The Harlem Hellfighters

by Walter Dean Myers

  What was not acceptable, to James or to other African Americans talking about the war, was the practice of creating outfits consisting of black enlisted men and white officers. When the Plattsburgh school refused black applicants, a group of local citizens decided to create a school for colored officers. The Architectural School of Military Engineering (Colored) was established in Boston, and Gould attended it.

  James Gould’s graduating class in Iowa

  Army training manual

  There was also a push to create a special school for African American officers in Des Moines, Iowa. The idea of a segregated facility met with considerable resistance. Black men were being asked to risk their lives to preserve democracy, yet they were being segregated in their own homeland. Nevertheless, James and his brother Herbert applied to the school. All six of the Gould brothers were either in the military or in the process of trying to enlist. But after the GAR meeting James decided that he did not want to wait until the War Department made up its mind. On May 31, 1917, the day after the GAR meeting, James E. Gould enlisted in the United States Army at Fort Banks, in Massachusetts. His diary reads:

  Here the doctors went over me carefully examining eyes, teeth, heart, lungs, etc. All went well till I stepped on the scales to be weighed.

  The scales had the needle set for 120 pounds, the minimum weight to be accepted in the army, and to my surprise the needle refused to budge. Then, when the soldier assisting the doctor moved the balance, I who called my weight about 120–125 pounds, found that in Nature’s garb I weighed just 115 pounds.

  Gould was, nevertheless, accepted into the army with the warning that he would have to gain the needed weight. A few days later he was notified that he had been accepted into the Officer Candidate School in Iowa.

  * * *

  Headquarters Northeastern Department Boston, Massachusetts

  June 5, 1917…12.

  Each of the following-named colored citizens of New England, having been recommended under the provisions of Memoranduym [sic], these hedquarters [sic], dated May 24, 1917, is authorized to report to the Camp Commander, Ft. Des Moisnes [sic], Ia., on June 15 1917, for training.

  James Edward Gould, 303 Milton St., Dedham

  * * *

  Army order

  Gould arrived at the camp on the assigned date and started the arduous training. He enjoyed the rigors of the physical workouts and the discipline. Here he was taught a full range of military subjects, which he handled with ease. He also saw many of the candidates fail the difficult course and came to realize that the army was still not sure that it wanted African American officers. Gould wrote in his diary:

  All went well till at the end of the first month’s training when we were ordered once more to be examined. Of course I had no means of knowing whether I had gained or lost weight from the extensive training. So before time to march to the gym I drank all of the water I could hold and when I stepped on the scale the needle went up to 122 pounds. It was a great and glorious feeling as at this examination a number of candidates were dismissed from camp for various physical defects.

  The entire camp was under the command of Colonel Charles C. Ballou, a Southerner whose attitude toward blacks was rooted in the region and practices from which he had come. There were incidents of overt racism around Des Moines and nearby areas. Colonel Ballou’s reaction was to warn the young black men that they were not to make trouble. By the end of the training many of the would-be officers were discouraged and ready to go home. Colonel Ballou was promoted to major general.

  As the training neared an end, there were rumors that the War Department was still not sure what it would do with the black officers.

  Charles C. Ballou

  Gould has successfully completed training

  But on Wednesday, October 10, 1917, the training was over and the men who had mastered the academics and physical rigors of officer training finally received their commissions. James E. Gould, barely 120 pounds, was a first lieutenant in the United States Army.

  Joel E. Spingarn had not been happy with the segregated school, but he knew that any school would either be segregated or not exist at all. He believed that no matter how they began, the young officers would eventually prove themselves on the field of battle.

  8

  TRAINING THE BLACK SOLDIER

  Proper training is essential to the military experience. It is by training that individual soldiers learn to function as a fighting unit. The men of the 15th—laborers, clerks, lawyers, artists, salesmen—all had to understand how an infantry unit fought and their own roles within the unit. They also had to develop confidence in the abilities of their officers and their fellow soldiers. In turn the officers had to understand and appreciate just what their men could and would do under trying circumstances. A successful bond between officers and enlisted men, framed in mutual respect, invariably results in fewer casualties in combat. It is during training that the bond begins.

  There were already stories circulating around the country of black men getting inferior training from white officers. In some camps the white soldiers lived in barracks while the blacks had to sleep outdoors. At Camp Meade, Maryland, some white soldiers made a film parodying the black men they were supposed to be training. When there were uniform shortages, it was the black soldiers who did without. Some training units were given old Civil War uniforms in which to train. Literacy tests were used to justify assigning blacks to labor units.

  Recruits

  Literacy test for black applicants

  The 15th had been officially recognized by the federal government, and Colonel Hayward, the white commander, worked hard to equip his men, often using private funds and facilities. The black companies under his command deserved respect from the white officers over them, but they also had to balance that respect with discipline and a willingness to make the sacrifices needed to be soldiers.

