Very early in the war it was found that there was a serious shortage of common labor in the American army. France was unable to supply her own needs, and therefore not at all able to assist her allies. To supply the American need for common labor Negroes were suggested, G. K. Little, assistant engineer at Mobile, Ala., writing to the chief engineer that they were “loyal and willing to obey all orders irrespective of weather conditions or other hardships” and generally “peculiarly desirable.” It was the plan of these engineer service battalions to work wherever they could help and to do whatever was necessary. Forty-six such battalions were formed. The first four consisted of white men and the others of Negroes.
The stevedores represent that part of an army about which little is said because it does the rough, unskilled work; yet no group renders a more valiant service or contributes more to the success of an army than do these men.
This was especially true of the 150,000 Negro stevedores in the Great War, who played an important part both at home and abroad. Included in the term were the engineer regiments, the depot brigades, and the service, labor, and development battalions. Some officials have said that the Negro stevedore rendered the most magnificent service of any Negro organizations in France. Their work was undoubtedly appreciated by the War Department and by most citizens; yet honors were not conferred upon them as upon the fighting men. No brass bands came out to greet them on their return. Few had opportunities to win the Croix de Guerre or the Distinguished Service Cross, although they often performed deeds of bravery while working behind the lines in the range of the big guns.
Unfortunately the term “stevedores” came to mean to many people those who were physically or mentally unfit to be fighting men and they were looked upon as inferior to other soldiers. Sometimes this was true, but it is also true that there were thousands of stevedores who represented the best of the young manhood of America. In the beginning of the draft hundreds of Negro men who met all the physical qualifications could not meet the educational tests. Such men were usually transferred to stevedore organizations, and the rate of illiteracy in these ran from 35 to 75 per cent. Sometimes also those who because of physical unfitness were only partially able to serve their country when it needed them, nevertheless rendered some valuable service in American camps. Such a company was the 402nd Reserve Labor Battalion, stationed at Camp Hancock, Augusta, Ga. This was located fifteen miles from the camp in a wood, where it built roads and also kept in condition the range for the officers and men being trained for the battle fronts in France.
The question naturally arises how it happened that some of the best of the Negro youth were placed in the stevedore regiments. In the beginning there was great need for men to do the manual work connected with supplying with food and equipment two million soldiers in France. The Negro was regarded by many army officials as specially adapted to this work because of his previous training and his cheerful disposition; and for one reason or another some other officials deemed it advisable to withhold from him regular military training. Accordingly, in the fall of 1917, colored draftees and volunteers were sent to various assembling camps and formed into stevedore and labor units. Thousands from the Southern states, many of them students in the schools and colleges, rushed to the colors with the hope of entering combatant units, only to find, to their great disappointment, that they had been assigned to service regiments.
The work in the United States varied with the different camps. Sometimes it was the handling of supplies or ammunition. Then again it was grading, ditching, digging stumps, cleaning up new ground for building purposes, or draining camps. The men did every form of fatigue work and sometimes built roads along with civilians who received $3.50 or $4.00 a day. Those who remained in the United States did not, as a rule, experience as hard a life as their comrades in France. Living conditions in the cantonments were usually very good, even in the tent camps after the necessary improvements had been made. Sometimes it happened that the stevedore was neglected in the beginning, especially if he was placed in a camp apart from the other soldiers. Such was the case at Camp Hill, Newport News, in the winter of 1917-18. In the coldest weather experienced in this part of the country in a quarter of a century, the stevedores lived in tents without floors or stoves. Most of them could get only one blanket and some could not secure even that. Twenty to thirty occupied one tent 16 feet square. Often men reaching the camp in zero weather were compelled to stand around a fire outside all night or sleep under trees for partial shelter from the wind, rain, and snow. For four months no bathing facilities or changes of clothing were provided. Food was served outdoors and often froze before it could be eaten. After inspectors and other investigators constantly reported these conditions they were changed. Comfortable barracks and mess halls were built, a Y. M. C. A. building and a hostess house erected, and the name of the camp was changed from Hill to Alexander in honor of one of the three Negro lieutenants who had been graduated from West Point. Not only in this camp, but in every other where unsatisfactory conditions prevailed, improvements were gradually made until, at the end of the war, most of the stevedores in American camps were living in comfortable surroundings.
