Chapter C: K. Wilson, (2)

The 371st and 372nd Regiments of Infantry were composed of drafted troops and National Guard Organizations. Those of the former came in a large measure from South Carolina, and were trained at Camp Jackson in that State; while the latter organization was composed of the first separate battalion of Washington, D. C., Company L, of the Massachusetts N. G., the first separate company of the Connecticut State Guard, the 9th separate battalion of Ohio, and other National Guard troops from Tennessee and Maryland.

The 371st had a full quota of white commissioned officers, and colored non-commissioned officers, while the 372nd had a mixture of white and colored commissioned officers, with colored non-commissioned officers. After some heroic service on the battlefields of France, the colored commissioned officers became victims of the efficiency board, and at one fell swoop, were nearly all removed.

These two regiments saw service together in France, and became noted for their indomitable courage, and splendid fighting record.

On April 6, 1918, the 371st Infantry left our ports, and by April 26 was in the training area at Rembercourt-aux-Port, as an independent unit of the 13th French Army Corps. Afterwards they became a supporting regiment to the 68th French Division, where they remained until July 22, 1918. Between this date and September 14, 1918, they occupied the Verrieres sub-sector. Here the regiment did exceptional work, their front extending over a distance of more than five kilometers, always holding their own ground and at one time half of the front of the 333rd French Infantry on the left.

On September 14 the regiment was withdrawn from this sector and taken to the area of Holitz-l’Eveque, Champagne, and were in reserve of the 9th Army Corps of the 4th French Army, at the beginning of the great Champagne Offensive. During this great offensive the regiment suffered tremendous losses under the blistering fire and onslaught of the enemy, always carrying the attack forward in advance of the adjacent troops. Their Division Commander in forwarding a recommendation for an army citation for the regiment, remarked that they marched forward under heavy artillery fire, without faltering, and without counting their dead. Following is text of citation:

157TH DIVISION INFANTRY.
October 8th, 1918.

_From:_ Colonel Quillet, commanding the I. D.
_To:_ Colonel of the 371st U. S.

The Colonel commanding the I. D. has proposed your regiment for a
citation to the Army Corps with the following motive.

“Has shown during its first engagement the very best qualities of
bravery and audacity, which are the characteristics of shock troops.

“Under the command of Colonel Miles, it launched itself with a
superb spirit and admirable disregard of danger at the assault of
a position stubbornly defended by the enemy. It took by terrific
fighting under exceptionally violent machine-gun fire of the enemy
artillery, and its cruel losses, numerous prisoners, and secured
cannon, machine guns and important material.”

(Signed) T. C. QUILLET,
_Commanding the I. D._

The losses of the regiment during its period of service were 8 officers killed and died of wounds, 42 wounded, and 1,055 enlisted men killed and wounded, with a total of 28 missing.

The 372nd Infantry, was organized at Camp Stuart, and landed at St. Nazaire, April 14, 1918. They spent five weeks in training at Conde-en-Barrois, Meuse, as part of the 13th French Army Corps; afterwards became attached to the 63rd French Division, the 35th French Division, and finally on July 2, 1918, became a part of the 157th French Division, to which the 371st Infantry also became attached.

For more than six months the regiment was on the front, taking part in the great Champagne Offensive, and in the battles which centered around Vanquois in the Argonne, and around Verdun, including Hill 304, and Dead Man’s Hill. They were in the Vosges Mountains, along with the 371st, training for the Metz Offensive when the Armistice was signed.

On October 8, 1918, this regiment also received a citation from Colonel Quillet. Following is its text:

157TH DIVISION INFANTRY

No. 5500. October 8, 1918.

_From:_ Colonel Quillet, commanding 157th I. D.
_To:_ Colonel Tupes, commanding 372nd Infantry.

The Colonel commanding the I. D., has recommended your regiment for
citation in the orders of the French Army, worded as follows:

“Gave proof, through the first engagement, of the finest qualities of
bravery and daring which are the virtues of assaulting troops.”

“Under the orders of Colonel Tupes dashed with superb gallantry and
admirable scorn of danger to the assault of a position continuously
defended by the enemy, taking it by storm under an exceptionally
violent machine-gun fire; continued the progression in spite of enemy
artillery fire, and very severe losses. They made numerous prisoners,
captured cannon, machine guns, and important war materials.”