  The instant respect that James Europe’s band achieved, and its praise in white newspapers, went a long way toward creating the sense of unit pride that Hayward had hoped for. The music that Europe played, a combination of pop, ragtime, jazz, and military marches, was largely familiar to the soldiers.

  The officers of the 15th had all volunteered to serve with the black outfit. Many were men from wealthy families and had attended elite schools. More important, their attitude toward the soldiers they commanded was excellent. They expected a high level of performance from their men and were not hesitant to demand it. They knew that the black outfits would be looked upon as social experiments as well as military units. Black soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts had demonstrated their mettle during the Civil War and had proven that black men were as brave as any. Bravery, however, was not enough against a well-trained army.

  The highest-ranking black officers were Napoleon B. Marshall, a graduate of Harvard, and Charles W. Fillmore. They were both captains. Besides being exceptionally bright, Marshall was a nationally known athlete. Fillmore had years of military experience. Benjamin Robeson, from Princeton, New Jersey, joined the unit as one of three chaplains.

  Many of the officers were young, barely out of college, while others, such as Fillmore and Captain Arthur W. Little, were men in the twilight of their military careers. Little was already forty-three, old for a company commander, but he was a dedicated soldier and New Yorker who respected the men he led.

  The regiment did not have its own facilities, and so the various battalions often trained in different areas of the country. They even trained in New York City’s parks, as did other National Guard units.

  An infantry regiment is a military unit consisting of at least 1,500 men. Each regiment has two or more battalions, each consisting of at least 700 men. The battalion, in turn, is made up of four or more companies, each made up of 175 men. The companies are made up of platoons of 40 or so men. A platoon is made up of nine-or ten-man squads. Each of these military units has responsibilities within its own unit and within the overall regiment.

  The 15t
h, like all military units, first went about learning the complex commands of marching and close-order drill. Marching in lines sometimes twelve men wide demanded concentration and timing and instilled the notion that the unit was working together. They were issued rifles and machine guns and taught to maintain them and fire at targets. Each man had to attain a proficiency in taking a weapon apart while blindfolded and reassembling it. They also had to keep the weapons perfectly clean to avoid malfunctions. In Peekskill, New York, part of the regiment took several weeks of training in May 1917, the month after President Wilson had declared war against Germany.

  Recruits at Lexington, Kentucky

  Basic training

  Basic education

  The papers were filled with news of the war, and much of the conversation among the men was about its mounting human costs. Estimates of French and British losses were staggering. Never before had such terrible weapons been used. Men in trenches were being gassed. They were being burned out of their holes with flamethrowers. Machine guns cut down charging soldiers by the hundreds.

  The 15th broke camp at Peekskill on May 30 and boarded a train for New York City, where they joined other National Guard units to march up Riverside Drive. Captain Arthur Little thought that the men’s training was good in close-order drill but not adequate in combat infantry training. He felt that would come later. By the time they left Peekskill, the men had learned to conduct themselves like soldiers, to keep their equipment clean, and to accept military discipline. It was a good first step.

  In July the 15th was officially called up and mustered into the United States Army. They would eventually become part of the 93rd Division (Provisional).

  The War Department had decided to create two colored divisions, the 92nd and the 93rd. An army division is made up of a number of units that, together, can be used to fulfill a predetermined military assignment. The divisions were designed to have combat regiments to do the actual fighting and other units, such as supply, medical, and engineers, to support the fighting troops. The 93rd did not have all the components of a full division and was therefore listed as provisional.

  Their first assignment under federal jurisdiction, while still flying the colors of the 15th, was guard duty throughout New York State.

  In 1917 there were thousands of German Americans living in the United States. There were also many people who sympathized with the German cause. There were concerns that any of these might try to sabotage American interests. The 15th was used to guard some possible targets. A battalion was sent to Yaphank, on Long Island, where German sympathizers met on a regular basis. Another company was sent to Ellis Island to guard German prisoners. A small group of soldiers was sent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

  But even as the 15th was doing its part to protect the United States, violence against blacks continued throughout the country. Lynch mobs terrorized black communities, and segregation seemed to be growing stronger. Black soldiers found themselves in a dilemma. On the one hand they were being trained to risk their lives in defense of the country, while on the other hand they were being told to accept their role as inferior citizens.

  In New York the NAACP staged protests against the violence. Referring to President Woodrow Wilson’s speech claiming that American participation in the war would make the world safe for democracy, signs asked President Wilson when he would make America safe for democracy.

  The black press throughout the country began to extol the patriotism, dedication, and pride of the black soldier. When famous African Americans such as James Reese Europe enlisted, it was often reported in the white press as well. Northern factories began to send representatives to Southern cities recruiting black workers. Southern legislators began to press President Wilson for a definite plan to minimize the effect of military service on black soldiers. They wanted the relationship between whites and blacks, especially in the South, to remain the same as it had been before the war.

