on a military expedition, july , . g. m. chamberun (quartermaster), llth mass. battery, aug. , ; mustered out, &c. geo. d. walker, n. y. vol eng., oct , ; captain, aug. , . w. h. danilson, th n. y., oct , ; captain, july , . j. h. thtbadeau, th me., oct , ; captain, jan. , . ephraim p. white, th me., nov. , ; resigned, march , . jas. pomeroy, th pa., oct , ; resigned, feb. , . jas. f. johnston, th pa., oct , ; resigned, march , . jesse fisher, th n. y., oct , ; resigned, jan. , . chas. i. davis, th me., oct , ; resigned, feb. , . wm. stockdale, th me., oct , ; resigned, may , . jas. b. o'neil, promotion, jan. , ; resigned, may , . w. w. sampson, promotion, jan. , ; captain, oct , . j. m. thompson, promotion, jan. , ; captain, oct. , . r. m. gaston, promotion, april , ; killed at coosaw ferry, s. c., may , . jas. b. west, promotion, feb. , ; resigned, june , . n. g. parker, promotion, may , ; captain, feb., . w. h. hyde, promotion, may , ; resigned, april , . henry a. stone, th me., june , ; resigned, dec. , . j. a. trowbrtdge, promotion, aug. , ; resigned, nov. , . a. w. jackson, promotion, aug. , ; captain, april , . chas. e. parker, promotion, aug. , ; resigned, nov. , . chas. w. hooper, promotion, nov. , ; captain, sept., . e. c. merriam, promotion, nov. , ; captain, sept., . henry a. beach, promotion, april , ; resigned, sept , . e. w. robbins, promotion, april , ; captain, nov. , . asa child, promotion, sept, ; mastered out, &c. n. s. white, promotion, sept, ; captain, nov. , . f. s. goodrich, promotion, oct., ; mustered out, &c. e. w. hyde, promotion, oct , ; mustered out, &c. henry wood, promotion, nov., ; mustered out, &c. second lieutenants j. a. trowbmdge, n. y. vol. eng., oct , ; first lt, aug. , . jas. b. o-nbil, st u. s. art'y, oct , ; first lt, jan. , . w. w. sampson, th me., oct , ; first lt, jan , . j. m. thompson, th n. h., oct , ; first lt, jan. , . r. m. gaston, th pa., oct. , ; first lt, april , . w. h. hyde, th ct, oct , ; first lt, may , . jas. b. west, th pa., oct. . ; first lt, feb. , . harry c. west, th pa., oct , ; resigned, nov. , . e. c. merriam, th me., nov. , ; first lt., nov. , . chas. e. parker, th me., nov. , ; first lt, aug. , . c. w. hooper, n. y. vol. eng., feb. , ; first lt, april , . n. g. parker, st mass. cavalry, march, ; first lt, may , . a. h. tirrell, st mass. cav., march , ; resigned, july , . a. w. jackson, th me., march , ; first lt, aug. , . henry a. beach, th n. y., april , ; first lt, april , . e. w. robbins, th me., april , ; first lt, april , . a. b. brown, civil life, april , ; resigned, nov. , . f. m. gould, d r. i. battery, june , ; resigned, june , . asa child, th me., aug. , ; first lt, sept., . jerome t. furman, d pa., aug. , ; killed at walhalla, s. c., aug. , . john w. selvage, th n. y., sept , ; first lt. th u. s. c. t., march, . mirand w. saxton, civil life, nov. , ; captain th u. s. c. t., june , [now second lt th u. s. infantry]. nelson s. white, dec. , ; first lt, sept., . edw. w. hyde, civil life, may , ; first lt, oct. , . f. s. goodrich, th n. y., may, ; first lt., oct., . b. h. manning, aug. , ; capt th u. s. c. t., march , . r. m. davis, th mass. cavalry, nov. , ; capt. th u. s. c. t., may , . henry wood, n. y. vol. eng., aug., ; first lt, nov., . john m. seakles, st n. y. mounted rifles, june , ; mustered out, &c. appendix b the first black soldiers it is well known that the first systematic attempt to organize colored troops during the war of the rebellion was the so-called "hunter regiment." the officer originally detailed to recruit for this purpose was sergeant c. t. trowbridge, of the new york volunteer engineers (col. serrell). his detail was dated may , , s. o. dept. south. enlistments came in very slowly, and no wonder. the white officers and soldiers were generally opposed to the experiment, and filled the ears of the negroes with the same tales which had been told them by their masters,--that the yankees really meant to sell them to cuba, and the like. the mildest threats were that they would be made to work without pay (which turned out to be the case), and that they would be put in the front rank in every battle. nobody could assure them that they and their families would be freed by the government, if they fought for it, since no such policy had been adopted. nevertheless, they gradually enlisted, the most efficient recruiting officer being sergeant william bronson, of company a, in my regiment, who always prided himself on this service, and used to sign himself by the very original title, "no. , african foundations" in commemoration of his deeds. by patience and tact these obstacles would in time have been overcome. but before long, unfortunately, some of general hunter's staff became impatient, and induced him to take the position that the blacks _must_ enlist. accordingly, squads of soldiers were sent to seize all the able-bodied men on certain plantations, and bring them to the camp. the immediate consequence was a renewal of the old suspicion, ending in a widespread belief that they were to be sent to cuba, as their masters had predicted. the ultimate result was a habit of distrust, discontent, and desertion, that it was almost impossible to surmount. all the men who knew anything about general hunter believed in him; but they all knew that there were bad influences around him, and that the government had repudiated his promises. they had been kept four months in service, and then had been dismissed without pay. that having been the case, why should not the government equally repudiate general saxton's promises or mine? as a matter of fact, the government did repudiate these pledges for years, though we had its own written authority to give them. but that matter needs an appendix by itself. the "hunter regiment" remained in camp on hilton head island until the beginning of august, , kept constantly under drill, but much demoralized by desertion. it was then disbanded, except one company. that company, under command of sergeant trowbridge, then acting as captain, but not commissioned, was kept in service, and was sent (august , ) to garrison st. simon's island, on the coast of georgia. on this island (made famous by mrs. kemble's description) there were then five hundred colored people, and not a single white man. the black soldiers were sent down on the ben de ford, captain hallett. on arriving, trowbridge was at once informed by commodore