Unjustly Dishonored: An African American Division in World War I

Notes

107 one Training 1. At the beginning of American participation in the war, former president Roosevelt sought to organize a division, as he did in creation of the Rough Riders in 1898. The administration refused to allow it, as it would have drained off the better officers of the Regular Army. Wood turned against the Wilson administration months later when the general was about to take a division to France and was recalled from the docks: he did not understand that the individual who did not want him in France was General Pershing. 2. Arthur E. Barbeau and Florette Henri, The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I, 59. 3. After the war Colonel Ballou wrote privately about what he described as the “first fault” in organizing the Ninety-second Division, which was not accepting enough candidates at Des Moines, half as many officers as a division required, and in dropping the requirement of a college education for officers. “For the parts of a machine requiring the finest steel, pot-metal was required” (memorandum to Col. Allen J. Greer, March 14, 1920, The Colored Soldier in the United States Army, 86–91). 4. The following accounts of the camps are from Ninety-second Division, 1917–1918, 1–17. 5. Allan R. Millett, “Over Where? The AEF and the American Strategy for Victory, 1917–1918.” 6. Ninety-second Division, 19. 7. See chapter 3, 49–69. 8. Quoted in Donald Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies, 142. 9. Ninety-second Division, 20. 10. Ibid., 20–21. 11. Memorandum of August 29, 1918, box 44, 92nd Division historical, entry 1241, RG 120. Citations followed by record group numbers are from the National Archives, College Park, Maryland. 12. J. Edward Cassidy, “History of the 317th Engineers (Sappers),” 39ff, box 14, 92nd Division historical, entry 1240, RG 120. n o t e s N O T E S 108 13. Lieutenant Colonel Cassidy was attempting to show that black company officers, wherever placed, were a mistake. “The morale of the 92nd Division infantry was so low they would not perform the ordinary duties of trench ‘housekeeping.’ The personnel of the infantry regiments were practically the same as the engineers—so the only conclusion is that the difference was due to the officer personnel” (“History of the 317th Engineers [Sappers],” 46). 14. Maj. Max Elser interview by Col. T. R. Rivers, July 24–25, 1919, Washington, D.C., 6. “Report of Special Investigation (including testimony ) conducted in the office of the Inspector General of the Army by Colonel T. R. Rivers, dated Sept. 30, 1919. Subject: Report of Investigation concerning the 368th Infantry,” box 113, entry 390, RG 159. This was the investigation mentioned in the preface, vii–viii. two Argonne 1. Fred R. Brown, interview by Colonel Rivers, August 13, 1919, Washington, D.C., 22. 2. “It was a terrible job getting through that Boche wire. I have never seen anything to equal it. There were two or three kilometers of solid jungle mass of French and German wire in No Man’s Land and throughout the German trench system which they had been working on for four years, and the whole country, except in the boyaus and trenches, was covered with this mass of barb wire and covered with second growth brush. The new growth had grown up through this barb wire and was absolutely impenetrable” (ibid., 6). 3. Elser interview, 25. 4. For the three battalions of the 368th Regiment, with reports of company officers, September 26–30, 1918, see box 10, 92nd Division historical, entry 1241, RG 120. 5. Rivers’s final report of September 30, 1919, 46–47 (see chap. 1, n. 14). 6. For the runners, Elser interview, 41–42. For rear headquarters, 19: “The messages from F and G companies went to my original post of command . My liaison officers, through a miscarriage of messages or failing to get word in some way, got out of touch with me, and just how it happened I don’t know, but these messages were not sent forward to me.” 7. Ibid., 25. 8. He reported four men wounded and one gassed, not many casualties for heavy machine-gun fire. The reported victim of gas almost certainly was in error, unless gas had drifted over from the French subsector. See below, page 00. N O T E S 109 9. It seems clear that however judicious Colonel...