The stevedore units were commanded almost entirely by white commissioned officers, with white sergeants and colored corporals. In some engineer units all the non-commissioned officers were white, though in rare cases they were all colored. The work of the Negro stevedore in the American Expeditionary Force was considered of prime importance. He was among the first to sail for France, and among the very first was a group of one hundred men from New Orleans. They and those who followed them were to be found at the base ports of Brest, St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Le Havre, and at such railheads as Tours, Liffol-le-Grand, Gierve, St. Sulpice, Chaumont, and other such centers. The largest of these ports was Brest, and here the men did more work than anywhere else. They handled all kinds of supplies at the docks, coaled ships, and helped to build piers and docks. They labored night and day, sometimes continuously for sixteen hours. Although they worked in the rain and snow, it was only after months had passed that they were provided with oil-skin suits and gum boots. One high officer said, “The men who worked on these docks have had the hardest job of any men in France, but their spirit has been fine.” In the “Race to Berlin” the Brest port won the championship, a company of the 310th Service Battalion winning the honor of having done more work than any similar outfit in France. As a reward it was sent back to the States earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
The St. Nazaire base was the second largest port. Numerous camps were located outside the city, extending as far as fifteen kilometers. Twenty-eight miles of warehouses were constructed at Montois and filled with supplies of every description, while outside there were railroad engines, cars, and vast quantities of construction material. St. Nazaire was also a huge embarkation port. At times more than 50,000 colored soldiers were stationed in this vicinity. The long pier extending a mile out into the water was built almost exclusively by the 317th Engineers. The task was very dangerous, as the men had to work standing on slippery boards, but it was finally completed and stood as a memorial to the Negro soldiers. Camp Guthrie was built entirely by Negro men. They composed the personnel and ran the big troop kitchens, the delousing plants, the officers’ mess halls, and the infirmaries. Here, as at Brest, the hardest work on the docks was done exclusively by Negro soldiers. This included coaling ships and unloading supplies of all kinds, including railroad engines and tractors. During the “Race to Berlin” new port records for unloading ships were made weekly. The men sometimes “worked like mad men,” having received the impression that they were going home as soon as the armistice was signed. Badges were given to those who got the most work done, and the base port winning the week’s competition flew a flag for the next week. In addition to the work on the docks, the soldiers built and repaired roads, built railroads, warehouses, a round house, a water-filtering plant, and did general fatigue duty. In referring to what they accomplished a major said, “It has been no hero service, but has been hard, long, and faithful, and it is appreciated. These men have handled 30,000 tons of material in one day.” Another officer said, “Many colored soldiers are sleeping in the little graveyard on the hill because they broke their heartstrings in the ‘Race to Berlin.’”
Bordeaux was the third of the large ports. In the camps outside the city as many as fifty thousand soldiers were stationed at times. At St. Sulpice in the Bordeaux area the American army built and filled with provisions and munitions about one hundred warehouses. At two camps on the outskirts of the city, Anconia and Bassens, twenty thousand Negro soldiers were stationed for months, handling cargoes day and night. Many of them worked sixteen hours a day and rarely ever saw the camp in the daytime, as they went to and from work in the dark.
The work at the other base ports was similar, though on a smaller scale. Sometimes hundreds of miles of railroad track had to be laid or great steel warehouses erected. Gierve was outstanding as a center for such work, as it was the largest supply depot in France. Warehouses here covered an area seven miles long and three miles wide. There were always some Negro units stationed at this place, along with white units which did stevedore work. The two organizations which served at Gierve for the longest period were the 313th and 328th Negro labor battalions. At Liffol-le-Grand, near Chaumont, the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the American Army, there was another large supply depot. Here the Negro engineers drained and cleared a swamp, laid miles of railroad track, and helped to build a large round house and several warehouses.