goldsborough, naval commander at that station, that there was a party of rebel guerillas on the island, and was asked whether he would trust his soldiers in pursuit of them. trowbridge gladly assented; and the commodore added, "if you should capture them, it will be a great thing for you." they accordingly went on shore, and found that the colored men of the island had already undertaken the enterprise. twenty-five of them had armed themselves, under the command of one of their own number, whose name was john brown. the second in command was edward gould, who was afterwards a corporal in my own regiment the rebel party retreated before these men, and drew them into a swamp. there was but one path, and the negroes entered single file. the rebels lay behind a great log, and fired upon them. john brown, the leader, fell dead within six feet of the log,--probably the first black man who fell under arms in the war,--several other were wounded, and the band of raw recruits retreated; as did also the rebels, in the opposite direction. this was the first armed encounter, so far as i know, between the rebels and their former slaves; and it is worth noticing that the attempt was a spontaneous thing and not accompanied by any white man. the men were not soldiers, nor in uniform, though some of them afterwards enlisted in trowbridge's company. the father of this john brown was afterwards a soldier in my regiment; and, after his discharge for old age, was, for a time, my servant. "uncle york," as we called him, was as good a specimen of a saint as i have ever met, and was quite the equal of mrs. stowe's "uncle tom." he was a fine-looking old man, with dignified and courtly manners, and his gray head was a perfect benediction, as he sat with us on the platform at our sunday meetings. he fully believed, to his dying day, that the "john brown song" related to his son, and to him only. trowbridge, after landing on the island, hunted the rebels all day with his colored soldiers, and a posse of sailors. in one place, he found by a creek a canoe, with a tar-kettle, and a fire burning; and it was afterwards discovered that, at that very moment, the guerillas were hid in a dense palmetto thicket, near by, and so eluded pursuit the rebel leader was one miles hazard, who had a plantation on the island, and the party escaped at last through the aid of his old slave, henry, who found them a boat one of my sergeants, clarence kennon, who had not then escaped from slavery, was present when they reached the main-land; and he described them as being tattered and dirty from head to foot, after their efforts to escape their pursuers. when the troops under my command occupied jacksonville, fla., in march of the following year, we found at the railroad station, packed for departure, a box of papers, some of them valuable. among them was a letter from this very hazard to some friend, describing the perils of that adventure, and saying, "if you wish to know hell before your time, go to st simon's and be hunted ten days by niggers." i have heard trowbridge say that not one of his men flinched; and they seemed to take delight in the pursuit, though the weather was very hot, and it was fearfully exhausting. this was early in august; and the company remained two months at st simon's, doing picket duty within hearing of the rebel drums, though not another scout ever ventured on the island, to their knowledge. every saturday trowbridge summoned the island people to drill with his soldiers; and they came in hordes, men, women, and children, in every imaginable garb, to the number of one hundred and fifty or two hundred. his own men were poorly clothed and hardly shod at all; and, as no new supply of uniform was provided, they grew more and more ragged. they got poor rations, and no pay; but they kept up their spirits. every week or so some of them would go on scouting excursions to the main-land; one scout used to go regularly to his old mother's hut, and keep himself hid under her bed, while she collected for him all the latest news of rebel movements. this man never came back without bringing recruits with him. at last the news came that major-general mitchell had come to relieve general hunter, and that brigadier-general saxton had gone north; and trowbridge went to hilton head in some anxiety to see if he and his men were utterly forgotten. he prepared a report, showing the services and claims of his men, and took it with him. this was early in october, . the first person he met was brigadier-general saxton, who informed him that he had authority to organize five thousand colored troops, and that he (trowbridge) should be senior captain of the first regiment this was accordingly done; and company a of the first south carolina could honestly claim to date its enlistment back to may, , although they never got pay for that period of their service, and their date of muster was november, is, . the above facts were written down from the narration of lieutenant-colonel trowbridge, who may justly claim to have been the first white officer to recruit and command colored troops in this war. he was constantly in command of them from may , , to february , . except the louisiana soldiers mentioned in the introduction,--of whom no detailed reports have, i think, been published,--my regiment was unquestionably the first mustered into the service of the united states; the first company muster bearing date, november , , and the others following in quick succession. the second regiment in order of muster was the "first kansas colored," dating from january , . the first enlistment in the kansas regiment goes back to august , ; while the earliest technical date of enlistment in my regiment was october , , although, as was stated above, one company really dated its organization back to may, . my muster as colonel dates back to november , , several months earlier than any other of which i am aware, among colored regiments, except that of colonel stafford (first louisiana native guards), september , . colonel williams, of the "first kansas colored," was mustered as lieutenant-colonel on january , ; as colonel, march , . these dates i have (with the other facts relating to the regiment) from colonel r. j. hinton, the first officer detailed to recruit it. to sum up the above facts: my late regiment had unquestioned priority in muster over all but the louisiana regiments. it had