(Signed) QUILLET.

Upon relinquishing his command of these two regiments after the signing of the Armistice, Colonel Quillet gave out the following words of farewell:

157TH DIVISION, STAFF OF THE INFANTRY.

December 15, 1918.

_Order of the Divisional Infantry_.

The 371st and 372nd Infantries are leaving France, after having
carried on a hard campaign of six months with I. D., 157.

After having energetically held a series of difficult sectors, they
took a glorious part in the great decisive battle which brought the
final victory.

In sectors they have shown an endurance, a vigilance, a spirit of
devotion and remarkable discipline.

In battle they have taken by storm, with a magnificent animation,
very strong positions doggedly defended by the enemy.

In contemplating the departure of these two fine regiments which I
commanded with pride, I desire to tell them all how much I think of
them for the generous and precious concurrence which they brought to
us at the decisive period of the war.

I shall keep them always in my soldier heart, their loyal memories,
and particularly those of their distinguished commanders who have
become my friends.

COLONEL QUILLET,
_Commanding the I. D._, 157.

About the same time the above was issued, General Goybet, Commanding Officer of the 157th French Division, sent out the following General Orders:

GENERAL ORDERS

On the 12th of December, 1918, the 371st and 372nd R. I. U. S. have
been placed at the disposal of the American High Command.

With a deep feeling of emotion, on behalf of the 157th Division, and
in my own personal name, I come to bid farewell to our brave comrades.

For seven months we have lived brothers in arms, partaking in the
same activities, sharing the same hardships and the same dangers.
Side by side we took part in the great Champagne Offensive which was
to be crowned by a tremendous victory.

Never will the 157th Division forget the indomitable dash, the
heroical rush of the American regiments up the Observatory Ridge
and into the Plain of Monthois. The most powerful defenses, the
most strongly organized machine-gun nests, the heaviest artillery
barrages—nothing could stop them. These crack regiments overcame
every obstacle with a most complete contempt for danger; through
their steady devotion the Red Hand Division, for nine whole days of
severe struggle, was constantly leading the way of the advance of the
Fourth Army.

Officers, non-commissioned officers and men, I respectfully salute
our glorious comrades who have fallen, and I bow to your colors, side
by side with the flag of the 333rd Regiment of Infantry that have
shown us the way to victory.

Dear Friends from America, when you will be back again on the
other side of the ocean, don’t forget the Red Hand Division; our
brotherhood has been cemented in the blood of the brave, and such
bonds will never be destroyed.

Remember your General, who is so glad of having commanded you, and be
sure of his grateful affection to you forever.

GENERAL GOYBET,
_Commanding the 157th Division_.

On January 24, 1919, for taking strategic town in Champagne Offensive the 372nd Infantry was cited with the Croix de Guerre and palm, the highest honor of the kind in the gift of the French Army. It was the first entire organization of the American Expeditionary Forces to be thus cited.[3] It was received at the hands of Vice-Admiral Moreau, French Commander of the Port of Brest, and the ceremony took place at Cours Dajot, overlooking the Port of Commerce of that city.

1. Officers engaged in automatic rifle practice. 2. Sergeant Charles
T. Monroe, a winner of the Croix de Guerre and Distinguished Service
Cross. 3. Group of Officers of 372nd Infantry and French Associates.
4. At the mouth of a dugout. 5. Sergeants Ray Williams and Wadley
Ellis receiving wireless messages from Eiffel Tower. 6. French
Officer giving instructions in machine-gun tactics. 7. Two comrades
of the famous “Red Hand Division.”]

In a word of conclusion with regard to the entire record of the combatant troops, many of whom went overseas with hesitations and misgivings because of the great battle they had already been compelled to fight against the ill-will of their own countrymen, it seems that their wonderful achievements in the face of a propaganda that continued even across the seas, make them fully worthy of the beautiful tribute paid them in the following poem by Roscoe C. Jamison:*

These truly are the Brave,
These men who cast aside
Old memories, to walk the blood-stained pave
Of sacrifice, joining the solemn tide
That moves away, to suffer and to die
For freedom,—when their own is yet denied!
O Pride! O Prejudice! When they pass by,
Hail them, the Brave, for you now crucified!

