Chapter XXIX: Homecoming Heroes

NEW YORK GREETS HER OWN--ECSTATIC DAY FOR OLD 15TH--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 369th 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 18, 1919. 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 369th 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
15th 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 369th
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 15th 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 71st
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 15th 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 6
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 60th street, the kinsfolk and
admirers of the regimental lads began to arrive as beforehandedly
as 9 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 59th 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 15th 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 15th," 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 11:30 and had a good long wait, for at
that time the paraders had not yet left 23rd 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 11:26 when the old 15th stepped away from 23rd 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 15th, 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 15th 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 60th 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 85th,' 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 2,992 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 200 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 60th 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 65th 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 73d Street, waving a
flag and cheering at the top of his voice.

"At the corner of 86th 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 110th 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 129th 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 129th Street
and 135th 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 60th
street, had hurried uptown, and so had the Police Band, and so
there were some doings as the old 15th breezed past 135th 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 145th 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 71st
Regiment Armory at 34th Street and Fourth Avenue. Here the
galleries were filled with as many dusky citizens as could find
places (maybe 2,500 or 3,000) and so great was the crowd in the
neighborhood that the police had to block off 34th 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 15th, 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 369th. 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 8th 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.