priority over those in the actual organization and term of service of one company. on the other hand, the kansas regiment had the priority in average date of enlistment, according to the muster-rolls. the first detachment of the second south carolina volunteers (colonel montgomery) went into camp at port royal island, february , , numbering one hundred and twenty men. i do not know the date of his muster; it was somewhat delayed, but was probably dated back to about that time. recruiting for the fifty-fourth massachusetts (colored) began on february , , and the first squad went into camp at readville, massachusetts, on february , , numbering twenty-five men. colonel shaw's commission (and probably his muster) was dated april , . (report of adjutant-general of massachusetts for , pp. - .) these were the earliest colored regiments, so far as i know. appendix c general saxton's instructions [the following are the instructions under which my regiment was raised. it will be seen how unequivocal were the provisions in respect to pay, upon which so long and weary a contest was waged by our friends in congress, before the fulfilment of the contract could be secured.] war department, washington city, d. c., august , . general, your despatch of the th has this moment been received. it is considered by the department that the instructions given at the time of your appointment were sufficient to enable you to do what you have now requested authority for doing. but in order to place your authority beyond all doubt, you are hereby authorized and instructed, st, to organize in any convenient organization, by squads, companies, battalions, regiments, and brigades, or otherwise, colored persons of african descent for volunteer laborers, to a number not exceeding fifty thousand, and muster them into the service of the united states for the term of the war, at a rate of compensation not exceeding five dollars per month for common laborers, and eight dollars per month for mechanical or skilled laborers, and assign them to the quartermaster's department, to do and perform such laborer's duty as may be required during the present war, and to be subject to the rules and articles of war. d. the laboring forces herein authorized shall, under the order of the general-in-chief, or of this department, be detailed by the quartermaster-general for laboring service with the armies of the united states; and they shall be clothed and subsisted, after enrolment, in the same manner as other persons in the quartermaster's service. d. in view of the small force under your command, and the inability of the government at the present time to increase it, in order to guard the plantations and settlements occupied by the united states from invasion, and protect the inhabitants thereof from captivity and murder by the enemy, you are also authorized to arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the united states, such number of volunteers of african descent as you may deem expedient, not exceeding five thousand, and may detail officers to instruct them in military drill, discipline, and duty, and to command them. the persons so received into service, and their officers, to be entitled to, and receive, the same pay and rations as are allowed, by law, to volunteers in the service. th. you will occupy, if possible, all the islands and plantations heretofore occupied by the government, and secure and harvest the crops, and cultivate and improve the plantations. th. the population of african descent that cultivate the lands and perform the labor of the rebels constitute a large share of their military strength, and enable the white masters to fill the rebel armies, and wage a cruel and murderous war against the people of the northern states. by reducing the laboring strength of the rebels, their military power will be reduced. you are therefore authorized by every means in your power, to withdraw from the enemy their laboring force and population, and to spare no effort, consistent with civilized warfare, to weaken, harass, and annoy them, and to establish the authority of the government of the united states within your department. th. you may turn over to the navy any number of colored volunteers that may be required for the naval service. th. by recent act of congress, all men and boys received into the service of the united states, who may have been the slaves of rebel masters, are, with their wives, mothers, and children, declared to be forever free. you and all in your command will so treat and regard them. yours truly, edwin m. stanton, secretary of war. brigadier-general saxton. appendix d the struggle for pay the story of the attempt to cut down the pay of the colored troops is too long, too complicated, and too humiliating, to be here narrated. in the case of my regiment there stood on record the direct pledge of the war department to general saxton that their pay should be the same as that of whites. so clear was this that our kind paymaster, major w. j. wood, of new jersey, took upon himself the responsibility of paying the price agreed upon, for five months, till he was compelled by express orders to reduce it from thirteen dollars per month to ten dollars, and from that to seven dollars,--the pay of quartermaster's men and day-laborers. at the same time the "stoppages" from the pay-rolls for the loss of all equipments and articles of clothing remained the same as for all other soldiers, so that it placed the men in the most painful and humiliating condition. many of them had families to provide for, and between the actual distress, the sense of wrong, the taunts of those who had refused to enlist from the fear of being cheated, and the doubt how much farther the cheat might be carried, the poor fellows were goaded to the utmost. in the third south carolina regiment, sergeant william walker was shot, by order of court-marital, for leading his company to stack arms before their captain's tent, on the avowed ground that they were released from duty by the refusal of the government to fulfill its share of the contract. the fear of such tragedies spread a cloud of solicitude over every camp of colored soldiers for more than a year, and the following series of letters will show through what wearisome labors the final triumph of justice was secured. in these labors the chief credit must be given to my admirable adjutant, lieutenant g. w. dewhurst in the