These truly are the Free,
These souls that grandly rise
Above base dreams of vengeance for their wrongs,
Who march to war with visions in their eyes
Of peace through Brotherhood, lifting glad songs
Aforetime, while they front the firing line.
Stand and behold! They take the field to-day,
Shedding their blood like Him now held divine,
That those who mock might find a better way!

——
* By permission of _The Crisis_.

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If the muse were mine to tempt it
And my feeble voice were strong,
If my tongue were trained to measure
I would sing a stirring song.
I would sing a song heroic
Of those noble sons of Ham
Of the gallant colored soldiers
Who fought for Uncle Sam.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR.

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Non-Combatant Troops
————

There was little difference in the spirit of those who went to France as welfare workers and those who went as soldiers. Both felt the urge of the hour—both desired to be stationed where they could give most—serve most. Hence it was not strange that we reached the Y headquarters in Paris hoping to be forwarded to some one of the fighting units, and that during the ten days of preparation for the camp, we were looking wishfully toward the front. Indeed, one of us had come from Illinois, and had already been adopted as the daughter of the 370th Regiment. The other had come from the Metropolis, and somehow felt the whole responsibility for the welfare of the “Fifteenth New York” and the “Buffaloes” resting upon her weak shoulders. It is easy then to imagine our disappointment when we were assigned to the S. O. S., or Service of Supplies Sector. It was just at this point we found it necessary as members of the American Expeditionary Forces to learn one of the most important lessons of the army—that of obedience.

SERGEANTS DUNN, TAPSCOTT AND JONES AT THE PORT]

But it was a most kind Providence that sent us away from the scenes of devastation and death for our first service, and placed us where we could come into a comprehensive knowledge and appreciation of our non-combatant forces. Seven months of continuous service and daily contact in the camp with these men warrant our writing with assurance certain definite impressions left upon our minds by them. We take it that the 20,000 soldiers whom we served, those visited at Brest and other S. O. S. points and those who rested with us in the Leave Area from Bordeaux, Marseilles, and other camps were typical of the one hundred thousand or so men who formed the non-combatant group.

These men were known chiefly as stevedores and labor battalions. Somehow a widely circulated report gained credence that they had been gathered indiscriminately, and had been landed on foreign soil, a mere group of servants for the white soldiers. We do not know who first sought to thus humiliate these soldiers by such unjust and undeserved rating. One might easily believe, of course, because of the constantly unfair attitude of some of their officers toward them, that there was some such assumption to that effect. But the world has learned now, that in spite of all handicaps, there could be found nowhere in the army stouter and braver hearts, or more loyal and self-sacrificing spirits. Subjected to a stern discipline; with discriminations, cruel in their intent and execution; long hours of toil; scant recognition for service or hope of promotion, they still kept their faith. Throughout the war they wrought as weavers who are given to see only the wrong side of the glorious pattern they are weaving. Indeed, through these men we came into an abiding belief that the colored man was in the war to justify his plea for democracy. The first day we entered that busy military port of St. Nazaire, we saw a colored lad standing under the ancient clock in the center of the square. He had M. P. (military police) on his arm band in large red letters, and in his hand a stick with which he quietly directed the tremendous traffic of that town. Auto-trucks, auto-cars of officers from the highest to the lowest rank, auto-busses for welfare workers, sidecars, bicycles, used so constantly by French women as well as men, and the typical French _voiture_ made a constant noisy stream. And this colored lad, who had come from a rural district of the far South, stood there calmly pointing his stick, now left, now right, or holding it up in demand for a pause. Surely he was there by Divine Thought.

The very first group of colored soldiers to leave for France in the autumn of 1917 were stevedores and labor battalions. Another group reached St. Nazaire, by way of Brest, Christmas eve of the same year. Time and time again in camp they told us the story of that first winter of hardship. Christmas day found them cold and cheerless, with hard tacks and beans for their rations. All that winter they worked, poorly equipped for their severe task. In the dark hours of the night and the morning, they plunged through the deep mud of the camp and city, without boots. On the dock they handled the cold steel and iron without gloves. But they _were soldiers_, and so they worked without complaint.