The stevedores were the great roadbuilders in France. Thousands also worked in the great forests, cutting wood, peeling trees, and laboring in the sawmills. In the Forestry Division at Jironde they made an average of peeling 35 trees a day per man, while the average of other engineers were only 15 trees. Nazareth Thaggard of the 323rd Service Battalion made the highest record of any man in the A. E. F. by cutting 30 steres of wood in one day. The task for his company was five steres. For this notable achievement he was given a twenty-day pass to travel over France and made a corporal in his organization. The 320th Engineers cut and carried wood for a mile and a half on their backs. The men in the 332nd Labor Battalion, stationed at Brion, cut six steres of wood as a daily task. They cut 1500 steres at Jerocho and 5400 at Comercy. The woodcutters lived in floorless tents often surrounded by mud. Many times the necessary clothing and boots could not be secured, and sometimes they were obliged to eat in the rain and snow. Dr. Hope, of whom we have spoken as at the head of Y. M. C. A. work for Negro soldiers in France, said in speaking of a visit to the woodcutters: “One night I went in a car fifteen miles out in a wood with a chaplain who came to a small French town to buy ‘smokes’ for the men. When we reached the camp it was dark. Lights were seen in the narrow streets and mud deeper than I had ever seen before. In the morning the men got up at 4.45. The sound they made walking through the mud was unlike any noise that I had ever heard. Even at that early hour some were joking, some singing.” The record of almost every organization cutting wood shows that the men endured great suffering, and the Negro’s sense of humor was a great asset to him. Said one private who served with the 323rd service battalion: “We have come in wet to the skin, with our boots half full of water. Some would go to a stove and get warm, some would sing, some play cards. Others would walk five miles for French bread and butter and eggs that they would cook in their mess-kits. Some would laugh and be happy, while others beside them would die.”
After peace was declared and the American army started home, there remained still much work to be done “over there.” The heroes who fell at Château-Thierry, Amiens, St. Mihiel, in Belleau Wood and the Argonne Forest deserved a suitable resting-place. The work of reburying the dead was done almost exclusively by the Negro stevedores. Daily convoys of trucks went as far as a hundred kilometers, and men searched the fields, forests, and shell holes for the dead, who were brought to the cemeteries and reinterred. This was the most ghastly and gruesome task in the A. E. F.; yet the way the Negroes worked may be judged from the fact that at Romagne, where the largest American cemetery is located, 1038 and 1050 soldiers were reburied in two successive days. The nature of the work required that much of it be done after midnight when most of the men were asleep. One could hear the sound of the hammer and the tread of feet, and the lonely minor chord of the Negroes’ song as they drove nails into the coffins. The electric lights all over the cemeteries at night showed these men moving about without the traditional fear attributed to them. Theirs was no enviable task, but no group of men ever displayed finer spirit in the performance of duty, and no soldiers more loyally served the republic.
With all of their good service, however, the stevedore organizations were not popular with the Negro soldiers. One reason for this was the lack of opportunity in them for promotion. One incident will illustrate the situation. A colonel who was organizing one of these regiments out of recently drafted men, in an attempt to stir up enthusiasm, said, “Men, we are going overseas in two weeks. We are going to see the country and have some fun. You’ll probably never hear a gun fired.” There was no applause, and the colonel seemed not to realize that the lack of it was due to the fact that the men not only wanted to hear guns fired but wanted to fire some themselves. Continuing, he said, “This is the first opportunity Negroes ever had to serve as engineers. It is all an experiment. It’s up to you men to make good.” After concluding his remarks he asked if there were any questions. “Sir, Colonel, what about promotions?” asked one man. This turn rather surprised the officer, but he recovered and said, “The officers will be white.” A moment later he added, “The non-commissioned officers will also be white.” Then he paused, and the soldier repeated the question. The colonel then said, “There will be twenty-five first class privates, who will carry rifles, and you know they get three dollars a month more pay. You know cooks are needed. A lot of men will want that job, but it takes a —— good man to be a cook.” The silence which greeted this remark indicated great disappointment on the part of the men. Seeing this, the colonel tried to hold out some hope by saying that some non-commissioned officers would be made in France when new organizations were formed. As a matter of fact, as the war progressed, many appointments as non-commissioned officers were made, the commanders of Negro soldiers ultimately realizing that they as well as other soldiers were prompted to do better work when there were even remote possibilities of securing promotions.