matter of bounty justice is not yet obtained; there is a discrimination against those colored soldiers who were slaves on april , . every officer, who through indolence or benevolent design claimed on his muster-rolls that all his men had been free on that day, secured for them the bounty; while every officer who, like myself, obeyed orders and told the truth in each case, saw his men and their families suffer for it, as i have done. a bill to abolish this distinction was introduced by mr. wilson at the last session, but failed to pass the house. it is hoped that next winter may remove this last vestige of the weary contest to show how persistently and for how long a period these claims had to be urged on congress, i reprint such of my own printed letters on the subject as are now in my possession. there are one or two of which i have no copies. it was especially in the senate that it was so difficult to get justice done; and our thanks will always be especially due to hon. charles sumner and hon. henry wilson for their advocacy of our simple rights. the records of those sessions will show who advocated the fraud. to the editor of the _new york tribune_: sir,--no one can overstate the intense anxiety with which the officers of colored regiments in this department are awaiting action from congress in regard to arrears of pay of their men. it is not a matter of dollars and cents only; it is a question of common honesty,--whether the united states government has sufficient integrity for the fulfillment of an explicit business contract. the public seems to suppose that all required justice will be done by the passage of a bill equalizing the pay of all soldiers for the future. but, so far as my own regiment is concerned, this is but half the question. my men have been nearly sixteen months in the service, and for them the immediate issue is the question of arrears. they understand the matter thoroughly, if the public do not every one of them knows that he volunteered under an explicit _written assurance_ from the war department that he should have the pay of a white soldier. he knows that for five months the regiment received that pay, after which it was cut down from the promised thirteen dollars per month to ten dollars, for some reason to him inscrutable. he does _not_ know for i have not yet dared to tell the men--that the paymaster has been already reproved by the pay department for fulfilling even in part the pledges of the war department; that at the next payment the ten dollars are to be further reduced to seven; and that, to crown the whole, all the previous overpay is to be again deducted or "stopped" from the future wages, thus leaving them a little more than a dollar a month for six months to come, unless congress interfere! yet so clear were the terms of the contract that mr. solicitor whiting, having examined the original instructions from the war department issued to brigadier-general saxton, military governor, admits to me (under date of december , ,) that "the faith of the government was thereby pledged to every officer and soldier enlisted under that call." he goes on to express the generous confidence that "the pledge will be honorably fulfilled." i observe that every one at the north seems to feel the same confidence, but that, meanwhile, the pledge is unfulfilled. nothing is said in congress about fulfilling it. i have not seen even a proposition in congress to pay the colored soldiers, _from date of enlistment_, the same pay with white soldiers; and yet anything short of that is an unequivocal breach of contract, so far as this regiment is concerned. meanwhile, the land sales are beginning, and there is danger of every foot of land being sold from beneath my soldiers' feet, because they have not the petty sum which government first promised, and then refused to pay. the officers' pay comes promptly and fully enough, and this makes the position more embarrassing. for how are we to explain to the men the mystery that government can afford us a hundred or two dollars a month, and yet must keep back six of the poor thirteen which it promised them? does it not naturally suggest the most cruel suspicions in regard to us? and yet nothing but their childlike faith in their officers, and in that incarnate soul of honor, general saxton, has sustained their faith, or kept them patient, thus far. there is nothing mean or mercenary about these men in general. convince them that the government actually needs their money, and they would serve it barefooted and on half-rations, and without a dollar--for a time. but, unfortunately, they see white soldiers beside them, whom they know to be in no way their superiors for any military service, receiving hundreds of dollars for re-enlisting for this impoverished government, which can only pay seven dollars out of thirteen to its black regiments. and they see, on the other hand, those colored men who refused to volunteer as soldiers, and who have found more honest paymasters than the united states government, now exulting in well-filled pockets, and able to buy the little homesteads the soldiers need, and to turn the soldiers' families into the streets. is this a school for self-sacrificing patriotism? i should not speak thus urgently were it not becoming manifest that there is to be no promptness of action in congress, even as regards the future pay of colored soldiers,--and that there is especial danger of the whole matter of _arrears_ going by default should it be so, it will be a repudiation more ungenerous than any which jefferson davis advocated or sydney smith denounced. it will sully with dishonor all the nobleness of this opening page of history, and fix upon the north a brand of meanness worse than either southerner or englishman has yet dared to impute. the mere delay in the fulfillment of this contract has already inflicted untold suffering, has impaired discipline, has relaxed loyalty, and has begun to implant a feeling of sullen distrust in the very regiments whose early career solved the problem of the nation, created a new army, and made peaceful emancipation possible. t. w. higginson, colonel commanding st s. c. vols. beaufort, s. c., january , . headquarters first south carolina volunteers, beaufort, s. c., sunday, february , . to the editor of the _new york times_: may i venture to call your attention to the great and cruel injustice which is impending over