When the first American Forces reached the Continent, the French were calling loudly for help. All seemed chaos for a little, as thousands of troops began to reconstruct the ports of France. These quiet ports, many of them centuries gray, became centers of throbbing activity. Hundreds of warehouses, most modern in their construction, rose as if by magic. From the south where Marseilles looks out on the blue Mediterranean, to Brest at the entrance to the English Channel, our own stevedores, labor battalions and engineers, have rebuilt much of the water front of France, thus making a real epoch in the history of French navigation. During the last year of the war, these thousands of men were at work in the S. O. S., connecting it with the great battle front. System and efficiency, with the greatest possible haste, were required in speeding the supplies to combatant troops. All of this these soldiers comprehended and ever they responded with a decisive and soldier-like spirit. The incessant tramp of many feet through the city street, the constant rush and rumble of auto-trucks kept the camps of these ports closely linked with the docks.

All who were at work in France well remember that “Race to Berlin” contest, upon which the last great forward move of our troops so largely depended. The world looked out only toward Metz, where our great combat army was centering, but just as often, anxious eyes were upon the rear where our men were toiling like mad that peace should not be delayed through any failure of theirs. With feverish haste and anxiety they battled with great bulks of ammunition and supplies. For weeks at Marseilles, Bordeaux, St. Nazaire, Brest and other ports they worked with almost superhuman strength. Those serving these men during this contest labored with the same feverish spirit that possessed the men themselves. How they tried to cheer, encourage, and entertain our determined heroes as they contested for the honors! If by chance you see somewhere a soldier wearing the emblem of the S. O. S., with an arrow running through it and pointing skyward, you will know that he belongs to those service battalions at Brest who by their inexhaustible reserves of energy and endurance, won in the “Race to Berlin.”

Although these men were not called upon to face the shot and shell at the front, they paid their toll in death from accident, cold and exposure. No more at the rear than at the front did they pause to consider personal danger. They were truly heroes, carrying not bayonet and gun, but connecting the wonderful resources of their own country, three thousand miles away, with the greatest battlefields the world has ever known.

There went to rest in the land of light and peace a short time ago, one of the world’s poets whose divinest gift was her great human understanding and sympathy. Long and well did Ella Wheeler Wilcox write to lift the souls of men from the sordid things of earth to the purer realms of sympathetic knowledge and co-operation. She was given _entrée_ to the heart of the war, and saw the grim conflict in all its various settings. Riding along the coast one day, looking out upon the long lines of warehouses, hearing the hum of the thousands of men at work, she said: “I have gained with the years a growing appreciation and love for the colored people, and I have seen nothing in France finer than the work of the stevedores. I have written and dedicated a poem to them.” That afternoon, after she had spoken for a few minutes to the thousands of swarthy soldiers, assembled to pay her homage, her companion read the poem as follows:

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 in the hole.
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, to put aside our fears.
We flung them away on the wings 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 as we must and may.
The cross of honor will never be ours to proudly wear away.

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!

But this wonderfully revealing poem goes hardly far enough to give full appreciation of the whole life of the colored stevedore in France. So often in addition to this “hardest work of the war,” was added treatment accorded no other soldier. While white American soldiers were permitted to go freely about the towns, the great mass of colored American soldiers saw them for the most part, as they marched in line to and from the docks. Passes for them were oftener than otherwise as hard to secure as American gold. Always they were aware of some case of cruel injustice for which there seemed absolutely no redress. We found in our camp a young college student, who, believing that war spelled opportunity, was among the first to enlist. His education placed him at once in the office of his company, and he went to France a sergeant. He did not find that war meant for him what he had dreamed it would, but he kept loyal; his work commanded respect, and, for a time, all went well. But a company commander came who resented the pride of the colored boy, and then began a series of humiliations that took away rank, sent him to the guard-house and dock. Retribution is rather swift at times, and so this officer’s downfall came soon. He never knew, however, that the fond mother back home was the only thing that stood between him and death. The young man has since told us how happy he was to return home with his honor maintained, rank restored. But in camp his face hurt us as often as we looked upon it, so full it was of the endurance of an outraged manhood.