The kind of treatment accorded the men was due almost entirely to the attitude of the officers who immediately commanded them. In some organizations commanding officers were more like foremen and overseers over railroad gangs and plantation workers than like officers in command of American soldiers. Very frequently little interest was taken in the personal appearance of the men, and military law was practically disregarded in dealing with them. One commander did not hesitate to say that if the men did not move as he thought they should, he helped them with his foot, and the soldiers were placed in the guardhouse on the most trivial pretense. “The spirit of St. Nazaire,” said one officer, “is the spirit of the South,” and in the early days of this great camp there were constant clashes caused by racial feeling and by drinking. There were several colored French women at this base. White officers and soldiers were frequently seen with them, but if a Negro was seen with a white French woman a good deal was likely to be said, and trouble was generally started by the marines. Discriminatory orders were often issued, and stevedores experienced difficulties in visiting cafés and other public places. Sometimes they were also forbidden to enter French homes or to be seen in company with French civilians. With the military police there was special trouble, as the men received the impression that they made a special effort to use their authority to abuse Negro soldiers. Sometimes they conducted an “era of ruthlessness,” and many of the fights and “near riots” were due to such efforts. In the railway terminal in one cantonment city, when large numbers of soldiers were returning to camp, every Negro was required to show his pass, but the passes of the white men were not required. This sort of thing made for friction, as did also the manner in which the soldiers were often approached by the M. P.’s.
On the other hand, the Negro soldiers themselves were not without faults. Some of their difficulties were due to their own ignorance and to customs that they brought into the army from civil life. On plantations and public works some had been used to “ducking the boss” and slipping away, and attempts to continue this practice in the army sometimes resulted in their being placed in the guardhouse.
In such a situation it is pleasant to recall that two junior officers in one organization were always working in the interest of the men and heartily disapproved of the treatment they received. In their camp discriminatory orders were not issued. While moreover some of the roughest treatment given the stevedores was by Southern officers, it is also true that some of the best and fairest officers commanding Negro troops were Southern men. Such officers saw that their men were well equipped, if it was possible to equip them, and provided for their recreation by organizing athletic teams and by giving full co-operation to the “Y” in its program. The 313th Labor Battalion was commanded by such an officer in France and its fine record was largely due to his impartial attitude. For the 542nd Engineers, one of whose companies worked on the roads in the Remaucourt region in France, there was built a little auditorium. This was wired by one of the officers, and the scenery for the shows was painted by one of the men. There were pictures every night and people from the village near by were free to attend. One of the men, Frank Johnson, won the middleweight championship of the S. O. S. and his only defeat was at the hands of the French champion. That the stevedores appreciated their commanders in such organizations was shown by the fact that when they sailed for America they often presented to them gifts costing hundreds of francs.
The story of one camp will serve to illustrate both types of officers that commanded Negro troops. Camp Williams, located at Issurtille, was the second largest supply depot in France. During the last days of the war 12,000 Negro soldiers, mainly engineers and stevedores, were stationed there. They built warehouses and railroads and supplied the combat troops with wood, food, clothing, medicine and shells and ammunition of all kinds. The camp adjutant said that they did their work without grumbling. The non-commissioned officers were both white and colored, mainly white. Very often they were ignorant men. Illiterate Negro men were often selected in preference to educated men and sometimes were made to serve as “stool pigeons.” For nine months at this camp there was in force a special order bearing date July 3, 1918, which said: “All colored enlisted men of this command are hereby confined to the limits of the Camp and Depot until further advised.” The enforcing of this order was a great cause of trouble. When white troops were permitted to visit not only Issurtille but all the surrounding towns, many of the colored men broke the rules and left the camp without passes; this brought them into conflict with the M. P.’s, and ended by their being placed in the guardhouse. On arresting the men the M. P.’s frequently cursed them and on the slightest provocation threatened to use revolvers. Conditions finally made necessary a change in the camp commander. Colonel S. V. Ham, a regular army officer who had been wounded twice at the front, assumed command. He found a filthy camp with practically no morale. Segregation was everywhere and prejudice was intense. At once he issued the following order: “The restrictions against visiting towns in this district by colored troops are hereby removed until further notice. It is the desire of the Commanding Officer to place the colored troops on the same status as the white troops.” This was dated March 26, 1919. Colonel Ham also issued an order forbidding the use of the word “nigger” in the camp. All officers attended officers’ meetings when they were held; previously colored officers never went, for they did not know when the meetings were to be held. Lectures were given on the treatment of the soldiers; military discipline was enforced in the case of both officers and men; and the Colonel himself pulled down some of the discriminatory signs. The result was that within three weeks the number of men in the guardhouse was reduced from three hundred to fifty; sometimes several days would pass without a man’s being placed there. Complaints were reduced 60 per cent within the first week. Interesting also is the fact that the rate of venereal disease in the camp was also lowered. The general attitude of Colonel Ham changed the spirit of both officers and men, and before long the feeling of racial antagonism gave way to one of comradeship.