the brave men of this regiment? they have been in military service for over a year, having volunteered, every man, without a cent of bounty, on the written pledge of the war department that they should receive the same pay and rations with white soldiers. this pledge is contained in the written instructions of brigadier-general saxton, military governor, dated august , . mr. solicitor whiting, having examined those instructions, admits to me that "the faith of the government was thereby pledged to every officer and soldier under that call." surely, if this fact were understood, every man in the nation would see that the government is degraded by using for a year the services of the brave soldiers, and then repudiating the contract under which they were enlisted. this is what will be done, should mr. wilson's bill, legalizing the back pay of the army, be defeated. we presume too much on the supposed ignorance of these men. i have never yet found a man in my regiment so stupid as not to know when he was cheated. if fraud proceeds from government itself, so much the worse, for this strikes at the foundation of all rectitude, all honor, all obligation. mr. senator fessenden said, in the debate on mr. wilson's bill, january , that the government was not bound by the unauthorized promises of irresponsible recruiting officers. but is the government itself an irresponsible recruiting officer? and if men have volunteered in good faith on the written assurances of the secretary of war, is not congress bound, in all decency, either to fulfill those pledges or to disband the regiments? mr. senator doolittle argued in the same debate that white soldiers should receive higher pay than black ones, because the families of the latter were often supported by government what an astounding statement of fact is this! in the white regiment in which i was formerly an officer (the massachusetts fifty-first) nine tenths of the soldiers' families, in addition to the pay and bounties, drew regularly their "state aid." among my black soldiers, with half-pay and no bounty, not a family receives any aid. is there to be no limit, no end to the injustice we heap upon this unfortunate people? cannot even the fact of their being in arms for the nation, liable to die any day in its defence, secure them ordinary justice? is the nation so poor, and so utterly demoralized by its pauperism, that after it has had the lives of these men, it must turn round to filch six dollars of the monthly pay which the secretary of war promised to their widows? it is even so, if the excuses of mr. fressenden and mr. doolittle are to be accepted by congress and by the people. very respectfully, your obedient servant, t, w. higginson, colonel commanding st s. c. volunteers. new victories and old wrongs to the editors of the evening post: on the d of july, at james island, s. c., a battery was taken by three regiments, under the following circumstances: the regiments were the one hundred and third new york (white), the thirty-third united states (formerly first south carolina volunteers), and the fifty-fifth massachusetts, the two last being colored. they marched at one a. m., by the flank, in the above order, hoping to surprise the battery. as usual the rebels were prepared for them, and opened upon them as they were deep in one of those almost impassable southern marshes. the one hundred and third new york, which had previously been in twenty battles, was thrown into confusion; the thirty-third united states did better, being behind; the fifty-fifth massachusetts being in the rear, did better still. all three formed in line, when colonel hartwell, commanding the brigade, gave the order to retreat. the officer commanding the fifty-fifth massachusetts, either misunderstanding the order, or hearing it countermanded, ordered his regiment to charge. this order was at once repeated by major trowbridge, commanding the thirty-third united states, and by the commander of the one hundred and third new york, so that the three regiments reached the fort in reversed order. the color-bearers of the thirty-third united states and of the fifty-fifth massachusetts had a race to be first in, the latter winning. the one hundred and third new york entered the battery immediately after. these colored regiments are two of the five which were enlisted in south carolina and massachusetts, under the written pledge of the war department that they should have the same pay and allowances as white soldiers. that pledge has been deliberately broken by the war department, or by congress, or by both, except as to the short period, since last new-year's day. every one of those killed in this action from these two colored regiments under a fire before which the veterans of twenty battles recoiled _died defrauded by the government of nearly one half his petty pay_. mr. fessenden, who defeated in the senate the bill for the fulfillment of the contract with these soldiers, is now secretary of the treasury. was the economy of saving six dollars per man worth to the treasury the ignominy of the repudiation? mr. stevens, of pennsylvania, on his triumphal return to his constituents, used to them this language: "he had no doubt whatever as to the final result of the present contest between liberty and slavery. the only doubt he had was whether the nation had yet been satisfactorily chastised for their cruel oppression of a harmless and long-suffering race." inasmuch as it was mr. stevens himself who induced the house of representatives, most unexpectedly to all, to defeat the senate bill for the fulfillment of the national contract with these soldiers, i should think he had excellent reasons for the doubt. very respectfully, t. w. higginson, colonel st s. c. vols (now d u. s.) july , . to the editor of the _new york tribune_: no one can possibly be so weary of reading of the wrongs done by government toward the colored soldiers as am i of writing about them. this is my only excuse for intruding on your columns again. by an order of the war department, dated august , , it is at length ruled that colored soldiers shall be paid the full pay of soldiers from date of enlistment, provided they were free on april , ,--not otherwise; and this distinction is to be noted on the pay-rolls. in other words, if one half of a company escaped from slavery on april , , they are to be paid thirteen dollars per month and allowed three