Even a short outing might be robbed of its pleasure. For how well we remember a company that had been granted a week-end leave as a reward for exceptional work. They were going to a neighboring summer resort—a miniature Coney Island. It had been arranged for them to tent on the beach. Just like children, they made us listen to all their enthusiastic plans and dreams of this outing. They went, but came back dumb in the despair of outraged truth and justice. A runner had preceded them, and the French restaurants and places of amusement had been warned not to receive them, since they were but servants of the white soldiers. Later the French knew better, but at that time it required more time and spirit than this company had, to convince the French people of the injustice of it all.

Always there was the knowledge that for them, loyalty, devotion, and energy, led to no higher rank, no possibility of promotion. True, orders were often issued that for the moment, seemed to include the colored soldier in their opportunity for advancement, but just as soon as he attempted to make himself a part of these orders, some subterfuge would be used to deny him the privilege of the army of which he was a part. Well for the colored soldier in France, well for all, that he possessed the far-visioned faith and the endurance of his fathers!

Another misleading idea relative to the non-combatant organizations was to the effect that they were totally illiterate. While the percentage of illiteracy was high, on the other hand hundreds of men were of fair intelligence, while other hundreds had been given fine educational advantages. Not only could there be found large numbers of students and graduates of our colored schools, but there were many from the largest and best known universities and colleges of the United States. It was not unusual to have a man in fatigue uniform, as his working clothes were called, volunteer for some needed educational work, modestly announcing himself a graduate of Dartmouth, Iowa, Yale, or some other large university or college. Two of the best-trained physical directors of our race were discovered over there doing their “bit”—one as a stevedore on the dock, the other busily cutting wood with an isolated labor battalion. For every variety of profession or trade there was a representative. One had but to require the service of a stenographer, dentist, doctor, lawyer, electrician, plumber, draughtsman, pianist, illustrator, or what not, to find him at hand. Once in the palmy days of Camp One, St. Nazaire, an educational exhibit was held in the Y Hut and it was far more interesting, varied, and unique, than any one school could have possibly produced.

Labor battalions were to be found not only at the ports of France, but more than any other class of soldiers, they were spread over all France. Whether near the Belgian or Swiss border, or in “No Man’s Land,” one would be sure to find these indispensable troops. Oftener than otherwise these battalions would be split, and a company or two would be at Verdun or some other important center, while another company would be found in some woods cutting trees. The 608th Labor Battalion was the only organization regularly stationed at St. Nazaire, that had its own colored Sergeant-Major. So clean cut, intelligent and forceful was Sergeant Major Thomas, that he might have been a Major quite as well. His men were much like their leader, and we found it not only a pleasure but comfort to count them among “our boys.”

At Romagne we worked side by side with the 332nd and 349th Labor Battalions. There with the Pioneer Infantries, they were grimly fighting through to the end. To the Leave Area came these men of the labor units in large numbers, and we have many pictures of them and with them. We have, better still, recollections of their faces, earnest and often sad—their eyes aglow as they related the story of their adventure in France. Always they had suffered but always they knew

“That Freedom’s battle once begun
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son
Though baffled oft—is ever won.”

Hundreds of men among these non-combatant troops were so thoroughly fine that to mention a few of them in a special way seems hardly worth while, except as they represent types. We think of Charles Wright from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who not only performed his office work with thoroughness, but who, through all the long months, first at St. Nazaire, and later at Camp Montoir, gave himself with deep earnestness as a volunteer teacher for his less fortunate mates. Many others gave help in much the same manner for the educational, religious, and athletic activities, or for library or canteen service. There were Charles Wilkinson of the Medical Corps, Sergeants Farrell, Dunn, Jones, Ward, Armstrong and Tapscott, Corporal Henry Smith, Electrician Powell, all so faithful as to seem a part of the regular staff of Y workers.