PIONEER INFANTRY ORGANIZATIONS
There were fourteen other organizations in France, known as Pioneer Infantry Regiments, which did mainly stevedore work. These were composed largely of men who were drafted during the summer of 1918 and who were given from one to three months of intensive military training in American camps and then sent overseas. The commissioned officers were white, and the enlisted personnel colored. In France a small number of colored dental officers, chaplains, and band leaders were assigned in some of the regiments. It appears that the idea of the War Department in forming these organizations was to have men trained to fight, if needed, and also to have sufficient men to do the work necessary for the maintenance of a big army.
Most of the regiments reached France during the months of September and October, 1918, and consequently did no actual fighting. They worked in the S. O. S. and in the advanced section, sometimes in the back area of shell fire, and in a few instances near the front lines. Their work consisted of road building, assistance at the base ports, salvaging the battlefields, demunition and demolition work, and the building of ammunition dumps with material moved from the battlefields to the roads and then to central stations. The removing of ammunition after the Château-Thierry drive was so satisfactorily done that Lt. Col. Ord, chief ammunition officer of the S. O. S., wrote a letter in which he said: “These two depots were transformed from a heterogeneous pile to this remarkable condition in seven days, and I desire to compliment the officers and twenty-six men who went from these headquarters as well as the 801st Pioneer Infantry for this remarkable achievement.”
Before the Armistice several regiments worked behind the front lines in the Argonne Forest and at St. Mihiel, where they built narrow- and wide-gauge railroads and macadam roads for the movement of light and heavy artillery and supplies. It was also the task of some to bury the dead, working under shell fire. Sometimes bombs dropped among them, killing and wounding them; but because of their late arrival in France they did not work long in such danger. After the Armistice some did guard duty, looking after the German prisoners. Companies of the 806th and 811th Pioneer Infantry regiments did a part of the concrete and grading work for the Pershing Stadium, the $100,000 structure erected by the Y. M. C. A. for the inter-allied games held in July, 1919.
While the Pioneer Infantry regiments and the stevedores did the same kind of work for the most part, the former received the better treatment, as their officers generally insisted on a square deal for their men. In one battalion the major, an Alabamian, discouraged segregation by removing all objectionable signs, and he made no effort to prevent his men from associating with respectable French people. The commander of the 815th Pioneer Infantry regiment gave wholesome lectures to his men as a means of education and encouragement. These organizations also, with few exceptions, were liberal in granting leaves and in issuing week-end passes, and some of the men were sent to the universities in France when the A. E. F. conducted its great educational program.
Most of the regiments had good bands, minstrel shows, and baseball teams. The 807th Pioneer Infantry Band of fifty-two pieces was removed from its organization for several months and stationed with General Liggett of the First Army Corps, being called the First Army Post Band. The 806th Pioneer Infantry Band played at the Columbus Stadium in Paris, giving daily concerts during the A. E. F. try-outs for the inter-allied meet. The baseball team of the 809th was the most notable Negro team in France. It won the championship of the St. Nazaire base and finished third in the A. E. F. league. The umpires in the league were fair in all the games.
The Pioneer Infantry organizations proved a disappointment to many of the soldiers in them because, as one officer said, “they did everything the infantry was too proud to do and the engineers too lazy to do.” However, they did splendid work and returned to America with a record of honorable achievement.