  New uniforms at Camp Gordon, Georgia

  In response, Newton D. Baker, the secretary of war, who was from Martinsburg, West Virginia, appointed a black man from the Tuskegee Institute, Emmett J. Scott, to be a special assistant to the War Department as an advisor on black affairs. Scott had been an assistant to Booker T. Washington in Alabama. Washington, who had died in 1915, had been known as a black leader willing to accept segregation and second-class citizenship for blacks in return for white support of his training programs. Scott’s appointment as a special advisor to the War Department was not looked on favorably by blacks who hoped that African Americans would eventually benefit by their service to America during the war. Scott’s mission was not only to discourage blacks from leaving the South but also to investigate protests among black soldiers. Southern communities took a more direct approach to keep the blacks in their midst from being influenced by Northerners.

  9

  SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA

  The summer of 1917 was hot and muggy. The cramped Harlem tenements were nearly unbearable at nights, and many Harlem residents slept on rooftops and fire escapes to catch whatever breezes were available. But when the 15th New York National Guard (Colored) was assigned for training at Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina, things promised to get even hotter.

  The move had been anticipated and announced, and an article in The New York Times on August 31 had foretold of trouble.

  * * *

  Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg, S.C., Aug. 30, 1917

  Following the receipt of a report that the Government intended to alter its original plan and include the Fifteenth Infantry, colored, in the troops to be trained at the camp here, the City of Spartanburg officially protested to the War Department against the sending of these troops, on the ground that trouble might result if the Fifteenth refused to accept the limited liberties accorded to the city’s colored population. Mayor J. F. Floyd, in his protest, called attention to the recent outbreak of negro troops at Houston, Texas.

  That Colonel William B. Hayward’s organization, one of the first of the city’s regiments to reach its war strength, is unwelcome here is evident from the comments heard in the streets. The whites here are outspoken in their opposition to the plan and predict trouble if the War Department fails to heed the protest.

  “1 was sorry to learn that the Fifteenth Regiment has been ordered here,” said Mayor Floyd to-night, “for, with their Northern ideas about race equality, they will probably expect to be treated like white men. I can say right here that they will not be treated as anything except negroes. We shall treat them exactly as we treat our resident negroes. This thing is like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, something that can’t be done without trouble. We have asked Congressman Nicholls to request the War Department not to send the soldiers here. You remember the trouble a couple of weeks ago at Houston.”

  * * *

  The “trouble” at Houston occurred when black soldiers of the 24th Infantry, stationed near Houston, reacted to what they felt had been white harassment by riding into town with their weapons. When they were met by a group of whites, there was an exchange of gunfire, and two blacks and seventeen whites were killed. Thirteen of the men who participated in what was officially labeled a “mutiny” were sentenced to be hanged.

  While the sentiment against the 15th extended through all classes in the city, the opposition took form through the Chamber of Commerce, which put the matter before the Mayor.

  * * *

  Chamber of Commerce Objects

  “We asked for the camp for Spartanburg,” said an official of the Chamber this afternoon, “but at that time we understood that no colored troops were to be sent down. It is a great mistake to send Northern negroes down here, for they do not understand our attitude. We wouldn’t mind it if the Government sent us a regiment of Southern negroes; we understand them and they understand us. But with those Northern fellows it’s different.

  “I can tell you for certain that if any of those colored soldiers go in any of our soda stores and the like and a
sk to be served they’ll be knocked down. Somebody will throw a bottle. We don’t allow negroes to use the same glass that a white man may later have to drink out of. We have our customs down here, and we aren’t going to alter them.”

  * * *

  With the Houston mutiny still front-page material, and the Times article in mind, the 15th boarded trains for South Carolina.

  Spartanburg, South Carolina, was basically a small agricultural community that had been settled shortly after the Revolutionary War. It had a “comfortable” relationship with its black population, meaning that the black population understood that the whites were the superior race and that they were not to make trouble by demanding such things as social equality, entrance to white establishments, or anything else that might make a white person feel uncomfortable. The problem of having black soldiers—black men with guns who were being trained to defend themselves against anyone designated as an enemy—was clear.

  There was no doubt as to what could be expected from the Army if there was trouble. Major General Charles C. Ballou had made that clear in his widely circulated “Bulletin No. 35.” Directed to the soldiers of the 92nd Division, also comprised of black soldiers, it was a reaction to the attempt by an African American sergeant to enter a theater in Kansas. There was no official policy in Kansas of segregation, but the owner refused to allow the soldier to enter.

  The bulletin read:

  * * *

  Headquarters, 92nd Division Camp Funston, Kans., March 28, 1918