dollars and a half per month for clothing. if the other half were delayed two days, they receive seven dollars per month and are allowed three dollars per month for precisely the same articles of clothing. if one of the former class is made first sergeant, us pay is put up to twenty-one dollars per month; but if he escaped two days later, his pay is still estimated at seven dollars. it had not occurred to me that anything could make the payrolls of these regiments more complicated than at present, or the men more rationally discontented. i had not the ingenuity to imagine such an order. yet it is no doubt in accordance with the spirit, if not with the letter, of the final bill which was adopted by congress under the lead of mr. thaddeus stevens. the ground taken by mr. stevens apparently was that the country might honorably save a few dollars by docking the promised pay of those colored soldiers whom the war had made free. _but the government should have thought of this before it made the contract with these men and received their services_. when the war department instructed brigadier-general saxton, august , , to raise five regiments of negroes in south carolina, it was known very well that the men so enlisted had only recently gained their freedom. but the instructions said: "the persons so received into service, and their officers, to be entitled to and receive the same pay and rations as are allowed by law to volunteers in the service." of this passage mr. solicitor whiting wrote to me: "i have no hesitation in saying that the faith of the government was thereby pledged to every officer and soldier enlisted under that call." where is that faith of the government now? the men who enlisted under the pledge were volunteers, every one; they did not get their freedom by enlisting; they had it already. they enlisted to serve the government, trusting in its honor. now the nation turns upon them and says: your part of the contract is fulfilled; we have had your services. if you can show that you had previously been free for a certain length of time, we will fulfil the other side of the contract. if not, we repudiate it help yourselves, if you can. in other words, a freedman (since april , ) has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. he is incapable of making a contract no man is bound by a contract made with him. any employer, following the example of the united states government, may make with him a written agreement receive his services, and then withhold the wages. he has no motive to honest industry, or to honesty of any kind. he is virtually a slave, and nothing else, to the end of time. under this order, the greater part of the massachusetts colored regiments will get their pay at last and be able to take their wives and children out of the almshouses, to which, as governor andrew informs us, the gracious charity of the nation has consigned so many. for so much i am grateful. but toward my regiment, which had been in service and under fire, months before a northern colored soldier was recruited, the policy of repudiation has at last been officially adopted. there is no alternative for the officers of south carolina regiments but to wait for another session of congress, and meanwhile, if necessary, act as executioners for those soldiers who, like sergeant walker, refuse to fulfil their share of a contract where the government has openly repudiated the other share. if a year's discussion, however, has at length secured the arrears of pay for the northern colored regiments, possibly two years may secure it for the southern. t. w. higginson, colonel st s. c. vols. (now d v. s.) august , . to the editor of the _new york tribune_: sir,--an impression seems to prevail in the newspapers that the lately published "opinion" of attorney-general bates (dated in july last) at length secures justice to the colored soldiers in respect to arrears of pay. this impression is a mistake. that "opinion" does indeed show that there never was any excuse for refusing them justice; but it does not, of itself, secure justice to them. it _logically_ covers the whole ground, and was doubtless intended to do so; but _technically_ it can only apply to those soldiers who were free at the commencement of the war. for it was only about these that the attorney-general was officially consulted. under this decision the northern colored regiments have already got their arrears of pay,--and those few members of the southern regiments who were free on april , . but in the south carolina regiments this only increases the dissatisfaction among the remainder, who volunteered under the same pledge of full pay from the war department, and who do not see how the question of their _status_ at some antecedent period can affect an express contract if, in , they were free enough to make a bargain with, they were certainly free enough to claim its fulfilment. the unfortunate decision of mr. solicitor whiting, under which all our troubles arose, is indeed superseded by the reasoning of the attorney-general. but unhappily that does not remedy the evil, which is already embodied in an act of congress, making the distinction between those who were and those who were not free on april , . the question is, whether those who were not free at the breaking out of the war are still to be defrauded, after the attorney-general has shown that there is no excuse for defrauding them? i call it defrauding, because it is not a question of abstract justice, but of the fulfilment of an express contract i have never met with a man, whatever might be his opinions as to the enlistment of colored soldiers, who did not admit that if they had volunteered under the direct pledge of full pay from the war department, they were entitled to every cent of it. that these south carolina regiments had such direct pledge is undoubted, for it still exists in writing, signed by the secretary of war, and has never been disputed. it is therefore the plain duty of congress to repeal the law which discriminates between different classes of colored soldiers, or at least so to modify it as to secure the fulfilment of actual contracts. until this is done the nation is still disgraced. the few thousand dollars in question are nothing compared with the absolute wrong done and the discredit it has brought, both here and in europe, upon the national name. t. w. higginson, late col. st s. c. vols. (now