There was one special group within this group for whom we had great sympathy and deep respect. They were the regular army men, who had seen real fighting, who were still in their prime, and longing for the opportunity to go “over the top.” There were men who had seen service in Russia, the Philippines, Hawaii, heroes of the Spanish American War; men who had known the hideousness of Carrizal, all kept in the S. O. S. But they were soldiers and they knew how to hold their peace and obey. One had to but look at men like Sergeants Blue, Banks, Clark and Dogan, to know that even without the bars on shoulders, they were finer soldiers than many who wore them.

These non-combatant troops challenged the very best in those welfare workers who could appreciate the tremendous undercurrent of their lives and their rigid determination to be loyal to the country they served. Always during our days and nights with them, the urge and desire to serve was so keen as to make us forget the loss and strain of physical strength. Our greatest effort was centered in keeping constantly before them this truth so beautifully expressed by James Weldon Johnson:

That banner which is now the type
Of victory on field and flood,
Remember its first crimson stripe
Was dyed by Attuck’s willing blood.

And never yet has come the cry,—
When this fair flag had been assailed
For men to do, for men to die,
That we have faltered or have failed.

We’ve helped to bear it rent and torn,
Through many a hot-breathed battle breeze;
Held in our hands, it has been borne
And planted far across the seas.

Then should we speak but servile words,
Or shall we hang our heads in shame?
Stand back of new-come foreign hordes,
And fear our heritage to claim?

No! stand erect and without fear,
And for our foes let this suffice,
We’ve brought a rightful sonship here,
And we have more than paid the price.

THE ENGINEERS

No group of men had a deeper baptism of pain and loneliness in France than the Corps of Engineers. Although classed as non-combatant troops, they might, in an emergency, as at Chateau Thierry, become combatant. There, in the crisis of a struggle, they dealt the German invaders the decisive blow that not only sent them reeling to defeat, but caused the world in general to attach a new importance and appreciation to the work of the engineer.

The colored engineers, however, although sometimes trained with arms in the United States were, for the most part, not permitted the use of them in France. A corporal of the 546th Engineers writes, “Although some of us worked quite close behind the lines, within range of shot and shell, we did not see arms except such as lay discarded about the woods and in the fields.”

There seems to have been little difference between the work done in France by the colored Engineers and Pioneer Infantries. Both were largely engaged in road building and general construction. However, the non-commissioned officers of the Pioneers were largely, if not entirely, colored and in many regiments, they retained their arms, while the engineers were rarely accorded rank beyond that of corporal and, as previously stated, rarely carried arms. But the colored engineers were a part of that far-visioned phalanx of dark-skinned men who went to France to fulfil a trust and who remained true to the end.

Their work, too, was lightened by their ability to sing in the midst of thunderous guns. Many of the war songs were made into parodies of the shovel which the engineer jokingly made his emblem. The following is a parody of the song, “Mother”:

=S= is for the soup they always give us
=H= is for the ham we never get;
=O= is for the onions in the gravy,
=V= is for the victory we’ll see yet.
=E= is for the end of our enlistment,
=L= is for the land we love so dear,

Put them altogether, they spell SHOVEL
The Emblem of the Engineer.

Wherever troops were fighting, the engineers could be found hard by and their faithful and efficient service won for them praise. For instance, the 37th who served as a part of a French Corps and afterwards with the First American Army Corps was cited for the high efficiency of its work.

The 546th spent many months in various parts of the forest of the Argonne and were also commended for their meritorious service; the same might be said of the 505th and many others.

But viewing their record as a whole we might sum it up in the following lines of Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Thou hast the right to noble pride
Whose spotless robes were purified
By blood’s severe baptism.
Upon thy brow the cross was laid,
And labor’s painful sweat beads made
A consecrating chrism.

——————————————————

HOMING BRAVES

There’s music in the measured tread
Of those returning from the dead
Like scattered flowers from a plain
So lately crimson, with the slain.

No more the sound of shuffled feet
Shall mark the poltroon on the street,
Nor shifting, sodden, downcast eye,
Reveal the man afraid to die.

They shall have paid full, utterly
The price of peace across the sea,
When, with uplifted glance they come
To claim a kindly welcome home.

Nor shall the old-time dædal sting
Of prejudice, their manhood wing,
Nor heights, nor depths, nor living streams
Stand in the pathway of their dreams!

GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON.