d u. s. c. t.) newport, r. i, december , . petition "to the honorable senate and house of representatives of the united states in congress assembled: "the undersigned respectfully petitions for the repeal of so much of section iv. of the act of congress making appropriations for the army and approved july , , as makes a distinction, in respect to pay due, between those colored soldiers who were free on or before april , , and those who were not free until a later date; "or at least that there may be such legislation as to secure the fulfillment of pledges of full pay from date of enlistment, made by direct authority of the war department to the colored soldiers of south carolina, on the faith of which pledges they enlisted. "thomas wentworth higginson, late colonel st s. c. vols. (now d u. s. c. vols.) "newport, r. l, december , ." appendix e farewell address of lt. col. trowbridge headquarters d united states colored troops, late st south carolina volunteers, morris island, s. c., february , . general orders, no. . comrades,--the hour is at hand when we must separate forever, and nothing can ever take from us the pride we feel, when we look back upon the history of the first south carolina volunteers,--the first black regiment that ever bore arms in defence of freedom on the continent of america. on the ninth day of may, , at which time there were nearly four millions of your race in a bondage sanctioned by the laws of the land, and protected by our flag,--on that day, in the face of floods of prejudice, that wellnigh deluged every avenue to manhood and true liberty, you came forth to do battle for your country and your kindred. for long and weary months without pay, or even the privilege of being recognized as soldiers, you labored on, only to be disbanded and sent to your homes, without even a hope of reward. and when our country, necessitated by the deadly struggle with armed traitors, finally granted you the opportunity _again_ to come forth in defence of the nation's life, the alacrity with which you responded to the call gave abundant evidence of your readiness to strike a manly blow for the liberty of your race. and from that little band of hopeful, trusting, and brave men, who gathered at camp saxton, on port royal island, in the fall of , amidst the terrible prejudices that then surrounded us, has grown an army of a hundred and forty thousand black soldiers, whose valor and heroism has won for your race a name which will live as long as the undying pages of history shall endure; and by whose efforts, united with those of the white man, armed rebellion has been conquered, the millions of bondmen have been emancipated, and the fundamental law of the land has been so altered as to remove forever the possibility of human slavery being re-established within the borders of redeemed america. the flag of our fathers, restored to its rightful significance, now floats over every foot of our territory, from maine to california, and beholds only freemen! the prejudices which formerly existed against you are wellnigh rooted out soldiers, you have done your duty, and acquitted yourselves like men, who, actuated by such ennobling motives, could not fail; and as the result of your fidelity and obedience, you have won your freedom. and o, how great the reward! it seems fitting to me that the last hours of our existence as a regiment should be passed amidst the unmarked graves of your comrades,--at fort wagner. near you rest the bones of colonel shaw, buried by an enemy's hand, in the same grave with his black soldiers, who fell at his side; where, in future, your children's children will come on pilgrimages to do homage to the ashes of those that fell in this glorious struggle. the flag which was presented to us by the rev. george b. cheever and his congregation, of new york city, on the first of january, ,--the day when lincoln's immortal proclamation of freedom was given to the world,--and which you have borne so nobly through the war, is now to be rolled up forever, and deposited in our nation's capital. and while there it shall rest, with the battles in which you have participated inscribed upon its folds, it will be a source of pride to us all to remember that it has never been disgraced by a cowardly faltering in the hour of danger or polluted by a traitor's touch. now that you are to lay aside your arms, and return to the peaceful avocations of life, i adjure you, by the associations and history of the past, and the love you bear for your liberties, to harbor no feelings of hatred toward your former masters, but to seek in the paths of honesty, virtue, sobriety, and industry, and by a willing obedience to the laws of the land, to grow up to the full stature of american citizens. the church, the school-house, and the right forever to be free are now secured to you, and every prospect before you is full of hope and encouragement. the nation guarantees to you full protection and justice, and will require from you in return the respect for the laws and orderly deportment which will prove to every one your right to all the privileges of freemen. to the officers of the regiment i would say, your toils are ended, your mission is fulfilled, and we separate forever. the fidelity, patience, and patriotism with which you have discharged your duties, to your men and to your country, entitle you to a far higher tribute than any words of thankfulness which i can give you from the bottom of my heart you will find your reward in the proud conviction that the cause for which you have battled so nobly has been crowned with abundant success. officers and soldiers of the thirty-third united states colored troops, once the first south carolina volunteers, i bid you all farewell! by order of lt.-col. c. t. trowbridge, commanding regiment e. w. hyde, lieutenant and acting adjutant. index [page numbers have been retained for the w. w. norton paperback reprint to show relative location in file.] index aiken, william, got., aiken, south carolina, allston, adam, corp., andrew, j. a., gov., , , , sends emancipation proclamation to higginson, bates, edward, battle of the hundred pines, , beach, h. a., lt, , beaufort, south carolina, , , , , , higginson visits, negro troops march through, picket station near, residents visit camp, negro troops patrol, beauregard, p. g.t., gen., , beecher, h. r., rev., bell, louis, col., bennett, w. t., gen., , bezzard, james, bigelow, l. f., lt, billings, l., lt.-col., bingham, j. m., lt, , brannan, j. m, gen., brisbane, w. h., bronson, william, sgt, brown, a. b., lt, brown, john, , , , brown, john (negro), brown, york, bryant, j. e., capt, budd, lt, burnside, a. e., gen., , butler, b. f., gen., calhoun, j. c., capt., camplife, evening activities, - , - casualties, chamberlin, g. b., lt., , chamberlin, mrs., charleston, south carolina, attacked, , , negro troops in, charleston and savannah railway, cheever, g. b., rev., child, a. lt, christmas, , clark, capt, , , clifton, capt, , clinton, j. b., lt, colors, stands of, , confederates, use spies, , attack negro troops, - , - threaten to burn jacksonville, civilians fear negro troops, retreat, - , connecticut regiment, sixth, , , seventh, corwin, b. r., maj., , crandall, w. b., surg., crum, simon, corp., cushman, james, danilson, w. h., maj., , , davis, c. i., lt., davis., r. m., lt., davis, w. w. h., gen., department of the south, , quiet, colored troops in, desertions, dewhurst, g. w., adjt, dewhurst, mrs., discipline, need for, negroes accept, dolly, george, capt., , doolittle, j. r., drill, of negroes, , , whites, - drinking, absence of, duncan, lt. com., , dupont, s. f., admiral, , , , , , dutch, capt., edisto expedition, - , education, desire for, emancipation proclamation, read, sent to higginson, fernandina, florida, , , fessenden, w. p., , finnegan, gen., fisher, j., lt., florida, men under higginson, slaves know about lincoln, refugees from, foraging, , , , restraint in, - in florida, fowler, j. h., chap., , , , fremont, j. c., gen., , french, j., rev., , furman, j. t., lt, gage, f. d., mrs., garrison, w. l., gaston, william, lt., gilmore, q. a., gen., , , , writes on charleston, approves edisto expedition, goldsborough, commodore, , goodell, j. b., lt., goodrich, f. s., lt., , gould, e. corp., gould, f. m., lt, greeley, horace, greene, sgt, hallett, capt, , , hallowell, e. n., gen., , , hamburg, south carolina, hartwell, a. s., gen., hawks, j. m., surg., hawley, j. r., gen., , , hayne, h. e., sgt., hazard, miles, heasley, a, capt., , heron, charles, hilton head, higginson visits, troops on duty at, hinton, r. j., col., holden, lt, hooper, c. w., capt., , , , , hospital, camp, , howard university, hughes, lt. com., , , hunter, david., gen.- , , , , , , , , , , , , takes negro sgt to n.y., visits camp, speaks to negro troops, higginson confers with, orders evacuation of jacksonville, attacks charleston, goes north, hyde, e. w., lt, , , hyde, w. h., lt, , jackson, a. w., capt, , , , , jacksonville, florida confederates threaten to burn, higginson's men reach, - description of, - order to evacuate, attempts to bum, - james, william, capt., , , jekyll island, johnston, j. f., lt, jones, lt., kansas, , , kemble, fanny, , kennon, clarence, cpl., king, t. b., lambkin, prince, cpl., , leslie's illustrated weekly, lincoln, abraham, , london spectator, long, thomas, cpl, mclntyre, h., sgt., , , maine, maine regiment, eighth, , , , manning, b. h., lt, maroons, , massachusetts regiment, first, fifty-fourth, , , meeker, l., maj., , merriam, e. c., capt, , metcalf, l. w., capt, , , , , miller family, minor, t. t, surg., , mitchell, o. m., gen., montgomery, james, col., , , , enters jacksonville, river raid led by, , , moses, acting master, mulattoes, , , pass for white, - music, troops play, , - negro soldiers visited, work at night, - as sentinels, , - honor and fidelity, march to beaufort, - conduct under fire, - , - , - treatment of whites by, on picket duty, on raid up edisto, - appraisal of, - from north and south compared, negro spirituals, - negroes, traits of, , - physical condition of, , set free by higginson's men, - new hampshire regiment, fourth, , new year's celebration, , , - new york, officers, white, o'neil, j. b., lt., osborne, lt., parker, c. e., lt., parker, n. b., capt., , , parsons, william, phillips, wendell, , pomeroy, j., lt, port royal, , , capture of, as winter camp, new camp at, objective of sherman, ramsay, allan, randolph, w. j., capt, , rebels. see confederates religious activities, , , - rivers, prince, sgt., , , , qualities of, , plants colors, robbins, e. w., capt, , , roberts, samuel, rogers, j. s., capt, , , , rogers, seth, surg., , , rust, j. d., col., , , , sammis, col., st. simon's island, , sampson, w. w., capt, , , savannah, georgia, , saxton, m. w., lt., saxton, rufus, gen., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , offers command to higginson, higginson reports to, issues proclamation, receives recruits, speaks on new year's program, negroes idolize, speaks to troops, initiates plans for shaw monument, christmas party, searles, j. m., lt., sears, capt., selvage, j. m., lt, serrell, e. w., col., seward, w. h., seymour, t., gen., , shaw, r. g., col., , , camp named for, higginson meets, killed, sherman, w. t., gen., , showalter, lt.-col, "siege of charleston," simmons, london, cpl., slavery, effect of, , smalls, robert, capt, , songs, negro, , - south carolina, men under higginson, , man reads emancipation proclamation, - south carolina volunteers, first, , order to florida countermanded, becomes thirty-third u.s. colored troops, south carolina volunteers, second, , , sprague, a. b. r., col., stafford, col., stanton, e. m., steedman, capt, stevens, capt, stevens, thaddeus, , stickney, judge, , , stockdale, w, lt, stone, h. a., lt, strong, j. d., lt.-col., , , , , , , stuard, e. s., surg., sumner, charles, sunderland, col., sutton, robert, sgt, , , , , character of, - leads men, - wounded, exhibits slave jail, - court-martialed, thibadeau, j. h., capt, thompson, j. m., capt, , tirrell, a. h., lt, tobacco, use of, tonking, j. h., capt, trowbridge, c. t., lt-col., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - commands "planter," , and men construct ft montgomery, on river raid, trowbridge, j. a., lt, , tubman, harriet twichell, j. f., lt-col, , virginia vendross, robert, cpl., walker, g. d., capt, walker, william, sgt., , war department, , washington, william, watson, lt., webster, daniel, weld, s. m., west, h. c., lt, west, j. b., lt, , white, e. p., lt, white, n. s, capt, , , whiting, william, , , , whitney, h. a., maj, , , , wiggins, cyrus, williams, harry, sgt., williams, col., wilson, henry, , wilson family, wood, h., lt, , ? wood, w. j., maj., woodstock, georgia, wright, gen., , wright, fanny, yellow fever, fear of, zachos, dr.,