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Pioneer Infantries
————

Stevedores, engineers, and labor battalions had been rushed to France to blaze the trail for the American forces. Already the 15th New York, the 8th Illinois, 371st and 372nd Regiments had worked and fought their way to the thickest of the carnage. The 92nd Division was waiting for the final word that would carry them across. And yet the twelve million colored people of the United States had not fully answered the call. None, however, were more willing to serve the country in its hour of peril. Therefore there was a ready response, when late in May of 1918, President Wilson called for the organization of colored infantries.

The early history of these pioneer regiments was very similar. They were formed for the most part, out of provisional troops, a few men drawn from the regular army, and specialists from the various schools of Training Detachments. For instance, the 805th Pioneer Infantry Regiment was formed at Camp Funston, of provisional brigades; twenty-five men of the 25th Infantry, brought over from Hawaii; thirty-eight mechanics from Prairie View Normal School; twenty horseshoers and men skilled in the care of horses from Tuskegee Institute, and eight carpenters from Howard University. The best evidence of the high character of the service in France rendered by this regiment is the following:

HEADQUARTERS 805TH PIONEER INFANTRY

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
FRANCE.

January 16, 1919.

_From:_ Commanding Officer, 805th Pioneer Infantry.
_To:_ The Adjutant General, G. H. Q., A. E. F.
_Subject:_ Commendation of Regiment.

1. I feel it a duty which I owe the officers and enlisted men of
this regiment which the War Department has given me the honor of
commanding, to place on record at General Headquarters, American
Expeditionary Forces, the enclosed papers commending their
conscientious and intelligent work.

2. The first is a letter from the Chief Engineer, First Army,
regarding the services rendered by the 805th Pioneer Infantry in the
Argonne-Meuse Campaign, which began September 26, 1918, in which
this organization participated from October 3rd to the conclusion
of the Armistice. The second is a letter from the Chief Salvage
Officer, First Army, stating that the regiment “by its intelligent
co-operation and initiative” was of great assistance to him.

3. I claim no credit for myself, but only for the officers and men to
whose energy, judgment, tact and force of the highest grade, must be
attributed any success this regiment may have attained.

2 Encl. C. B. HUMPHREY,
_Colonel Infantry, U. S. A., Commanding_.

————————

HEADQUARTERS, FIRST ARMY.

OFFICE OF CHIEF ENGINEER.

November 24, 1918.

_From:_ Chief Engineer, First Army.
_To:_ The Commanding Officer, 805th Pioneer Infantry.
_Subject:_ Services rendered during offensive.

1. The Chief Engineer desires to express his highest appreciation
to you and to your regiment for the services rendered to the First
Army in the Offensive between the Meuse and the Argonne, starting
September 26th, and the continuation of that Offensive on November
1st and concluding with the Armistice of November 11th.

2. The success of the operations of the Army Engineer Troops toward
constructing and maintaining supply lines, both roads and railway, of
the Army, was in no small measure made possible by the excellent work
performed by your troops.

3. It is desired that the terms of this letter be published to
all the officers and enlisted men of your command at the earliest
opportunity.

4. A copy of this letter has been sent to the Chief of Staff, First
Army.

GEORGE R. SPALDING, _Col. Engrs.,
Chief Engineer, First Army,
American E. F._

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AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

HEADQUARTERS, FIRST ARMY,
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SALVAGE OFFICER.

December 17, 1918.

_From:_ Chief Salvage Officer, First Army.
_To:_ Colonel C. B. Humphrey, Commanding Officer, 805th Pioneer
Infantry.
_Subject:_ Commendation.

1. I wish to express my appreciation of the very excellent work done
by you and your command, while I had charge of the Salvage Operations
in the Battle Area, First Army.

2. Your regiment by its intelligent co-operation and initiative has
been of the greatest assistance in carrying on operations, conducted
under very trying conditions.

JEREMIAH BEALL,
_Lieutenant Colonel, Ord. Dept.,
Chief Salvage Officer._

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HEADQUARTERS, 805TH PIONEER INFANTRY,
AMERICAN E. F.

January 17, 1919.

1. It is with pleasure that I publish herewith true copies of the
foregoing letters for the information of this command.